Webb was dismissed from the diving school in June 1998, after he was jailed on a Houston drug charge. In his arrest records, Webb listed a $1,000 stipend from Pearce as his only source of income.

In August 1998, Webb pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison. At the same time, his parole on the robbery charge was revoked, which kept Webb in prison until 2007.

As soon as Webb returned to prison, Pearce resumed sending money to Webb’s commissary account with a $200 deposit in the fall of 1998 and $400 in 1999, according to the prison records.

In February 2000, Webb wrote to Pearce saying he was scared because other inmates had learned he had testified against Willingham. He said it was “all over the unit” that he was a snitch. Webb said he had no choice but to recant his testimony.

In March 2000, Webb submitted a hand-written document titled “Motion to Recant Testimony” to the Navarro County District Attorney’s Office. Webb said he was “made to Lie” and that Willingham “is innocent of all charges.” A handwritten note on the document says “Gave to Dist. Judge Jackson 4-3-00,” but the motion was neither included in Willingham’s court file nor disclosed to Willingham’s attorneys. Webb eventually dropped the matter.

That August, Jackson wrote to Webb again. He said that he and Pearce “visit on a regular basis concerning your problems.” Jackson reminded Webb that he had “worked for a long time on a number of different levels, including the Governor’s Office to get you released early” and that he had been disappointed that Webb wound up back in prison again so quickly.

In January 2004, weeks before Willingham’s scheduled execution, his attorney filed for a reprieve. He sought 90 days to investigate an allegation that Webb had received a vehicle after he was released from prison in 1998 and indications that Webb’s testimony had been coached.

Judge Jackson opposed the stay and flatly denied once again that Webb had received any benefits in exchange for his testimony. “I did not offer Webb any consideration for his cooperation,” Jackson declared. Having previously insisted that Webb’s punishment was excessive, Jackson now described it as “entirely adequate.”

As for the car, Jackson said, “Any benefit Webb may have obtained from Pearce at a time remote from the Willingham prosecution had no connection with Webb’s testimony.”

Webb was paroled again in 2007. He returned to Corsicana, got married and tried to lead a quiet life. He could no longer count on Pearce’s help.

“He used my father horribly,” Pearce’s daughter, Vivian, said in an interview. “He would show up at the house asking for money. I finally said this has to stop. He’s taking advantage of you.”

Vivian Pearce said her father was a good friend of John Jackson and helped people at his request. But she rejected the idea that her father’s generosity toward Webb might have been connected with his testimony against Willingham. “I just knew him as one of Dad’s projects,” she said. “My father would never have done anything to encourage false testimony.”

The mounting evidence of Willingham’s innocence does not seem to have persuaded many residents of Corsicana. “I wish they could dig Willingham up and kill him two more times — once for each of those little girls,” said Tony Ayala, a construction worker who lives down the street from the scene of the fire. Even Willingham’s widow, Stacy, who had defended him for years, later said she believed he was guilty.

‘Wanting to come forward’

Six years after Willingham’s execution, the Innocence Project obtained a hearing to determine whether a special Court of Inquiry should be convened to investigate whether Willingham was wrongly executed. Jackson prepared an affidavit for that proceeding in which he again denied that Webb received any benefits in exchange for his testimony. A Texas appeals court prevented the judge from issuing a ruling.

In 2012, the Innocence Project and Willingham’s family members filed a petition with the parole board seeking a posthumous pardon. By that time, several of the country’s top experts in fire forensics had debunked the indicators of arson and concluded the fire was an accident of unknown cause. (Evidence that might have identified the actual cause was lost long ago.)