Richey sees his retrial as 1st fair shot

Awaiting a retrial on charges he set a fire at a Columbus Grove apartment that killed a 2-year-old girl in 1986, Richey is hardly the first person behind bars to claim he didn't do it.

"They don't have to believe me," Richey said in a telephone interview from the Putnam County jail. "The evidence speaks for itself. If they want to know the truth, then [expletive] read it."

Now 43, the U.S.-British citizen has been locked up for 21 years - most of those sitting on Ohio's death row. He was convicted of aggravated murder and aggravated arson and sentenced to death by a three-judge panel in Putnam County Common Pleas Court in 1987.

Years of appeals culminated this summer when the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his conviction and ordered the state to either release him or retry him. The court said he deserved a new trial because his defense attorney failed to challenge questionable arson evidence presented at his first trial.

With a prestigious Boston law firm fighting for his freedom, Richey, who speaks in a thick Scottish brogue despite leaving his native Scotland when he was 18, said he doesn't see the new trial as a second chance but a first one.

"The first time around, I never had any chance," he said.

Angry at his original court-appointed attorney, William Kluge of Lima, and angrier still at former Putnam County Prosecutor Randall Basinger, who now is a common pleas judge, Richey said the deck was stacked against him. Two-year-old Cynthia Collins, whose mother, Hope, allegedly had asked Richey to baby-sit that night, was dead, and Richey was the first and only suspect.

"They were just looking for someone to convict. They didn't give a damn," Richey said. "They knew I was innocent. They didn't care. Anyone reading that bloody trial transcript can see that."

Despite defense attorneys' contention that the state's case has weakened significantly in the last two decades, Putnam County Prosecutor Gary Lammers said his office is proceeding on the original capital murder indictment and largely on the same theory of what happened that night.

"My initial reaction is it's likely, but we're still talking with the state fire marshal and getting their sense and interpretation of some of these things and how they feel about some of the conclusions," Mr. Lammers said.
Forensic experts

In winning Richey's appeal, Ken Parsigian, Richey's attorney since 1993, hired some of the world's top forensic experts who analyzed the evidence and agreed there was no reliable evidence of arson, that the evidence actually was consistent with an accidental fire.

Had experts such as these been contacted during Richey's first trial, the appeals court found, their testimony "would have severely undermined the state's case against" Richey.

Mr. Parsigian said prosecutors will be hard-pressed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt when so much has changed in 21 years. One of the state's foremost witnesses in the first trial, assistant state Fire Marshal Robert Cryer, suffers from dementia and no longer remembers the case.

Another key witness, Juanita Altimus, has died. Ms. Altimus testified that she heard Richey threaten to burn down the apartment building the afternoon before the fire, and two days after the fire say, "It looks like I did a hell of a good job, doesn't it?"

Mr. Lammers said testimony from the first trial was given on the record, under oath, and was subjected to cross-examination. He said he intends to have such testimony admitted as evidence even though those witnesses can't appear.

Whether or not he will be allowed to do that remains to be seen.

Richey's successful appeal turned largely on the fact that his attorney at the time did not challenge the arson evidence presented at trial.

"That's why they threw it out," Mr. Parsigian said. "All of Cryer's testimony goes to arson, and you have a right to confront your witnesses."

To supporters of Richey - many of whom embraced his cause from across the Atlantic in Great Britain - the state's theory of how Richey committed the crimes was not only complicated, but downright far-fetched.

Prosecutors claim Richey set the June 30, 1986, to get back at a former girlfriend, Kandy Barchet, and her lover, Mike Nichols. Ms. Barchet lived in the apartment directly below the unit where Cynthia Collins lived with her mother.

With his arm in a sling - he had a broken hand at the time - and drunk by all witness accounts, prosecutors alleged Richey stole gasoline and turpentine from a nearby greenhouse, carried it back to the apartment complex, scaled a storage shed, climbed onto a balcony, spread the accelerants around the living room and balcony, and left by climbing down the shed. The containers were never found. No traces of gas or paint thinner were found on his clothing.

"I'm Spiderman," Richey says in a spiteful tone. "How retarded can you be to believe that [expletive]?"

‘I've got a lot of anger and a lot of hatred in me for the 21 years they stole from me for a crime I didn't commit and they know I didn't commit.' - Kenneth Richey, awaiting retrial on charges he set a fire at a Columbus Grove apartment that killed a 2-year-old in 1986

Disputing the ‘facts'

He refutes every point other than the fact that his hand was broken and that he was intoxicated that night.

Ms. Barchet, he insists, was not his former girlfriend but someone he slept with "now and then." He wasn't angry with her, he said, and if he had been, he wouldn't have set a fire in the apartment above her.

"I served in the Marines. I could break a man's neck or a woman's neck like a twig. I have no qualms whatsoever about that," he said. "If I want to kill someone, I would take the direct route. If I've got a problem with someone, I'll take it to them. I've always done that. I've always gone head on."

He said Hope Collins didn't ask him to baby-sit the night of the fire, but more or less told him to as she was leaving with a boyfriend to go out for the night.

"She didn't say, ‘Kenny, will you watch Cynthia for me?' She told me," Richey recalled. "She said, ‘Kenny, watch Scooter for me.' No, she didn't even say Kenny. She just said, ‘Watch Scooter for me.' I shook my head no, I said uh-uh. Whether or not she heard me, I had no idea."

Hope Collins, 21 at the time, later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in connection with her young daughter's death.

Richey said he's sure the people who claimed he threatened to burn down the complex known as A-building misconstrued a comment he made that night.

He said some people were talking about how a new manager at the apartment complex planned to evict Hope Collins and another neighbor, and he responded by saying he'd blow up the manager's car.

Held under a $10 million bond he considers ludicrous, Richey does not shy away from talking about the night of the fire, but it's unlikely he'll take the stand when it goes to a jury trial before a visiting judge early next year. Even he knows he wouldn't make for a model witness.

"Probably not because I'm a very aggressive individual. I tend to speak my mind, not hold back," Richey said. "I let my mouth do the talking. I let my anger get the best of me."

And angry he is.

"I've got a lot of anger and a lot of hatred in me for the 21 years they stole from me for a crime I didn't commit and they know I didn't commit," Richey said.

His attorneys have asked that his trial be moved to Franklin County, where they contend they would have a better chance of seating an impartial jury. Mr. Lammers, who is expected to fight to keep the trial in Ottawa, shied away from talking about any possible plea deals.

"I've decided to retry the case," he said. "The case was put back in my lap, and I've made my decision."

If Richey is exonerated - and he insists there's no plea agreement he would take - he plans to return to Scotland with his ex-wife, Wendy, and their son Sean, who turns 22 later this month. He said he doesn't know what he'll do there, doesn't know how he'll cope after spending nearly half his life in prison.

Richey said he's turned down two plea bargains - one offered before his first trial would have had him plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and get out of prison in 11 years.

The other, he said, came about nine years ago when he was on death row and was told he could be moved to a prison in Scotland, released if Scottish authorities saw fit, so long as he never returned to the United States.

"If I was guilty I would've taken one of those bloody deals. I definitely would've taken the second one, but I'm not guilty and I don't care who believes it," Richey said. "I don't care what people think about me. I'm going to prove my innocence or die trying."

Contact Jennifer Feehan at:

"This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it!"

419-353-5972.

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