Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
More than just a detective story, Burned is a tale of injustice that will leave you questioning our criminal justice system and the supposedly irrefutable forensics that have served as its bedrock for the last several decades. On an April night in 1989, three young children perished in a tragic Los Angeles house fire. Their mother, Jo Ann Parks, couldn't save them but did manage to escape with her own life. She was of course bereft. With emotions exploding, her husband accused her of abandoning the children when he arrived at the scene of the fire. It was soon determined that a worn extension cord was the cause of the tragedy. But then doubts arose. As firefighters investigated further, they came to believe that the fire was the result of arson; a heinous crime committed by a wicked young woman who, they argued, had never really wanted to be a mother. Jo Ann Parks was tried and convicted and has languished in prison for the last twenty-five years. But now, as certain investigative methods from that era have been debunked, a pair of young lawyers from the Innocence Project have come to believe that Jo Ann was wrongfully convicted, and that the fire might not have been caused by arson at all.
No one has been imprisoned as a result of bad fire science longer than Jo Ann. Humes calls her "Patient Zero" in an epidemic of convictions throughout the nineties based on fake science. Tens of thousands of cases . . . If her conviction is overturned, all those convictions are at risk as well. The stakes could hardly be higher.
Synopsis
Now in paperback. 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.