Angela Garcia

Overview

Angela Garcia was convicted in 2001 of setting a fire that killed her two young daughters. She was sentenced to two life terms in prison on May 30, 2001. Angela Garcia sought a new trial based on newly discovered evidence.

Timeline

• May 30, 2001 — Angela Garcia was sentenced to two life terms in prison.
• Nov. 20, 1999 — Her daughters died of smoke inhalation after firefighters pulled them from an upstairs bedroom of their home on Harvard Avenue.
• Jan. 21 — The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's office had until this date to respond to the motion for a new trial.
• 2049 — Angela Garcia was first eligible for parole.

The offence

Angela Garcia was convicted in the deaths of her daughters Nyeemah Garcia, 3, and Nijah Evans, 2.

Prosecutors contended that Garcia set her rental home ablaze and trapped her daughters inside to collect $40,000 in insurance.

Her daughters died of smoke inhalation after firefighters pulled them out of an upstairs bedroom of their Harvard Avenue home.

Investigation

Cleveland Fire Department arson investigators initially determined the fire was accidental and likely started by a large unattended candle after viewing the home and after a trained dog did not detect any accelerants or flammable liquids.

The home was demolished two days after the fire, and no evidence was collected or preserved for laboratory testing.

The cause of the blaze was changed a month later after investigators learned Garcia had overvalued the contents of her home on a renter's insurance claim.

Charges and court proceedings

Angela Garcia was indicted on charges including aggravated murder, manslaughter and insurance fraud.

Two prior juries were unable to decide unanimously whether she had intentionally set the fire. One of the juries found her guilty of fraudulently overvaluing the items in her home.

During the trial, prosecutors and witnesses questioned Garcia's perceived lack of emotions and varying stories as to how she escaped the intense fire while her children remained inside.

During the third trial, a jailhouse snitch testified that Garcia said she had set two fires in order to collect insurance money.

Trial

Angela Garcia's family members and her attorneys maintained she was innocent throughout her three trials. Her attorneys said she passed multiple polygraph tests.

Thomas E. Shaughnessy said: "We're 100 percent sure of her innocence," in 2001 after his client was convicted.

Sentencing

Angela Garcia was sentenced to two life terms in prison on May 30, 2001.

Appeals and motions

Angela Garcia later sought a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. Lawyers for Angela Garcia argued that arson investigators who testified at her trial relied on flawed fire investigation techniques that had been debunked.

She filed a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, including claims related to fire forensics and an amended report. The motion involved questions about the reliability of fire investigation “science” and new scientific evidence.

Assistant State Public Defender Joanna Feigenbaum argued that Garcia deserved a new trial based on unreliable fire “science” and new scientific evidence. Feigenbaum relied on a series of studies, reports and a fire investigation expert and contended that the original testimony on how the fire started was highly questionable.

A later court appeal based mainly on how the trial was conducted was not successful. That appeal did not bring up the fire investigation techniques.

Outcome

A court filing indicated that Common Pleas Judge Michael Astrab would decide whether to grant the motion for a new trial after the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's office responded.

Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said: "We take claims of newly discovered evidence very seriously," adding: "We will examine this case, as we do others, as they come to us."

In the motion, Feigenbaum wrote:

"It is now known that the reasoning and conclusions of the State's arson experts were wrong," attorney Feigenbaum wrote in the motion filed last month. "A review of Ms. Garcia's case using the dictates of modern fire science shows that the conclusions of the original fire investigators as to the cause and origin of the fire were based upon flawed and outdated assumptions that were not tested by the scientific process, and that numerous potential accidental causes, including the home's electrical system, were not properly considered or eliminated before the fire was deemed to be incendiary."

Other details

Garcia's lawyers argued that between the second and third trials, different fire investigators testified, including adding a new location of a second fire and a new theory based on photographs that accelerants had been used.

A national fire expert and author who reviewed the fire investigation and testimony in Garcia's case said the conclusions reached by fire investigators were not based on scientific reasoning and that the cause and origin of the fire should be considered undetermined.

Prosecutors contended more than a decade earlier that Garcia set the rental home ablaze and trapped her daughters inside in order to collect $40,000 in insurance.

Angela Garcia was first eligible for parole in 2049.