on a bitter cold night, family home went up in flames, killing one man and leaving a second person injured. a witness blamed a kerosene heat person arson was suspected. forensic science was needed to sort through the contradictions. was this an accident or cold brooded murder. the weather in jackson, georgia, is usually warm most of the year.

but in january 2003, there was an unusual cold snap, with temperatures below freezing. citrus growers used kerosene 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. but something went terribly wrong. when firemen arrived, the house was 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. a very shocking moment.

>> firemen searched the area around the home, but there was no sign that jim had escaped. >> and 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 their 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. and major michael overbey believed that the position of jim's body was inconsistent with most fire victims. >> it appeared his arms were outstretched and over his head. it appeared to me the way someone would be positioned if they had been dragged into a particular spot or carried. that was the first thing that i noticed. 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 that result from the use of an axel rant.

>> to him, it suggested that james long had been lying on the floor and gasoline or accelerant had been poured over him intentionally and he had been set afire. >> and jim's autopsy revealed even more evidence. he was unconscious before the fire started. ♪ ♪

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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 the chemicals that were found in the blood after a person dies of smoke inhalation for that to had 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 fractures 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 trama there that's 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 refuelling it. he had to put fuel in it. >> with what? >> kerosene.

>> with what container? >> it was red. >> yet, the red plastic fuel can was found outside the workshop. >> all right. 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 right leg and another one up under his back. and that appeared odd. that appeared, to me, something that could be used to accelerate the damage of the body in a fire. >> patterns on the concrete floor around the body were also

suspicious. >> these are called pour patterns right here. absolutely nothing else on the planet makes these marks. nothing. this is what it leaves, especially 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. but investigators found the outside door was locked. if jean locked it on her way out, police saw this as evidence she was in no hurry to save her husband.

>> her husband was 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 the 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. 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 jean poured

an accelerant on jim, set him on fire, then, inadvertently carried the fuel can out of the workshop when she left to call for help. >> i felt like it was a strong circumstantial case. felt like we had eliminated any other reasonable 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. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here! aah! [ female announcer ] the complete balanced nutrition of great-tasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, and 9 grams of protein. [ bottle ] ensure®. nutrition in charge™. and other car insurance companies? yes. but you're progressive and they're them. -yes. -but they're here. -yes. -are you... -there? -yes. -no. -are you them? i'm me. but the lowest rate is from them. -yes. -so them's best rate is... here.

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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. sort of, just, twiddling her hands and shaking unbelievably. i thought she was very genuine. and i believed in her. it's just that simple. >> a week later, jean's church managed to raise the 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 that he met

someone 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. but local prosecutors were convinced this was an open-and-shut case. >> the theory was she saw the opportunity to get rid of him and poured him and lit it and then made it seem or tried to tell everyone that it was an accident. >> the defense asked a nationally known fire investigator, john lentini, for his opinion. >> with respect to the quality of the fire investigation, it ranks up there with the worst that i've ever seen. and i've seen a lot of fire investigations. 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 and we had tanks of acetylene. we had tanks of propane, we had containers of liquid fuels. >> you had chainsaws in there, lots of papers, clothing, lots of combustibles. and when it went up, it just 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 of the time. i've created them by mistake. i've created them on purpose. >> the homicide investigator thought that the position of jim's body was suspicious.

>> we felt like, from the very beginning, based on the way he was laying on his back, with his arms stretched over his head and his 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 care kerosene heater was to blame. >> basically, what you do, you fill this up with kerosene or diesel fuel. you're generating lots and lots of soot. what you have is soot coats the inside and it will catch on fire like charcoal. so if you don't allow this thing to cool down sufficiently, that's pretty dangerous. >> in a surprising discovery,

gas chromatography of the residue inside the heater's fuel tank identified gasoline and not kerosene. it takes more heat to ignite kerosene. gasoline ignites at very low temperatures. >> the difference in flammability in gasoline and kerosene is tremendous. and i worked in a lot of fires where people misfuel kerosene heaters with gasoline and end up having 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. and 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? it walks you through different degree possibilities and even lets you explore local job market conditions, helping you map a clear course from the job you want, back to you. go to phoenix.edu and get started today.

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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. >> and then he fell down on the floor. but that's what you told me, ms. jean. i'm just -- i'm trying to put together what you said -- i'm trying to make it make sense, and it don't. >> it doesn't make sense to me. >> no, it doesn't. so how can you expect it to make sense to me? >> but the defense attorneys use the same tape to show something else. major overbey employed a standard police technique when he ended the interrogation and left the room with the tape machine still running.

in this situation, a suspect will often say something incriminating. [ sobbing ] >> in this case, she said something else. [ sobbing ] >> oh, god, help me. help me to explain to him. you know i didn't do it. >> what major overbey had hoped to happen i think worked against him. i think he was in hopes that he would say something to hurt herself -- incriminate herself, and what she did, she reached out to god and started begging 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 frantically tried to put it out, and 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.

>> polygraph examinations are inadmissible, and inadmissible for a reason. they are 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 -- that she killed her husband. i believe that she got by with murder. the unanswered question to 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 tool to convict the guilty, but to protect the innocent, as well. >> if i could keep this from happening to another family -- and 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 it 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. >> it's hard to comprehend that >> it's hard to comprehend that in the philippines, there are 7,000 islands. residents say you can hide in these islands and never be found. living there has its challenges.