The Doctor Who Set Her Family On Fire: Debora Green| The New Detectives | Real Responders

a dropped cigarette is the prime suspect in a fatal house fire but detectives soon realize this is one death that can't be blamed on tobacco can they build a murder case on a pile of ashes suspicious fire takes the lives of two children and fits the parents against each other the solution to a ghastly crime hangs by a hair when a restaurant burns to the ground detectives find all the ingredients for arson but who cooked up the scheme that left two firefighters dead searing temperatures and torrents of water are the enemies of crime solving but even in the blackened rubble arson investigators can fan a few smoking embers into flames of justice right around 3 a.m on november 19 1994 firefighters were called to the home of wendy and lance wago in plymouth connecticut lanswago escaped the fire with his children intense heat kept him from rescuing his wife wendy asleep downstairs in the den the fire burned too fiercely for firefighters to enter the home hope for wendy's survival extinguished long before the blaze wago told firefighters that his wife regularly used the den for smoking and had fallen asleep there the night before because the victim was a smoker investigators had to consider that the fire was started by a dropped cigarette right here after the flames were extinguished investigators found wendy's charred remains on a sofa in the den the body was sent to the state medical examiner's office meantime cause and origin investigators walked the scene even though a cigarette seemed the likely cause of the glaze a full investigation had to be conducted because a death was involved there were no electrical shorts or gas leaks there was no indication of break-in nor anything suspicious working from areas of lesser to greater damage investigators confirmed that the den was the center of the inferno severe damage to the floor told them that the fire had started just a few feet from where the victim lay it fit with the theory of a careless cigarette but the rest of the damage did not uniform blackening of the ceiling and walls indicated that the den had reached flashover temperature a point hot enough to ignite all flammable materials simultaneously the flames probably burned close to 1700 degrees fahrenheit it was unlikely that a smoldering cigarette could have ignited such a raging fire beneath the remains of the charred sofa an unusual burn pattern also seemed to refute the cigarette series furniture usually creates protected areas but the burn pattern etched into this floor didn't correspond to the placement of the sofa investigator kevin mcgirt interpreted the damage the time groove wood floor was burned in a very straight line with specific lines of demarcation holes burn straight down through the floor that i believe the only thing that could have created that was the result of the introduction of a liquid accelerant in the hopes of finding the accelerant samples of the flooring were gathered from around the house and sent to the forensics lab technicians look for any traces of flammable liquids that might still be present in the samples they capture vapors from the materials and run them through a gas chromatograph this instrument separates individual chemicals into their basic components generating a pattern of peaks and valleys that can be compared to the patterns produced by known accelerants in this case none of the samples showed any traces of accelerant not a single droplet of flammable residue could be identified the negative results didn't mean that an accelerant hadn't been used a flashover usually consumes everything in its path especially combustible liquids while arson investigators continued searching the home for evidence the medical examiner took a look at the body in connecticut any victim of accidental death not witnessed by a physician must be autopsy because the body was burned beyond recognition dental records were used to confirm that the victim was wendy wargo the next task was to determine cause of death in deaths associated with fire medical examiners pay close attention to the respiratory tract according to malka shah fire victims normally breathe in smoke and soot that inhale stuff can go into your nose into your mouth throat and all the way to the lung in contrast in wendy's case there was no soot present beyond first few millimeters of our tongue blood analysis also had unexpected results fire victims usually have large amounts of carbon monoxide in their bloodstream wago barely had any the victim hadn't taken a single breath of smoky air there was only one explanation before the fire started wendy wargo was already dead wendy a 29 year old plymouth native had been married to lance a chemical engineer for nine years her friends and co-workers described her as a devoted mother and a warm giving person all right finding out how this young woman died would require the process of elimination shaw analyzed the victim's blood for drugs alcohol and poisons she studied the internal organs she searched the skull and bones for injury she found nothing out of the ordinary in bindi's case i was able to eliminate all other causes of death she has not died of a fire she had not died of natural disease or any stab wound or a gunshot wound or bludgeoned to death but that didn't rule out a homicide because the skin and outer tissue had been burned away there was no way to tell if she had been strangled or smothered the unaccountable death and suspicious blaze pointed to murder but there was no proof and little hope that any would be found subtle clues rarely survive a fire finding a smoking gun in the burned-out den seemed unlikely to detective john buturla in a fire scene you have firefighters who are concerned with a number of things including getting in there looking for any victims that they can possibly bring out they don't they don't have a regard for the fact that there may be a crime there so they're dumping tens of thousands of gallons of water they're bringing hoses and personnel