I was pleased to have been able to assist the new prosecutor to reach the wise decision to drop the case against Mr. Howard. The victim was discovered when neighbors saw smoke coming from her house, and Mr. Howard had a solid alibi for where he was for two hours prior. The district attorney, seeing that problem, brought in a fire investigator, Mr. George Bass, who opined, without any basis, that he thought the fire had burned for 4 to 6 hours. He said that the fire started in an "incipient stage," then went into a smoldering stage for lack of oxygen. There is no way that happened. The front door was open not 10 feet away from where the fire was burning.

I wrote a brief report stating that Mr. Bass was wrong and not qualified to render such an opinion.

Congratulations to Tucker Carrington and Chris Fabricant for their excellent work in debunking the bite mark BS spewed by the discredited Michael West that supposedly tied Mr. Howard to the crime.

[innocenceproject.org].

John J. Lentini, CFI
Scientific Fire Analysis
Islamorada, FL
www.firescientist.com
scientific.fire@yahoo.com