Burned A Story Of Murder And The Crime That Wasnt Edward Humes by Edward Humes 9781524742133, 1524742139 instant download after payment.

Was a monstrous killer brought to justice or an innocent mother condemned?

On an April night in 1989, Jo Ann Parks survived a house fire that claimed the lives of her three small children. Though the fire at first seemed a tragic accident, investigators soon reported finding evidence proving that Parks had sabotaged wiring, set several fires herself, and even barricade her four-year-old son inside a closet to prevent his escape. Though she insisted she did nothing wrong, Jo Ann Parks received a life sentence without parole based on the power of forensic fire science that convincingly proved her guilt.

But more than a quarter century later, a revolution in the science of fire has exposed many of the incontrovertible truths of 1989 as guesswork in disguise. The California Innocence Project is challenging Parks's conviction and the so-called science behind it, claiming that false assumptions and outright bias convicted an innocent mother of a crime that never actually happened.

If Parks is exonerated, she could well be the "Patient Zero" in an epidemic of overturned guilty verdicts—but only if she wins. Can prosecutors dredge up enough evidence and roadblocks to make sure Jo Ann Parks dies in prison? No matter how her last-ditch effort for freedom turns out, the scenes of betrayal, ruin, and hope will leave readers longing for justice we can trust.

Praise for Burned

CrimeReads' 6 Essential True Crime Books for January
Entertainment Weekly 's New & Notable Picks
PureWow's 15 True Crime Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2019
LitHub's Best Reviewed Books of the Week

"A searing look at the limits of forensics in this unsettling reexamination of the case of Jo Ann Parks... An instant true-crime classic that reads like a thriller, this joins the ranks of recent works also throwing into question the belief that crime scene investigators can infallibly arrive at the right answer.”
-- Publishers Weekly , starred review

“This sobering, enlightening read is true crime at its best, with the right blend of justice and intrigue that will leave readers searching for truth in the criminal justice system.”
-- Library Journal , starred review

“ Burned raises question after troubling question, and points out the frustrating subjectivity and fearful power of damning narratives that make up the ponderous process of criminal justice.”
--NPR.org

"Riveting... A powerful brief not only for Parks but also for a recognition of the weaknesses in forensic science generally."
--The Washington Post

"[An] eye-opening, suspenseful tale of murder and secrets."
-- Entertainment Weekly, 20 New Books to Read in January 2019

“At the end of Burned , readers will walk away with clearer picture of the flaws of the American criminal justice system, and a glimmer of hope from the people working every day to fix it.”
-- Bustle

“[A] powerful true crime tale that questions the authority of forensic science.”
--Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Riveting... Humes’ fascinating account is perfect for the many readers interested in crime-scene investigation.”
--Booklist

“Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Humes… once again exposes a flawed American criminal justice system, this time with a new twist.”
-- Kirkus Reviews

"Read this book now. Not only because Burned is one of the most important critiques of forensic 'science' ever written but because it will shock, move and enlighten you. Explosive but sobering, Burned plows through decades of received myth and junk science to reveal the sometimes tragic mistakes in our criminal justice system. Humes, as always, is humane and provocative. Reporting like this is a big reason our republic is still mostly in one piece."
--T. Jefferson Parker, author of Swift Vengeance and The Room of White Fire

" Burned is a gripping, bone-chilling look at our justice system from a superb writer. I believe under Ed Humes's vivid, detailed reporting and narrative grace lies a deeply human vision of what we all know our justice system could be and should be. Anyone who reads Jo Ann Parks story will be moved in profound ways." **
--Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science and Law, University of California, Irvine

" Burned is four stories in one book – about a woman convicted of murdering her children; how cultural myths that have long misled fire investigators are being replaced by the findings of fire scientists; how police, prosecutors and forensic scientists can ignore exonerative information; and a story of lawyers seeking to secure justice, however much delayed. Each story is worth reading. Together they make for one good book." *
--Richard Lempert, Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology Emeritus, The University of Michigan Law School *

"Edward Humes's tale of a fatal California house fire is riveting. This mesmerizing and important book shows how some things we call 'science,' far from helping free the innocent, can instead lead to convictions of people who did nothing wrong. "
--David R. Dow, Cullen Professor at the University of Houston Law Center and author of The Autobiography of an Execution and Confessions of an Innocent Man

**

Edward Humes is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author whose fourteen previous books include Garbology , Mississippi Mud , and the PEN Award–winning No Matter How Loud I Shout. He splits his time between Seattle and Southern California.