inside a a structure in order to fulfill their obligation it appeared that no additional clues had survived the fire and water although investigators continued to examine the burned home it seemed they would have to rely on good old-fashioned detective work if they wanted to find out what really happened on the night of the fire police questioned the wago's neighbors at the fire scene across the street over there none could offer any leads as to who might want to kill wendy wago lanswago told investigators that a smoke detector had awakened him he rescued his two children from their beds and escaped the burning home but he couldn't get to wendy he was lauded for his brave rescue attempt and yet one odd detail overshadowed his heroics the actual night of the fire it struck a number of people including all the investigators who worked on this case that lance wargo at 3 30 in the morning came out of the house fully clothed um most people 3 30 in the morning they're gonna come out of the house they're certainly not going to come out dressed the way he was yeah i'd fall asleep while i was watching tv and i got when they wondered but he found the time to button his shirt and tie his shoes i went back for her but i couldn't normally sleep lance's spit and polish image is beginning to smudge police looked a little more closely into wendy wago's domestic life they learned that she had served her husband with divorce papers just 18 days before her death lance was overheard saying that he would rather murder his wife than give up his kids he was now the prime suspect but police had no tangible evidence to find out if his imminent divorce was worth killing over investigators obtained a search warrant and went to the motel where wago was staying with his children they collected the clothing that he had been wearing on the night of the fire these jeans you're wearing that night finding a trace of blood or some accelerant residue was investigators only chance of tying the suspect to the crime in the lab the clothes were tested but the results were disappointing investigators found nothing unusual on them though a spotlight of suspicion glared on lance wargo there wasn't a shred of proof the investigation had reached a dead end either he was completely innocent as he asserted or he had just committed a nearly perfect murder weeks after the blaze fire investigators turned the house over to lanswago's insurance company to assess the damages was in the clear and about to get a healthy settlement then insurance investigators found a singed notepad in the wago's bedroom that the fire investigators had missed on it were several pages of cryptic notes investigators examined the lists of abbreviations sigs they believed was cigarettes there were references to rope gloves a mask dry run it was like a murder plot in shorthand among the notes were abbreviations for household chemicals that could be used as accelerometers investigators went back to the home to see if they could find any evidence of these chemicals in wargo's garage they found one kind in the house they found a melted bottle of another investigators had found the lethal ingredients for the accelerant the writing in the notebook further incriminated lanswago and suggested that he pre-planned the so-called accident a final examination of the home caught wago in another critical lie he had told investigators that he was awakened by a smoke detector damage to the wiring inside the detector led investigators to believe that couldn't possibly have happened well a subsequent examination by an electrical engineer or a professional engineer made the termination the smoke detectors are probably not working proper working order at the time of the fire lance vargo was arrested and charged with murder first-degree arson two counts of risk of injury to a minor and tampering with physical evidence he was held on one million dollars bail detectives learned that just days before the fire dwargo had participated in a fire safety course for work it appeared that he had applied this knowledge along with his expertise in chemistry to plan and execute a murder cover-up a battle between the wagos culminated in lance putting his carefully formulated plan into action first he suffocated his wife then he set the fire to conceal the murder as suggested in his notebook he would drop hints that cigarettes had caused the fire we believe i believe is a spite revenge fire motive he was going through a divorce he did not want a divorce he did not want to be a weekend father these were items that were noted in the notepad as well the bereaved husband was found guilty of six charges in connection with wendy wago's death he was sentenced to 50 years in prison lance wargo had nearly succeeded in blaming his fire on a cigarette but even in blatant cases of arson finding the perpetrator might not be so obvious shortly after midnight on october 24th 1995 the 911 kansas fire department to a luxury home burning out of control the owner dr debra green and her ten-year-old daughter kate had escaped the fire but thirteen-year-old tim and six-year-old kelly were still trapped inside firefighters first priority was to rescue the children but this would be a difficult fire to penetrate flames engulfed nearly half the home burning through the roof and out the windows of the seventh floor the only way to get in was through the basement thick smoke met them as they attempted to climb to the first floor not far into their search of the basement rooms the floors above started falling if they stayed much longer they too would be consumed captain maurice mott had no choice but to pull his men out we had fire coming through the roof and several of their windows throughout the first and second floor of the residence we were concerned of a complete structure collapse mott and his crew conceded that the children could not be alive to spare green and her daughter the trauma of watching the deadly fire investigators brought them to the prairie village police station greene told police that shortly after