Up next, a small town
is shocked by the death
of a high-profile resident.
He was well-known,
some would same famous,
some would say infamous.
He was very controversial
in a lot of respects.
He had many enemies.
Two alleged accomplices
are charged with m*rder.
One walks free.
The other gets life.
It was like a drain.
It was a nightmare, what it was.
Years pass before
science answers the question
of how the victim d*ed and who,
or what, was responsible.
It's about getting to the truth.
Our focus was one thing...
was this actually a crime?
For decades,
coal was king in West Virginia,
but when coal
fell on hard times,
so did a lot of communities
across the state,
among them Iaeger,
a once-thriving town,
now a shadow of its former self.
Everybody knows everybody.
Back in my days,
we had everything,
you know,
there that we could have...
stores, theaters,
skating rinks, churches.
It was just a small town
for everybody.
Now it's all gone.
Tens of thousands of coal
miners worked in the county,
and it was
a very thriving community,
but it's not
that way any longer.
During Iaeger's glory days,
and for some time afterward,
one person was known
to virtually everyone in town.
His name was Ebb Whitley.
Locals simply called him "Doc".
Doc Whitley was
the only doctor in town.
He owned the only
pharmacy in town,
and he was probably
the richest man in the area.
He had a beautiful home
right on the river,
right on the main drag
in Iaeger.
He was notorious, well-known,
some would say famous,
and he was, you know,
very involved
in Democratic politics.
But a devastating fall
when he was in his mid-60s
put him in a wheelchair.
And on a March morning in 2005,
that wheelchair proved
to be a serious liability
when Doc Whitley's house
went up in flames.
Firefighters arrived.
They saw a flaming couch
in the living room.
They doused that couch
with water
and then immediately
proceeded upstairs
to Doc Whitley's bedroom,
where they found
the doctor dead on the floor.
Doc Whitley had burns
over 90% of his body.
Confined to his wheelchair,
the 70-year-old
couldn't escape the fire.
I seen this
blue tarp laying there,
and, you know,
there was TV trays outside
and, you know, people looking.
Doc deserved better
than a blue tarp
and being carried out
where everybody could see him.
Well, everybody was in shock.
To think his life
ended that way...
it was just incredible,
and I know everybody
felt guilty.
The room Doc Whitley
was found in
had a huge burn hole
in the floor.
Both the upstairs
and the downstairs
had undergone
significant fire damage.
The couch downstairs
was already on fire
when the firefighters entered
more than 10 minutes
after the fire was called in.
State fire marshals
suspected the fire
had two points of origin,
something normally not seen
in an accidental fire.
They theorized that if the fire
was intentionally set,
the arsonist set the fire
to the upstairs bedroom
and then torched
the downstairs couch
on the way out
to make sure the job was done.
Dr. Whitley...
he had no way to escape,
and he couldn't run out
of the house.
He couldn't walk.
He had no way out.
The possibility of the fire
being intentionally set
had investigators searching
for accelerants.
As part of standard
operating procedure,
samples from the fire were
stored in sealed paint cans.
Most crime labs use
what's called
headspace extraction.
That's a method by which
you take a small
activated carbon strip
and you put that in the paint
can with the evidence
and heat it up for about
and the volatiles that are
entrapped within the fire debris
will evaporate from the debris
and enter the headspace,
which is the gas
above the sample.
They gathered samples
at the scene,
and the forensic chemist
at the state police lab
said that one of the samples
from the bedroom floor
near the fire contained toluene,
an ignitable, flammable liquid
that's found in charcoal lighter
and other products.
This seemed to leave
only one conclusion... arson.
And that meant
someone k*lled Doc Whitley.
The question was, who?
Many locals thought
an altercation the doctor had
just a few hours before
his death might hold the answer.
I think a lot of it had to do
with the events the day before,
the night before.
I think that influenced
everybody, including me.
In a town as small
as Iaeger, West Virginia,
locals rarely tired of gossip
about Doc Whitley
and Kathy Lively-Hamilton,
his long-time nurse
and office manager.
