methodologies. and that t takakes those and ust in a practical manner. >> i could not have won the case, not have gotten the death penalty without forensic science. >> i've had a long career, and it was one of the highlights of my career. [ sire not ] on a bitter other cold night, a family home went up in flames killing one man and leaving a second person injured. a witness blamed a kerosene heater. local investigators suspected arson. forensic science was needed to sort through the contradictions. was this an accident or cold-blooded murder? ♪ >> the weather in jackson, georgia, is usually warm most of

the year. in january of 2003, there was an unusual cold snap with temperatures below freezing. citrus growers used kerosene heat force save their orange -- heaters to save their orange crop. jean and jim long used a kerosene heater in the workshop of their home so the pipes wouldn't freeze. something went terribly wrong. when firemen arrived, the house of totally ablaze. jean long had escaped the fire, but her husband, jim, was trapped inside. >> my father-in-law came to the door to wake us. he said that -- he said there's a fire at your dad's house, and it's bad. >> it was engulfed in flames. very shocking moment.

>> firemen searched the area around the home, but there was no sign that jim had escaped. >> i just thought my dad would come walking out, but no. >> the longs' home was attached to a workshop jim used to store the equipment for his tree-trimming business. it, too, was on fire. after the fire was put out, the firefighters cut through the metal siding. they found the body of 53-year-old jim long. jean was taken to the hospital where she was treated for minor scrapes and bruises. one of the bruises was on her chin. she told police that her husband tried to fill the kerosene heater with fuel, and then there was an explosion. >> he was covered in flames. she tried to put the fire out with her hands. her gloves caught fire. >> in a panic, jean said she ran

from the workshop into their home to call the fire department. at the fire scene, investigators found the remnants of the kerosene heater, but the plastic fuel can was found outside the workshop door in perfect condition, inconsistent with jean's story. major mike overbee believed that the position of jim's body was inconsistent with most fire victims. >> it appeared that his legs were outstretched, his arms were above his head. it appeared to me the way someone would be positioned if they had been dragged in a particular spot or carried. that was the first thing that i noticed -- that they were not in a fetal-type position that you see in fires. >> in addition, overbey found visual evidence of pour patterns around jim's body.

the type of patterns which result from the use of an accelera accelerant. >> that to him suggested that james long had been lying on the floor and gasoline or an accelerant had been poured over him intentionally, and he had been set afire. >> and jim's autopsy revealed even more evidence that he was unconscious before the fire started. anncr: right now, at the volkswagen memorial day event you can get a $500 bonus on top of all current offers on select volkswagen models including the sporty jetta s, now leasing for just $159.00 a month the remarkably versatile tiguan and the passat midsized family sedan. so, what's the shortest distance between you and a great deal on a new volkswagen? a straight line... to the volkswagen memorial day event. get 0% apr for 60 months on all 2014 passat gasoline models plus a total of $1,250 in available bonuses.

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during jim long's autopsy, the medical examiner found something suspicious. there wasn't as much dirt, soot, and smoke damage in his lungs as one would expect in a fire victim. >> mr. long did not have enough of chemicals that are found in the blood after a person degrees of smoke inhalation for that to have caused his death. he had breathed some smoke. he had soot in his throat, but he had not breathed enough smoke to kill him. >> and jim also suffered a fractured skull. dr. bill bass, a world-famous

forensic anthropologist at the university of tennessee, was asked for his opinion. >> we have three factors irradiating out from the same source. the source being the hole that is in the skull. that is an indication that there's been blunt force trauma there that is not due to the fire. >> the cause of death was determined to be thermal injuries and blunt force head trauma. his death was listed as a homicide. homicide investigator major michael overbey asked jean long to explain what happened on the night of the fire. jean said her husband was filling the heater with kerosene when it exploded. >> you said that he relit it inside. >> well, he didn't relight it. he was refueling. putting fuel in it. >> with what? >> kerosene.

