Dougherty
Jurors on Tuesday completed their fourth day of deliberations in the retrial of a man charged with arson and murder in the 1985 deaths of his two young sons in Oxford Circle.
Daniel Dougherty, 56, is charged with setting a fire that killed 4-year-old Daniel Jr. and 3-year-old John shortly before 4 a.m. on Aug. 25, 1985 inside a rowhome at 929½ Carver St.
Pennsylvania Superior Court ordered a retrial for Dougherty, who was con-victed of the same charges in 2000.
Dougherty had been on death row, but the dis-trict at-tor-ney’s of-fice in 2012 agreed to over-turn the death sen-tence. He was serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole when he was granted a retrial. He remains in custody on the murder charge, ineligible for bail.
The boys died in a fire as they slept in a second-floor bed-room. At the time, Fire Mar-shal John Quinn labeled the blaze sus-pi-cious be-cause it star-ted in three places — the couch, love seat and un-der the din-ing room table.
Daniel Dougherty was the only oth-er per-son home at the time. He was found stand-ing on the front porch by a 2nd Po-lice Dis-trict ser-geant and of-ficer who asked his name.
“My name is mud. I should die for what I did,” he replied.
However, there was not enough evid-ence to charge him with the crime.
In 1999, de-tect-ives from the po-lice spe-cial in-vest-ig-a-tions unit met with the fire mar-shal to dis-cuss un-solved ar-son cases. De-tect-ives re-in-ter-viewed wit-nesses, and the dis-trict at-tor-ney’s of-fice ap-proved charges.
Po-lice ar-res-ted Dougherty, who was liv-ing in Port Rich-mond, and he went on tri-al in Oc-to-ber 2000.
Testi-mony in-cluded a form-al state-ment Dougherty gave an hour after the in-cid-ent. He told po-lice he was asleep on the liv-ing room couch be-fore awaken-ing at 4 a.m. when he saw the cur-tains on the front win-dow on fire. He un-suc-cess-fully tried to put out the fire with a neigh-bor’s garden hose, then tried to climb a lad-der to get to his chil-dren, but the flames pre-ven-ted him from reach-ing them.
Also, two jail-house in-form-ants test-i-fied that Dougherty told them he com-mit-ted the crime to get re-venge on his es-tranged wife, with whom he had quarreled in the hours lead-ing up to the fire.
Dougherty test-i-fied that he was in-no-cent, but a jury con-victed him of first-de-gree murder and sen-tenced him to death by leth-al in-jec-tion.
In winning a retrial, Dougherty’s de-fense team ques-tioned the ef-fect-ive-ness of his tri-al law-yer, the now-de-ceased Thomas Q. Cic-cone Jr., for fail-ing to hire a fire in-vest-ig-a-tion ex-pert. Newly hired ex-perts, who ex-amined pic-tures of the scene, test-i-fied at the ap-peal that the burn pat-terns were con-nec-ted, not dis-tinct, an in-dic-a-tion that the blaze could have been an ac-ci-dent.
Dougherty, who uses a cane, did not testify in the retrial in front of Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O’Keefe and a jury of nine women and three men in courtroom 808 of the Criminal Justice Center.
Defense attorney David Fryman based his case on testimony by John Lentini, a nationally known fire investigator.
Closing statements were made last Thursday, and Fryman questioned why his client was not charged until 1999.
“Why did they wait for 14 years?” he asked in front of the jury, going for reasonable doubt.
Fryman said busted myths and bad science have led to convictions in arsons. He said there’s a “mountain of doubt” in the case.
“Fire investigators are getting it wrong,” he said, quoting Lentini’s testimony.
Fryman pointed to a test in Las Vegas, where 53 experienced fire investigators examined a fire scene and were asked to select in which of four quadrants the fire started. Only three chose the correct quadrant. In the Carver Street fire, Fryman suggested the fire could have been caused by ashtrays, a fan or a stereo. The defense attorney also dismissed the prosecution case for suggesting that Dougherty set the fire out of revenge, that he was mad at both his girlfriend (who owned the home) for leaving him and his ex-wife for not taking their kids that night.
“That is ridiculous on its face,” Fryman said.
Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy went after Dougherty and Lentini in his closing statement.
Conroy described Dougherty, who spent the hours before the fire at the Ashburner Inn, as a “boozer” who hit his girlfriend and wife when they questioned him about his drinking. He said it was “complete and utter hogwash” that Dougherty woke up when he heard the fire.
The prosecutor blasted Lentini for testifying that he does not consider all fires an accident at the start of an investigation, though he testified in a New Hampshire case that he does view them as accidents at the beginning.
“He lied to you, ladies and gentlemen,” Conroy said of the paid witness.
Conroy likened Lentini to Elmer Fudd and called him a “modern-day charlatan.” He said a prostitute on Kensington Avenue could hold her head higher than Lentini. Lentini would testify that the moon was made of cheese if he were paid, Conroy said.
“Show me the money, baby,” Conroy said.
Conroy said the physical evidence shows the fire was set. He ended his closing statement by shouting and pointing his finger at Dougherty that he is guilty.
Dougherty blew kisses to his loved ones as he was led out of court. ••