Kathy Lively and Doc Whitley
fought all the time,
but they also, I think,
loved each other quite deeply.
There was no question
of any romance
between Doc and his nurse,
but that didn't stop the sparks
from flying often and in public.
We worked together for 25 years,
and we both wanted
to feel like we were right,
so we had to argue out
who was right and who was wrong,
and then we'd forget
what we was arguing about
and then just go on
about our business.
They were extremely close.
Not romantically involved.
They were just close friends.
On the night before
Doc Whitley d*ed,
he and Kathy
had yet another fight.
Kathy Lively said
during that fight
something to the effect of,
"Oh, I'll k*ll you, you S.O.B."
That didn't
mean nothing, you know?
I've been k*lling Doc for years,
you know?
Doc would fire me.
I'd quit.
We never missed a day.
From what we understand,
that was actually
a fairly typical thing for them
to say to each other.
But what definitely
was not typical
was that Doc would end up dead
the next day.
Local investigators
suspected the worst,
especially after hearing
a strange story
about Kathy's
Right after news
that Doc Whitley's house
had b*rned down with him in it,
Jason drove
to Doc's second house,
just a few miles away,
to tell Doc's wife
what happened.
Jason Lively went up to the home
on co*n Branch Mountain
to tell her that Dr. Whitley
had d*ed in a fire.
We believe he stole
Dr. Whitley's laptop computer
at that time
and took it out to sell it,
and he finally did sell it.
Investigators thought Jason
might have stolen the laptop
because Doc's wife would never
have known it was gone.
And the fight Jason's mother
had with Doc
the night before he d*ed
presented
another possible motive.
Investigators thought Jason
might be using Doc's pharmacy
to get prescription dr*gs illegally.
That would stop if Doc went
through with his thr*at
to fire Jason's mother.
The investigators
thought, allegedly,
that Doc Whitley had taken away
Kathy Lively's access
to his prescription pad,
which meant that she could
no longer use it
and that Jason could
no longer use it
to obtain illegal narcotics.
Of course, it couldn't
be said for certain
that Jason was using
his mother's prescription pad,
but now the investigation
turned to another man,
a friend of Jason's
named Brian Salyers.
Brian Salyers comes really
straight out of Central Casting
for kind of the local
criminal element of this area.
Brian Salyers
is another local guy.
He told them that he had
picked up
Tommy Owens and Jason Lively
and dropped them off
outside of the Whitley house
sometime on the morning
around 8:00.
This put Jason Lively
and Tommy Owens
at the scene of the fire
just before it started,
and with that,
both men were charged
with Doc Whitley's m*rder.
Prosecutors were convinced
they had a solid case
for first-degree m*rder.
When you've got
state fire Marshals saying,
"This was an incendiary fire,"
and you've got a witness saying,
"Jason Lively was there
that morning,"
and his mother
having had that fight,
and Jason having taken
that computer,
none of that added up
to a recipe for success
for Jason at trial.
In an unusual move,
Jason Lively and Tommy Owens
were tried separately.
Jason Lively went to trial
in November of 2006.
It didn't go smoothly
for the prosecution.
Their key witness,
Brian Salyers,
changed his story.
He said he never dropped anyone
off at Doc Whitley's house.
Brian, who was put on the stand,
and on the stand,
recanted his testimony and said,
"It's not true.
What I told the police
isn't true,
and I only told them that
because they were
threatening me."
Despite this setback,
the state pushed forward.
The jury was told there were two
points of origin for the fire,
that the gold standard
of accelerant analysis...
gas chromatography
mass spectrometry...
found evidence of an accelerant
at the scene,
and that Doc Whitley
might have seen this coming.
They said Dr. Whitley expressed
a fear of Jason Lively.
Jason Lively was found
guilty of Doc Whitley's m*rder
and got life in prison,
with the possibility
of parole in 15 years.
Six months later,
Jason's alleged accomplice,
Tommy Owens, also faced a jury.
And in a shock verdict,
he was acquitted,
which had a lot of people wondering
how only one person
could be guilty
if prosecutors were convinced
two people set the fatal fire.