1

April 9, 1989

The banging and screaming began shortly after midnight, fists rattling the front door, a woman's voice crying and moaning for help.

Shirley and Bob Robison, ready for bed and relieved that the heat wave plaguing Los Angeles that week had abated at last, stumbled through the dark house and threw open the door.

On the welcome mat stood their young neighbor-disheveled in her nightgown and housecoat, shaking and wailing. "My babies," Jo Ann Parks gasped. "Help them, please, please. They're still in there!"

The Robisons needed no explanation for what "there" meant. A garish orange light had painted their white stucco house the color of glowing coals. The weedy driveway normally obscured by darkness at this hour was lit up, and the Robisons could feel the furnace-hot air pumping up its length like a chimney stack. At the back end of the driveway, the converted garage apartment blazed.

The twenty-three-year-old Parks, her husband, and their three small children had moved into this dingy rental in the cramped Los Angeles suburb of Bell less than a week before, clothes and knickknacks and photo albums still piled in half-unpacked boxes, the place a mess. Now the apartment crackled and hissed, flames flaring as bright as camera flashes in the darkness, revealing gouts of black smoke pouring up into a leaden, starless sky.

"My children!" Parks shrieked. "They're in back!"

Bob hesitated. He was too old for this, he thought. At fifty-seven, his health wasn't the greatest. He was bone tired, his job wearing him down day by day. But . . . three little kids. Three little kids trapped in a burning house. Somebody had to do something. Staring at the doorway Parks had left open, he could see inside to the front room of the apartment, the master bedroom, flames and smoke roiling inside. He told his wife to call 911. Then Bob Robison took a deep breath, held it, and screwed up his eyes as if he were jumping off the high dive. He walked to the door and disappeared inside.

Shirley and Parks gawked at the doorway, then ran back into the front house to phone for help. Then they raced back to the driveway, waiting for the fire engines, waiting for Bob, waiting for the children to emerge. Parks started moving toward the doorway into the burning house, too, but Shirley grabbed her from behind, shouting, "No, Jo Ann, don't!" She wrapped her arm around Parks's shoulders and would not let go, certain a distraught woman could not survive long in that house in her flimsy summer nightclothes. "You can't go in there."

Parks seemed to be bordering on hysteria to Shirley, but the younger woman heeded the command and didn't fight to free herself. After that, she made no more moves toward entering the house.

"Oh, God," Parks moaned a few seconds later. She spoke so softly, Shirley had trouble hearing what she said next. But it sounded something like, "I hope Ronnie wasn't playing with matches again."

"What was that?" Shirley asked. Ronnie Jr. was the Parkses' oldest child and only boy, four years old, clever, occasionally mischievous. Was Jo Ann really revealing that the fire could be Ronnie's fault? Or was she just gibbering her fears and guesses in a moment of hysteria? Shirley couldn't tell. Nearly three decades would go by, her husband long passed, and still she would wonder just what Jo Ann Parks had said in that moment, and what, if anything, it meant.

Shirley pulled her eyes away from the fire, which seemed to be growing more intense with each passing second. She asked, "Jo Ann? What did you say Ronnie did?"

Parks shook her head, though whether that gesture came in negation, regret at her words, or simply to clear her head, Shirley once again could not tell. Jo Ann had seemed a bit odd to Shirley, no doubt about that. But this did not seem like the time to press the point, not with the apartment aflame and three little children in jeopardy. So Shirley just hugged the younger woman again around the shoulders, stayed close, and murmured words of comfort.

"My babies," Parks said. "Will he find them? Will they be okay?" She kept repeating variations of this. It sounded almost like a chant.

Shirley didn't know what to say. The apartment, with its 528 square feet of living space, had become an inferno. The heat was growing painful just standing in the driveway. She could not see her husband through the open door and feared he might not be able to save himself, much less three kids. And where were the police? Where were the fire trucks? Had it been only seconds since she called 911? It seemed like many minutes to her. It seemed like forever.

"Yes," Shirley finally said. "Yes. Help is on the way. They're going to be all right." But she didn't really believe it, not for a second.

2

Eleven Hundred Degrees