>> with what container? >> it was red. >> yet, the red plastic fuel can was found outside the shork workshop. >> how did it get back outside? >> i don't know. >> and overbey noticed that jim's arms and legs were outstretched when he was found. underneath jim's body were several aerosol cans. >> there was one under his head. there was one under his rate leg and another one up under his back. and that appeared odd. that appear ed to me something that could be used to accelerate the damage it the bo-- damage t body in a fire. >> patterns in the concrete floor around the body were also suspicious. >> these patterns right here. absolutely nothing else on the planet makes these marks,

nothing. this is what it leaves basically in concrete when an accelerant such as gasoline is poured on something. you know what i mean? >> jean also said she called the fire department from a phone in the house. investigators found the outside door was locked. if jean locked it on her way out, police saw this as evidence that she was in no hurry to save her husband. >> her husband is on fire, burning in this building. she runs outside, but she locks the door behind her. see, to me, that's very important. you think a jury's going to buy this? i can tell you right now they won't. >> major overbey asked jean to take a polygraph test, and she agreed. >> she was asked pointblank if she poured gasoline and set her

husband on fire. she failed that question and failed whether she was present when he was murdered. >> investigators found jim was angry with his wife for spending so much time in kansas each year visiting relatives. there were also rumor that jim may have been planning to leave jean. major overbey believes on the night of the fire the couple may have been discussing a divorce which prompted an argument. >> it's our theory that there was a domestic situation between mr. long and his wife. i believe that the abrasion on her chin came from him possibly slapping her. and his skull fractures, i believe, was a result of her striking him in the head with some hard object. >> overbey believes joean poure an accelerant on him, set him on fire, then inadvertently carried

the fuel can out of the workshop when highway is left to call for help. >> i -- when she left to call for help. >> i. it was a strong case, that we had eliminated any other hypothesis for this death. >> the day after her husband's funeral, jean long was charged with arson and murder. jean told her lawyers there was an explosion in that workshop and that there must be evidence in the ashes to prove. it [dog] larry? larry? larry? wanna play? [announcer] a healthy dog is a playful dog. [dog] let's do this larry! [announcer] help him keep those muscles while he loses a few pounds with beneful healthy weight. made with wholesome rice,real chicken,soy, even accents of vitamin rich veggies. it's calorie smart and tastes so good. beneful healthy weight from purina.

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. >> jean long's family hired defense attorneys wade crumbly and barbara moon for what they feared would be a long, difficult trial. barbara moon met with jean in the county jail. >> she was a very broken woman, shaking her hands. he believed her. >> jean's church began to raise money for her bail. jean's family insisted that her marriage to jim was a happy one. jim's daughter from a previous marriage agreed. >> i was glad he met somebody and that he was happy and that he wasn't going to be alone.

>> any time you seen jim, you seen jean. seen one, you seen both of them. they went everywhere together. >> and jean had no financial motive. jim's life insurance amounted to less than $40,000. local prosecutors were convinced this was an open and shut case. >> the theory of show saw the opportunity to get rid of him and poured it and lit it and then made it seem or tried to tell everyone that it was an accident. >> the defense asked john lantini, a nationally known fire investigator, investigator, for his opinion. >> with respect to the quality of the investigation, it ranks up there with the worst i've seen, and i've seen a last of bad fire investigations in my day. this was over the top. >> local investigators suspected accelerants had been used to start the fire.

but lentini discovered that the workshop housed containers of fuel for jim's tree-trimming equipment. >> in the shop we had vehicles, we it tanks of acetylene, pro-tan, containers of liquid fuels. >> we had chainsaws in there. lots of papers, clothing, lots of kpuftibles. and whether it went -- combustibles. and when it went up, it really went up. >> and lentini disputed police claims that there were pour patterns around jim's body. he said the heat of the fire made such a determination impossible. >> once you get to full room involvement, you're going to get all kinds of patterns that are easily misinterpreted. it happens all the time. i created them by mistake. i created them on purpose. >> the homicide investigator thought the position of jim's body was suspicious. >> we felt like from the very