Sid Bell prided himself
on being an honest prosecutor,
so when Jason Lively got
a life sentence
for the m*rder of Dr. Whitley,
and Tommy Owens,
Jason's alleged accomplice,
walked free,
he worried about a possible
miscarriage of justice.
As a prosecutor,
I wanted to know more about
what they refer to as the
science of fire investigations.
I began to question,
do we really know
what we're talking about?
Sid Bell's doubts
weren't eased after learning
of an infamous arson conviction
that culminated in 2004.
I was concerned about that
Todd Willingham case in Texas.
Cameron Todd Willingham
was ex*cuted in 2004
for k*lling his three kids
in a fire
he was convicted of setting,
but now,
nine forensic scientists
believe the evidence shows
it was not arson.
Sid Bell heard about
Cameron Todd Willingham,
who was ex*cuted based on
what was later determined
to have been false
scientific assumptions
about the way fires burn.
Was it possible
Jason Lively was serving life
because of faulty
forensic science?
Sid Bell sought out
Craig Beyler,
a scientist who determined
that Todd Willingham
was ex*cuted for a deadly arson
that many analysts believe
never happened.
I wanted to know the truth.
I wanted to know
what really had happened.
I wanted to be convinced
about the cause of the fire.
Beyler re-examined the evidence
used to convict Jason Lively.
Dr. Beyler could have said,
"I agree.
It was a set fire.
It was arson.
I agree with it."
Of course, he didn't say that.
He said that he believed
it was an electrical fire,
an accidental electrical fire.
This is exculpatory evidence.
But this wasn't nearly enough
to get Jason Lively out of jail,
even though the man
who prosecutors said
was his conspirator
was walking free,
something Jason saw
as a potential ticket
for his freedom.
Him being found not guilty
was better for me
all the way around.
And they tried every way
in the world to get Tommy
to say that I was there,
and he turned it down absolutely
and took the stand
and went to trial,
put his life on the line.
Beyler believed
Jason was innocent,
and he pointed
to the hole b*rned
in the floor
of Doc Whitley's bedroom.
Photos showed
the very top of the floor
was b*rned the least.
The subflooring and the joists
below that hardwood surface
sustained most of the damage.
If an accelerant had been poured
on top of the floor,
as prosecutors claimed,
the major damage
should have been
on the surface of the floor,
not below in the subfloor
and in the support joists.
Fires burn up, and so,
when you pour ignitable liquid
onto a hardwood floor,
you're not gonna get
a hole in the floor
because the fire burns upwards.
It's not the liquid that burns.
It's the vapors from the liquid
evaporating that burn.
This video, unrelated
to this case, helps explain.
The woman pours gas
into the car,
but as she waits
to light the fire,
the fumes from the gas
gather inside the vehicle,
and that's what burns,
or in this case, explodes,
when she sets the fire.
And so, you can see from tests
that when you pour a liquid
accelerant on the ground,
it doesn't actually burn
a hole into the floor.
It's actually really difficult
to get that to happen.
So, if the fire that
k*lled Doc Whitley wasn't arson,
where and how did it start?
The building was old, and photos
showed an electrical wire
running directly through the
b*rned-away hole in the floor.
The new analysis concluded
the fire started
from that faulty wire
below the surface of the floor
and b*rned upwards
into the bedroom.
This created the hole
in the floor.
Flaming embers fell through
that hole
and ignited the couch
on the ground floor,
creating what appeared to be
a second point of origin.
And in this case,
Dr. Beyler ruled out
every other possible cause
of the fire
other than an electrically
caused fire in the joist bay.
This directly contradicted
the prosecution's theory
of the case,
but for now, the state wouldn't
listen to any pleas
about Jason Lively
being not guilty,
and as he endured the 11th year
of his sentence,
life behind bars
was getting worse by the day.
The whole time I'm there,
they're all sending me money
and trying to take care of me,
and, you know,
and I'm just a burden.
I mean, like, I felt at times
that I was just
no good for nothing.
It would just be better
if I was dead.
