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The floor and then seeping under the thresholds. much of the furniture, including a large dining room table, has been reduced to piles of ashes. >> they thought that any fire intense enough to make a large heavy dining room table go away was more intense than a normal fire. >> after days of sifting through the home's remains, the investigators reach a conclusion. this fire was no accident. on top of the forensic evidence they've gathered, police believe that survivor ernest willis is lying about what really happened the night of the fire. >> he was the only likely person that could have put th...

The flames awaken ernest willis. >> i woke up in the early morning hours, i don't know, 4:00 or so. and the house was on fire. so i ran through the house trying to get to the back bedroom. i couldn't get there. so i run out the front door and around the side of the house and started breaking the windows and yelling for everybody to get out. >> his cousin, billy willis, makes a last-minute escape leaping out a bedroom window to safety. the two women are still trapped inside. it's too late to save them. >> the local fire departments responded. upon arriving at the scene, they found two subjects ...

>> finally, willis gets the break he's been waiting 17 long years for when one of his appeals pays off. in a highly unusual step, a u.s. district court judge orders the state of texas to either retry willis or dismiss his case. he cites several factors including ineffective assistance of counsel and evidence contradicting the state's theory of the fire. ori white heads up the investigation. white, a college student at the time of the crime, is now the pecos county district attorney. >> jurors want as much forensics in cases as they can get. and in this case, the forensics were such that it all...

Capital case does little to challenge the forensic evidence presented by the prosecution. >> there was no defense. i mean, he didn't even call character witnesses or anything. >> in fact, willis' own cousin billy testifies for the prosecution. >> my cousin didn't actually say that i done it. he said that he didn't know whether i did or not. you know. but he insinuated. >> the jury weighs all of the evidence. and reaches its verdict. ernest willis is guilty. a day later, a judge sentences willis to death by lethal injection. >> i was shocked. after i was found guilty, and i thought the legal sy...

Questioned me, and then they questioned my cousin, just asking us what happened, you know. >> billy willis is visibly shaken and suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation and injuries from his fall. to investigators, his story about narrowly escaping the fire seems genuine, but police think the uninjured ernest willis seems suspiciously unaffected. they find him indifferent to the dead women, and although he claims to have run through the burning house trying to save them, there are no burns on his body. >> his story was not matching up with what happened at the residence. he was the only...