Willingham was abandoned by his mother as a baby and raised by his father, a wrecker's yard worker. Soon after dropping out of high school he chalked up arrests for stealing a bike, driving drunk and shoplifting. In his early 20s he married a girl called Stacy who, aged four, had seen her stepfather strangle her mother. He drank too much and sometimes hit Stacy.

His life was unlike that of the square-jawed, ex-military pilot, wealthy rancher's son and avowed Republican who replaced George Bush as Texas Governor. It was this man, Ric Perry, who signed off on his execution. Now it is Ric Perry who is the focus of much anger by the informed and articulate anti-death penalty movement in America who see within his bewildering actions and statements since the New Yorker piece appeared a fear of where Cameron Willingham's ghost might lead.

Within three weeks of the publication of the New Yorker article, Perry suddenly, and totally unexpectedly, announced that he had fired members of the Texas Forensics Commission, whom he had appointed, just two days before the commission was to hear evidence from one of America's mostly highly regarded arson experts on the Willingham case. Dr Craig Beyler intended to say Willingham had been convicted on evidence of arson that was wrong. Other leading experts have agreed that the original arson findings were made by ill-trained men who had little or no understanding of fire behaviour.

Investigators from Willingham's home town 0f 20,000, Corsicana, claimed at his trial that, judging by the fracture patterns on broken glass — known as crazed glass — left by the blaze, someone had trailed flammable liquid under the children's beds, along the hallway and out the front door. Scientists have since discovered that water sprayed by firemens' hoses caused the fracture patterns when glass suddenly cools. Among the other forensic evidence used against Willingham — mostly all of it now exposed as shoddy and wrong — was a key piece that helped the jury convict him within an hour. The local investigators told the court they had found traces of flammable liquid on the front porch of Willingham's house. It was Dr Gerald Hurst, a fire expert, who discovered the truth. The liquid came from the exploded canister of lighter fluid Willingham used to fuel his small barbecue – also on the front porch. Hurst's report said not a single piece of physical evidence supported a finding of arson.

Hurst, knowing early in 2004 that Willingham was on the verge of execution, wrote his report in such haste that he didn't fix the typos. A man was about to executed on the basis of junk science, his report said. Hurst rushed his report to the Governor's office. But one of the leading anti-death penalty lobby groups — the New York-based Innocence Project — has since discovered, using Freedom of Information Laws, that no one in Governor Perry's office has any record of acknowledging it, taking note of its significance, or calling attention to it within the Government. On February 17, 2004, just after he finished his last meal of barbecued pork ribs, Willingham was told Perry had refused to stay his execution.