In 2017,
the West Virginia
Innocence project took up
Jason Lively's case,
believing he was convicted
on possibly faulty
forensic arson analysis.
We had a factually innocent client,
if Dr. Beyler was correct,
but the law is just not equipped
to handle that.
Jason's new team
had a surprise ally.
Sid Bell, the prosecutor
who put Jason behind bars,
helped spearhead
the reinvestigation.
One of my assistants said,
"Why did you do this?
Why would you hire an expert
that ended up
helping the defense?"
I said, "Well, I wanted
to know the truth.
I wanted to know
what really happened."
The state was not convinced
and enlisted one of
West Virginia's
leading fire experts...
Glen Jackson,
a forensic chemist...
to review Beyler's report.
My expertise is in the area
of mass spectrometry
as an analytical technique.
Jackson's analysis
also determined the fire
that k*lled Doc Whitley
was an accidental fire,
started by faulty
electrical wiring,
but prosecutors and the original
fire investigators
wanted to know why
in the original investigation,
gas chromatography mass
spectrometry showed the presence
of an accelerant
called toluene at the scene.
Toluene is found
in all sorts of products.
For example, paint
thinner is quite pure toluene.
When you buy a new pair of shoes
and you get that new-sneaker
smell, that's toluene.
And so, if someone is wearing
a brand-new pair of sneakers
and they step in paint thinner,
it's very difficult to tell
the source of that toluene.
Is it from the original sneaker,
or is it from the liquid
that's then a foreign liquid
to that sneaker?
So this is the kind of problems
that fire debris analysts face.
All substances have
unique chemical signatures.
The gas chromatograph
mass spectrometer
identifies chemical signatures
by vaporizing samples
and then comparing the results
to a vast database,
a library
of chemical signatures.
And so, you can go on
and you can look
and see what is in charcoal
starter fluid, for example.
The original prosecutors said
gas or lighter fluid
produced the toluene
at the fire scene,
but those compounds should also
have shown up in the analysis,
and they didn't.
This high peak in the readout
showed only toluene.
Gasoline definitely
does contain toluene.
It also contains
other aromatic compounds,
and they are always present
in a very similar profile.
And in this particular case,
it's very easy to categorically
exclude gasoline
as a possible ignitable liquid
because all of those other
aromatic compounds are absent.
So where did this
nearly pure toluene
in the fire come from?
From the fire itself,
likely through a process
called pyrolysis.
When organic materials undergo pyrolysis,
which is like heat damage,
they also liberate
a wide variety of chemicals
that weren't present
in the original material.
During the fire,
the burning of the wooden floor
likely crated toluene
through the perfectly natural
process of pyrolysis.
The mistake that landed
Jason Lively in jail
was that analysts concluded
he put the toluene there,
when in fact, it was created
by the fire itself.
This cost Jason 14 hard years
in prison,
but everyone agrees
it was an honest mistake.
I was completely convinced
that these convictions
were an injustice
and that he needed to be freed.
It's very difficult
for people to admit mistakes,
even if those mistakes
are accidental,
and even if they were hard
to avoid at the time.
Science has evolved since 2005,
and we have more knowledge
than we did then,
and out interpretations
are a little more advanced
than they were then.
A man who spent
the last 13 years in prison
is now living
the rest of his life
as a free man
thanks to new evidence
overturning his conviction.
In September of 2020,
Jason Lively,
put in prison by faulty science
and freed by sound science,
was finally released,
free to hug his mother,
marry his fiancée,
and restart his life.
It felt real.
Hell yeah, it felt real.
It felt wonderful.
Everybody was there,
all my friends, all my family.
They were all nice,
supporting me.
Yeah, it was good seeing him
walk around that
corner in street clothes
and a New York Yankees hat.
And that first
hug and kiss, it was just like,
him being born all over again.
I got to hold him, hug him.
It was the best day of my life
other than Jason being born.
The criminal justice
system is about
seeking the truth.
It's about getting to the truth.
The science was the case.
The science was our case completely.
And actually, the reason
why things had gone so wrong
in this case
was because people didn't
pay enough attention
to the science.