midnight she went to sleep in the master bedroom on the first floor an alarm woke her she opened her bedroom door to find the hallway consumed by smoke and fire she said she closed the door and exited onto the deck green told him to stay in his room like her mother kate had awakened to the fire alarm seeing thick black smoke coming from the hallway she escaped through her bedroom window she crawled onto the garage roof and jumped to safety her brother and sister never made it out of their beds at 5 00 a.m after the fire was extinguished firefighters recovered the bodies of kelly and tim their remains were set for autopsy the medical examiner determined that both had died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation the fire that had taken their lives had been very hot and fast moving within an hour of ignition it had consumed much of the roof and reduced the inside to a charred skeleton the size of the home the high degree of damage and the double fatalities were beyond the scope of the city's resources prairie village authorities activated a task force of law enforcement fire and investigative officials from counties in kansas and missouri cause and origin investigators examined the burned-out home gary layman's division chief of johnson county realized this wouldn't be an easy fire to pinpoint right as they went through the whole area had to be excavated and layered through all the debris that was on the floor had to be sifted through and as you go through that and take them to the outside looking through the debris investigators found that unlike most fires many rooms of this house seem to have burst into flames at the same time and unlike most players this one didn't burn up and out patterns on standing walls told investigators that it climbed straight up very rapidly they examined and photographed every room of the 6 000 square foot home forensic chemist bill chapin knew that this was no ordinary house fire you had a massive burning in the kitchen and then not so much burning in the eating portion of the kitchen and then massive burning in the living room and no burning in the master bedroom and massive burning in portions of other parts of the house it was a hodgepodge of nonsense that you just wouldn't wouldn't see in a normal typical fire such disparities made sense only if these heavily damaged areas had been doused with accelerant the amount of damage and odd flow of the fire suggested arson but first the task force needed to rule out accidental causes the gas lines were in working order electrical engineers determined that none of the wiring had shorted as they excavated the rubble investigators noticed deep pitting and scaly damage called alligatoring it proved that they were looking at poor patterns made by a liquid accelerator it wouldn't take much digging to turn up the source of the fire whoever said it had not hidden the fuel bottles of antifreeze charcoal lighter fluid and alcohol were found throughout the house 48 samples were collected they were sent to the lab and tested in numerous carpet swatches investigators found trace amounts of charcoal lighter fluid if antifreeze and alcohol had also been used they probably would have burned off the presence of accelerant now proved arson because of the family's affluence detectives wondered if the fire had been set to cover up a burglary but there was no forced entry the burglar alarm was in working order the bolts were all in the locked position the only damage to doors and windows had been caused by firefighters whoever set the deadly fire had been inside the house or had a key investigators determined that arson had destroyed dr debra green's home and killed two of her children now they had to determine who set the deadly blaze while the task force continued excavating the house detectives investigated its former occupants police again questioned deborah green together for 18 years green and her husband mike farrar had both been successful go to bill's house i'll be home by six i'll see you later after the birth of their third child she gave up her practice to be a full-time mother over the years the marriage grew unhappy three months before the fire farrar said he wanted a divorce and admitted he'd been having an affair the family began to crumble green told police that shortly before going to bed on the night of the fire she and her estranged husband had fought on the phone police brought farrar into the station for further questioning coffee be nice thank you can we get some coffee please i just have a couple questions for you can you give me a little bit more detail on what happened he told him that on the night of the fire he had been with his children all right he dropped him off shortly before midnight but his actions after that point could not be his anger with deborah green gave him the motive his house key gave him the means but deborah had equal motives and equal means did mike farrar sneak in and set fire to the house or did deborah set it to frame her husband and play the victim only the evidence left at the scene could determine the truth as they continued excavating investigators uncovered a trail of poor patterns that wound through the house and ended at the threshold of deborah green's bedroom deborah had said that her door was closed during the fire she said she ran out the back door when she saw the smoke but investigators had found traces of lighter fluid in her bedroom carpet forensic chemist bill chapin felt the evidence told a different story you could see that accelerant pattern coming through the hallway and into the the doorway area that accelerant had soaked if you will up into the carpet underneath where that door was standing open fire to station not only did the accelerant trail lead into her bedroom the burn pattern on the carpet could not have been created with the door closed the clues at the doorway suggested deborah's guilt but the case was by no means open and shut the team needed more evidence to determine which spouse was responsible for the fire that killed their children