I am so very delighted to hear that Ken has been recognised for the hard work, dedication and sheer determination he put into Kenny's case.

I admire Ken so very much and it was a total pleasure to work along side him with the campaign. I learned so much from Ken.

Ken and his team are one in a million, they include Daryl Wiesen and Paul Nemser.

They showed me that lawyers really do care about their clients and the situation they are in.

Well done Ken. I send you lots of love and good wishes.

Karen x

Torley moves on with her life after battling to save inmate

BY JIM PROVANCE
BLADE STAFF WRITER

GLASGOW - Moments after Kenneth Richey walked out of the Putnam County jail on Monday, a free man for the first time in more than 21 years, he thanked just one person specifically by name.

Karen Torley.

But the 41-year-old divorced, unemployed Glasgow mother of four and grandmother of three was nowhere to be seen when Richey finally stepped off a plane in nearby Edinburgh two days later, an event broadcast live on Scottish television.

The fire

In the early hours of 30th June 1986, a fire started in an upper flat in a Columbus Grove apartment building in Ohio. The flames rapidly spread, engulfing the living room then the hallway before firemen extinguished the blaze.

Minutes later, the body of a child was carried out. Confined in her room, she had died of smoke inhalation.

After the fire

The local fire chief (who had been called to Hope's flat on three occasions less than a fortnight before the fire to investigate the sudden mysterious appearance of smoke in the flat) arrived to inspect the flat first.

However the investigation was soon taken over by the State Fire Marshal, Robert Cryer (State law demanded that the State Fire Marshal's Office investigate the scene of a fire when a life had been taken). After a brief inspection, Fire Marshal Cryer declared that the fire started "accidentally". It should be noted that Fire Marshal Cryer insists that he never considered the fire an "accidental" occurrence. Yet, it is a claim that is both disputed by the building owner, and by the facts.

According to Prosecutor Basinger, Kenny is a calculating murderer.

1. The prosecution contended that, after Kenny picked himself up from the bush he collapsed in, he did not walk to his father's flat and go to sleep as Kenny claimed, but broke into a commercial greenhouse that stood one hundred yards from the apartment complex.
2. There, the State asserted that Kenny stole cans of petrol and paint-thinner. Kenny then allegedly returned to the front of Hope Collins' building.
3. A utility shed stood below Hope's living-room balcony, and the prosecution insisted that Kenny silently climbed upon this shed, gaining access to Hope's balcony and into her living-room. Once inside, the prosecution claimed Kenny "splashed" petrol and paint-thinner throughout the living room then set it alight before escaping back over the balcony with the empty cans.

The petrol and thinner cans

The claim that Kenny broke into the greenhouse and stole cans of petrol and then climbed into the flat is flawed from the start.

1) The Carpet

The forensic tests performed on the carpet that revealed traces of petrol and paint thinner were false.

New tests were performed by America's leading scientists in the field; Professor Richard Custer and Dr Andrew Armstrong. Two significant results were produced. First, the characteristics left by the fire in the flat were not consistent with arson but with an accident (in addition to the mysterious appearance of smoke in the flat during the weeks preceding the fire, it has also emerged that the child started three separate fires in the weeks preceding her death). Second, the carpet actually contained no ignitable substances at all. The State Forensic Lab had produced false positives by using defective and archaic techniques. The carpet then, was never splashed with petrol, paint thinner, nor any other flammable substances.

Five Points of Origin Does NOT Equal Arson

2) The Smoke Detector

It was the belief that Kenny pulled down the smoke detector, which persuaded the judges to sentence him to die. However, no proof was ever submitted by the prosecution showing that Kenny disabled the smoke detector.

From accident to arson...

There were no witnesses to the outbreak of the fire, and Robert Cryer, the Assistant State Fire Marshall who investigated the fire, initially concluded that the fire was started accidentally by an electric fan. Ex. 4 at 3. By the time of trial, however, Cryer had changed his mind, and the State relied heavily on his testimony that the fire was caused by arson. Trial Tr. at 784.

False Scientific Testimony

During the guilt phase of Richey's trial, the prosecution presented the testimony of three purported experts concerning whether the June 30, 1986 fire was arson-related. The prosecution called Assistant State Fire Marshall Robert G. Cryer to testify as to the cause and origin of the June 30 1986 fire, Dan C. Gelfius, an employee of the Ohio Arson Crime Laboratory, to testify to alleged evidence of accelerants in samples of debris taken from the fire scene, and L. Gregory DuBois, who had been retained by defense counsel as an expert, but testified only for the prosecution.

The Testimony Of Cryer, Gelfius, and DuBois

Following reasons:

First

Cryer testified that he would have been inclined to discount the purported evidence of accelerants on Samples 5 and 7 taken from the carpet in Hope Collins' living room. This because the carpet was in a dump for approximately 36 hours after the fire and kept outside the police station for some time thereafter before it was finally tested. Trial Tr. At 806.

Former Prosecutor Randall Basinger denies making political capital out of the Kenny Richey Trial. However, the case against Kenny Richey put Randall Basinger into the limelight.

These days, Judge Basinger is reluctant to talk about the case. In fact the only aspect he will comment on is the allegation that he used it to further his career.
"That is an allegation that has been made before, that I had some political motivation in running for judge", he says. 

The ambush

Richey was not tried, however, on a theory that he specifically intended to kill Cynthia Collins, and the State offered no evidence at trial that he had any such intent.

Basinger asked the judges to transfer intent, meaning that even though Richey allegedly intended to kill Mike Nichols and Candice Barchet, because Cynthia Collins died in the process, he should be found guilty of aggravated murder and be eligible for the death penalty.

Richey was tried on a theory different from the original charge against him, and convicted on a theory different from that on which he had been indicted.

Crucial evidence was given to Kenny Richey's lawyer, Public Defender, William Kluge, before the trial that never made it to trial.

Kluge advised Kenny to opt for a three-judge panel instead of a jury.

As a public defender in a death penalty case, if zero is bad and 10 is good, where was Bill Kluge's performance?

Ken Murray (Public Defender): "My opinion then was probably he was around two or three in that particular case."

Ken Murray: "His position on the ineffectiveness claims was that I should not raise this. He told me: "Do the best you can, but don't raise the ineffectiveness claims against trial counsel". Talking of Mr Stebbins, head of Public Defenders Office."