Ohio Judges Acquit Capital Defendant in Alleged Arson Deaths of His Family

A three-judge pan­el in Madison County, Ohio has acquit­ted a man pros­e­cu­tors charged with cap­i­tal mur­der for alleged­ly set­ting his car on fire to burn down his house with his wife and children inside. 

The judges reject­ed pros­e­cu­tors’ argu­ments that Peter Romans (pic­tured with his fam­i­ly) had poured gaso­line on the driver’s side of the family’s SUV and set the car ablaze with the intent that the con­fla­gra­tion spread to the house to kill his wife Billi and their two chil­dren, Ami and Caleb. Prosecutors did not arrest Romans for more than a decade. At tri­al, they sought the death penal­ty, argu­ing that Romans had killed his fam­i­ly because he alleged­ly was hav­ing an affair with anoth­er woman and need­ed mon­ey from the family’s life insur­ance because he was in financial ruin. 

Romans pre­sent­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny that the car fire had been caused by a faulty cruise-con­trol deac­ti­va­tion switch in his Ford Expedition. At the time of the fire, Ford had issued a recall for the faulty switch because it had been impli­cat­ed in spon­ta­neous vehi­cle fires, some of which occurred when the engine was off. Romans’ SUV had not been repaired after the recall. Romans’ defense lawyer, Sam Shamansky, told the judges that Romans had no rea­son to start the fire and that he had ​“lost every­thing in the world that mat­tered to him the most.” 

The October 29, 2020 not-guilty ver­dict end­ed the crim­i­nal por­tion of a 12-year saga since the April 6, 2008 fire in which the Romans case was hand­ed back and forth between pros­e­cu­tors and inves­ti­ga­tors and even­tu­al­ly became the sub­ject of a cold-case sto­ry in the Columbus Dispatch. In 2009, Romans sued Ford Motor Co. and the switch dis­trib­u­tor for neg­li­gent­ly caus­ing the fire, and that law­suit was just weeks from going to tri­al when Romans was indict­ed on aggra­vat­ed mur­der, arson, and oth­er charges last year. 

Romans was sup­port­ed through­out the tri­al by his late wife’s sis­ters, his cur­rent wife, and his stepchil­dren. ​“God had this,” said one of the sis­ters after the ​“not guilty” ver­dicts were read.

Romans was the sole sur­vivor of the dead­ly fire, which start­ed after mid­night on April 6, 2008. According to Romans, after his wife had fran­ti­cal­ly awak­ened him to tell him the SUV was on fire, he rushed to move their pick­up truck, which had a full tank of gas, and a kerosene can away from the blaze. By the time he moved the car, the house was engulfed in flames. Unable to get back inside, Romans then ran 100 yards to his landlord’s house for help. Because of the exten­sive fire dam­age, fire inves­ti­ga­tors did not assign a cause to the fire until August 2009, when they declared it an arson. Coroners did not offi­cial­ly rule the three deaths as homi­cides until 2011. 

More than a decade after the tragedy, after the pub­li­ca­tion of the cold-case arti­cle, pros­e­cu­tors con­vened a grand jury seek­ing an indict­ment. Madison County Sheriff John Swaney praised pros­e­cu­tors and inves­ti­ga­tors for bring­ing the charges, say­ing ​“I think I speak on behalf of Madison County cit­i­zens to say we’re thank­ful, regard­less of how much time has passed, that jus­tice will be served.” 

Shamansky dis­put­ed the charges, telling Columbus tele­vi­sion sta­tion WSYX that Romans ​“is most cer­tain­ly inno­cent.… He didn’t com­mit any crime. He has done noth­ing but coop­er­ate ful­ly with the author­i­ties.” Questioning the tim­ing of the indict­ment, Shamansky asked, ​“Why now? … What evi­dence has changed after 11 years?” 

Junk arson-sci­ence has been impli­cat­ed in a num­ber of wrong­ful cap­i­tal con­vic­tions and death sen­tences. Cameron Todd Willingham was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 2004 after a jury that had been pre­sent­ed out­dat­ed and dis­cred­it­ed fire tes­ti­mo­ny con­vict­ed of him arson and mur­der. Ernest Willis, who was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by anoth­er Texas jury based on vir­tu­al­ly iden­ti­cal tes­ti­mo­ny, was sub­se­quent­ly exon­er­at­ed. Daniel Dougherty was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Pennsylvania in 2000 when his jury was pre­sent­ed sim­i­lar tes­ti­mo­ny. Although his con­vic­tion was over­turned and the Philadelphia District Attorney dropped the death penal­ty against him, he was retried and con­vict­ed again on the basis of dis­cred­it­ed arson tes­ti­mo­ny. Dougherty is cur­rent­ly serv­ing a life sentence. 

In August 2009, the National Academies of Science warned in their land­mark report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, that ​“many of the rules of thumb that are typ­i­cal­ly assumed to indi­cate that an accel­er­ant was used [to start a fire] … have been shown not to be true.”