investigators came up with a plan the accelerant had been poured so densely throughout the house that it probably created a burst of flame at ignition it was possible that whoever lit the fire had been burned neither green nor farrar had suffered any apparent injuries but some burns can only be detected with a microscope investigators took care samples from both debra green and mike farrar under a microscope farrar's hair showed no sign of fire damage green strands however had been badly singed chapin ran a number of tests to rule out any other cause for the sinjing we we did some testing to see what kind of temperatures would be involved with causing hair to singe to the extent that hers was singed and trying to to heat hair and uh bring it you know within so many inches of direct heat heating it with irons heating it in different kinds of ways to see what the different kinds of sinjing would tell us only direct contact with flame could have damaged her hair in that manner green had told police that she'd never gotten near any flames forensics proved her statement false green's lies had finally caught up with her police had found the arsonist from the chaotic crime scene the task force pieced together a desperate and deadly act green had been at her wit's end over her relationship with her husband the impending divorce was the spark that ignited her fury the dining room table that she doused with alcohol and other accelerants had been covered with their legal papers throughout the house she focused on places meant to cause emotional pain to mike ferrar his piano his desk and most tragically his children by saturating the upstairs hallway she had intentionally closed off their main means of escape police summoned green to the station under the pretense of needing her help with the ongoing investigation when she arrived they arrested her the task force would never be able to fully comprehend the rage that had caused a once brilliant doctor but their astute fire scene reconstruction assured that deborah green would pay for her crime based on the overwhelming forensic evidence green pled guilty rather than go to court i think she knew they knew she and her lawyers when they saw the amount of information that we had collected physical evidence that she didn't have a chance to win that case deborah greene is serving a life sentence in deborah green's case a woman's burning rage sparked an unspeakable crime but cold greed can september 2nd 1991 shortly after midnight a motorist in new smyrna beach florida saw smoke pouring out of a restaurant he called the fire department within five minutes fire trucks arrived to find stormy's seafood steak and lounge engulfed in flames fires can be unpredictable and this one was especially treacherous intense heat and flashovers thwarted firefighters efforts fire grew out of control thick billowing smoke filled the building it's soon engulfed and disoriented a group of experienced firefighters sent in to find the source separated from their colleagues two firefighters searched in vain for a way out of the inferno they ran out of air and died a burning restaurant had become a death trap for two firefighters the next morning investigators arrived on the scene to find out how it happened captain ron mcardle of the florida state fire marshal's office observed a peculiar pattern once i started my preliminary walk around on the exterior i noticed uh soot patterns and heat patterns on the concrete block were very high on the wall this indicated to me that there was a very hot fire high on the interior fires usually start low and work their way up the markings told mcardle that wasn't the case here most of the roof was completely burned away with less damage below to determine the cause of a blaze a fire investigator must sift through remains layer by layer unearthing a timeline as a fire rages burning debris from the ceiling and roof tumbles downward the debris on the top of the pile was much finer than the rubble it covered confirming that the top of the building had burned the longest and hottest stormy's restaurant was the venture of a man named biff utter who had owned it for three years it did most of its business during the summer the tragedy had struck just as the season was winding down when had been at the restaurant earlier that evening everything seemed fine he finished up his business then left with his girlfriend for a party the restaurant had closed around 11 45 just after the last customers left utter's mother locked up the employees didn't see hear or smell anything unusual either inside or outside of the building but within 15 minutes flames consumed the restaurant because firefighters had been killed in the blaze it became a federal matter the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms joined the investigation they agreed with local authorities that the fire had to have started above the ceiling these unusual conditions spelled death for the two firefighters who were caught unaware in their traveling through this area they basically lost their orientation from where they were the fire was actually above them all the time every place they were in there when a fire burns up high it's very hot and right below the ceiling and there's a layer of smoke right below it so the firemen couldn't see it was there they had no indication it was there they tried several times to to get out we could we found their tools and where they tried to mark on the wall uh in an effort to try to find an exit fire investigators began by ruling out accidental causes they paid strict attention to wiring and gas pipes that ran through the ceiling but none showed signs of malfunction the water heater the ovens and the grill were all in working order oddly though the fire alarm system hadn't been set that night lacking a reasonable explanation all indications were pointing to arsenal accidental fires and arson fires are two very different creatures accidental fires start slowly it's going to start smoldering it takes time to build up cause heat and then as it builds and