beginning based on the way he was laying, with his arms stretched over his head and legs straight out, that he had been placed there. >> but jean had always contended that while her husband was on fire he was flailing about. was it possible that jim struck his head on the metal table nearby causing the fractured skull and knocking him unconscious? lentini believes the charge of arson and murder had been a rush to judgment and that the kerosene heater was to blame. >> basically what you do is you fill this up with kerosene or diesel fuel, you throw a wick of some kind down in there. what happens when you have this wick of fire in here, you are generating lots and lots of soot. that soot coats the inside, and itself will catch on fire like charcoal. so if you don't allow this thing

to cool down sufficiently, it's pretty dangerous. >> in a surprising discovery, gas chromatograph inside the tank revealed gasoline and not kerosene. it takes more heat to ignite kerosene. gasoline ignites at very low temperatures. >> the difference in flammability between gasoline and kerosene is tremendous. and i've worked on a lot of fires where people mix fuel gasoline with kerosene and have big fires. >> jean said they were using the heater outside before they moved it indoors. since a gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 20 sticks of dynamite, when jim poured it into the hot fuel tank, it caused an explosion just as jean described. >> the residue of gasoline inside that smudge pot was the physical evidence. and mrs. long's story was the

eyewitness evidence. it fits together. she couldn't have faked that part. >> the fuel canister found outside the workshop which investigators found so suspicious contained kerosene, proving it played no role in the fire. prosecutors still believe jean long murdered her husband, but which version would the jury believe?

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when jean long went on trial for her husband's murder, prosecutors showed jurors the videotape of jean's interrogation in which she contradicted herself. >> then he fell down on this floor, but that's what you told me, miss jean. i'm just -- i'm trying to put together what you said and trying to make it make sense, and it don't. >> it doesn't make sense to me. >> no, it doesn't. how can you expect it to make sense to me? >> but the defense attorneys used the same tape to show something else. major overbey employed a standard police technique when he ended the interrogation and left the ram with the tape machine still running.

in this situation, a suspect will often say something incriminating. in this case, she said somethingle. >> oh, god help me. help me explain to him you know i didn't do it. >> what major overbey had hope would happen worked against him. i think he was in hopes that she was going to say soming it hurt herself, incriminate herself. what she did, she reached out to god and begged for help to give her the strength to endure that hostile interview. >> the defense claimed that the fire was accidental. that jim long mistakenly filled

the hot kerosene heater with gasoline, causing the explosion. jean frack tickly tried to put it out. when she couldn't, she ran to call for help. at some point, jim struck his head on the workbench which fractured his skull and caused his death. the defense offered no explanation for why jean locked the door on her way out of the house except that it was force of habit, something she did every time she left the house. jean long herself took the stand in her own defense. >> she came across as completely genuine, terrified about the prospect of what she was going through and terrified at reliving the moment of what happened that night. >> the jury didn't hear about the results of the polygraph

test. >> approximateliy graph examinations are inadmissible and inadmissible for a reason. they're not reliable, bottom line. >> jean's family says the medication she was taking may have been a contributing factor. >> she was just really drugged up more or less. she was on the pills the hospital had given her to help her stay calm and to kind of take in everything. >> after eight days of testimony, the jury deliberated for just three hours before rendering their verdict. they found jean long not guilty of all charges. >> this case never should have been brought. they should have consulted an expert. >> to this day, major overbey doesn't agree with the verdict or with john lentini's conclusions about the fire. >> i believe 100% today as i did

during the trial that she killed her husband. i believe that she got by with murder. the other question it me would be why the jury decided what they decided. >> after the trial and the not guilty verdict, jean long moved out of the state and is trying to put her life back together again. >> she's still grieving. she's finally being able to work through her emotions. >> the remnants of jim and jean long's house and workshop are still standing, a reminder that forensic science isn't only a tall to convict the guilty but to protect the innocent, as well. >> if i could keep this from happening to another family, then so people wouldn't have to go through what we went through. >> what we need in our system of

justice is for the state to have proof that there really is a set fire, and they didn't have that here. >> it wasn't a case of charging the wrong person with a crime, there was no crime at all. it was an accident. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com peck pictures of a cand candlelight vigil and scenes from a horrible incident yesterday. i'm christi paul. >> i'm victor blackwell. 6:00 on the east coast. this is "new day" sunday. we're starting