builds and builds it moves upward at that point upward and out that's why we look for different v patterns and things on walls and they're how we track fires but investigators found other kinds of markings irregular scars that told them the fire had moved very fast instead of consuming materials as it went it flared up and jumped across beams natural fires don't behave that way this one had to have been fed with an accelerant someone had started this fire intentionally and killed two people in the i started to be process in here the first suspect was the proprietor biff utter but utter had nothing to gain from the fire and everything to lose okay over here was a business had been lagging he told investigators that he'd been forced to let his fire insurance lapse a few months earlier hutter couldn't think of anyone who would want to torch his place nor could investigators find any sign of forced entry in the hunt for clues insulation collected from the scene was analyzed for the presence of an accelerant the pattern of peaks and valleys from the chromatograph revealed the presence of a flammable petroleum product most likely kerosene while it was one more piece of evidence that pointed to arson the accelerant was too common to be traced back to anyone let's check this out unless investigators could find some clue in the rubble they had little hope of identifying the arsonist i'll look over on this side see what i can find by pouring the accelerant high where flames burn the hottest he had nearly succeeded in burning away the evidence but he hadn't destroyed it all hey bob i think i found something important arson investigators searching the burned-out restaurant pulled their most promising clue from a garbage can in bif utter's office they uncovered an open envelope addressed to biff utter along with a copy of the renewed fire insurance policy for stormies but utter had claimed that he had no insurance the business owner had been caught in a lie u.s attorney paul byron in charge of prosecuting the double homicide checked to see if utter might have burned the building for the insurance money when we reviewed his financial records from his own accountant we found that stormy's was losing about sixty five hundred dollars per month and that he was unable to pay the mortgage for the last three months the business was open though utter maintained a lavish lifestyle he hadn't paid bills in months employees weren't getting regular paychecks vendors would deal with him only on a cash basis the mortgage holder was planning to foreclose police spoke with the owner of the building they learned that utter had in fact stopped paying insurance on the business last time that you talked to mr utter and asked him if he but the owner told police she wasn't about to leave the building uninsured okay after several attempts to get the money out of utter she paid his premiums she told police that shortly before the fire she gave utter a copy of the renewed policy he personally stood to gain two hundred thousand dollars if the restaurant burned money at all to try to pin down utters whereabouts on the night of the fire investigators talked with utter's girlfriend she confirmed that she had been with him when the fire broke out there was even documentation to prove it the call police placed to utter that evening to inform him that his restaurant had burned had been recorded so his presence away from the restaurant was absolute and we knew that was going to be a tremendous stumbling block improving who set the fire it also cutest to the fact that he had to have an accomplice who set the fire because he could not personally have done it the insurance provided investigators with a motive to burn the restaurant but the evidence could not identify the arsonist biff utter was arrested on june 23 1994 prior to his trial investigators spoke to his cellmate in jail they hoped he might have revealed something he did talk but he didn't say much utter didn't name names but as one inmate testified he confessed to having been involved the cellmate testified at trial that bifudder stated he would never cooperate with the government he would never tell them who started the fire that he was going to attack our forensic evidence because that's really all we had but as it turned out the forensics was more than enough to make the case prosecutors theorized that utter paid a professional arsonist to burn down stormies so that he could claim the two hundred thousand dollar insurance money utter arranged for the fire alarm to be unarmed and established a solid alibi with his girlfriend minutes after the employees left the restaurant the arsonist entered by introducing the accelerant into the ceiling he attempted to build a blaze so big and violent that would obliterate all traces of the crime he and utter underestimated the forensic team's ability to fight fire with fire a jury convicted utter of conspiracy arson and using fire to commit a federal felony offense he refused to identify the arsonist utter was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison his accomplice may still be setting deadly fires while their actions present an unequal challenge to law enforcement arsonists are no longer protected by the wake of confusion they leave behind using the latest in forensic techniques investigators have turned the tables on these criminals fighting their deadly blazes with flames of justice you

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 130,349

Keywords: The New Detectives, police documentary, investigation, police investigation, true detectives, real crimes, real detectives, private detective, serial killers podcast, crime documentary murders 2020, crime documentary murders, true crime daily 2020, serial killer movies hindi, crime documentary murders solved, true crime youtubers, serial killers never caught, new detectives documentary, the new detectives season 4, crime reenactment, murder in the family, murder next door

Id: P8aTr49AahA

Length: 50min 1sec (3001 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2020