They were burned alive - and their stepfather set the fire

small-town Hewitt Texas the unthinkable two beautiful young boys burned alive in a backyard shed it all looked like a horrible accident but as the days and months were on something else was about to emerge what exactly happened to those precious boys behind the house on Angel Fire dry Joby and Jason and I were just best buddies we loved our time together Jason was just full of energy I had a personality that would light up the room Joby was more serious very rarely did Joe being Jason ever fight and Joby always took up for his little brother they were best friends Claire Bradburn is the boy's mother life was good Claire was a single mother working as a teacher trying to make ends meet they seemed to be the typical American family that is until that one hot summer day what happened on that Tuesday in August it was a typical Tuesday morning we got ready for school the boys came in the bedroom and we had a wonderful strong hug and then I was at school and after a day of [Music] after a day of working and having meetings the principal came into my room and said I needed to go home there was a fire in the storage building behind the house as Claire approached the house it was utter chaos I saw all the streets lined with people emergency vehicles there already people already with tears and had their hands up by their face and and I had the this knife in my heart when Claire got to the front door she was informed of the unimaginable nine-year-old jovi an 8 year old Jason were trapped inside the storage building Claire's husband Ed Graf jr. was the one who delivered the devastating news I immediately asked Edie where are the boys he said they're gone and I specifically said because IRA nan where and he said Joby and Jason are dead when Claire met at graft 3 years before she was a single mom struggling to raise Jason and Jovi on her own ed was a pillar in the community he worked at a local bank very responsible ed treated Claire like a princess it looked like he might be her prince charming a year later they decided to marry Clara got pregnant after only a few months and had adopted Jason and Joby their life seemed perfect but Claire soon found out Edie wasn't exactly the man he pretended to be he'd been embezzling money from the bank or 12 years and was fired for it and with the baby on the way their blended family started fracturing he was very excited about this baby but my kids were being pushed out of the picture somewhat after the birth of their baby Edward the third graph took out life insurance policies on all three of their sons $50,000 life insurance policies in the event of accidental death they would double while Edo did on his newborn son his relationship with Joby and Jason turned the boys personalities changed anytime it was around they seemed to me like they were scared to death of him Claire was getting scared too I felt like I needed to leave dad told me I would never take his son away at that moment I knew that time this was some serious business that there was a threat a few weeks later Claire's world changed forever I ate to my heart my hope you know am i physically hurt inside as soon as she walked in they dress it we've lost both boys now I don't know how he knew that because I hadn't told him that we said haven't found the body our child not his son you know wouldn't save us we didn't know who it was her sons were dead an edge reaction to it seemed odd I walked in and I saw Edie first and I tried to hug him and I said I am so so sorry he said it's okay he said things do happen which was very unusual and adds explanation of what happened left more questions than answers Edie said he was inside the house during the fire changing the baby's diaper he didn't hear the people beating on the front door that same terrible night so Claire wouldn't have to look at the charred remains of the shed the volunteer firefighters hadn't loaded up and taken away to the local dump the fire was ruled accidental but a mother's intuition was not to be ignored I knew he was behind it in some way a fire in a storage toolshed in Hewitt late this afternoon claimed the lives of two brothers aged eight and nine days after the funeral Claire and her family were suspicious they went to talk to McLennan County District Attorney Vick fazil hoping to convince him to investigate the fire that killed the boys investigate he did and by the end of it Vick knew what he had in front of him we had a long list maybe 20 things enough to convince me that aircraft was a murderer these two children two young boys burned to death in their own backyard shed but the tragedy soon looked just like murder and all fingers seemed to point to their stepfather Ed Graf jr. I felt he was responsible for murder and jovian Jason but what kind of monster would kill his own sons cops and prosecutors believed ed graph was monster enough the eeriest thing about all of it whether the address where it happened 5:05 angel fire 10 months after the fire at Graff junior was arrested and indicted for the capital murders of nine-year-old Joby and eight year old Jason if Ed was found guilty he could face the death penalty at trial the prosecution alleged that had grafts somehow knocked out the boys carried them to the shed then set it on fire and they believed they had fire science on their side there was enough evidence to see where the burn marks were the floors at was accelerant the doors were closed to the shed my feeling was it was not accidental one of the firemen he took a picture of the debris so we had fabulous photograph to work with former McLennan County District Attorney vic faisal brought in to nationally renowned fire sirens experts to review the photos and testified those experts believe the door to the shed was closed two fires were intentionally set and accelerant was used and the boys were found on their backs in relaxed positions which indicated they were unconscious they apparently never attempted to protect themselves or get out their conclusion it was a clear-cut case of arson but adding more heat to the case were other circumstantial pieces pointing at graphs involvement there were some things that II did that didn't seem weird at the time but then later became odd to me there was the boys serial and medications he didn't buy he's always so organized and everything's so methodical the refilling of certain things our food the prescriptions and the new school clothes he didn't let the boys wear they didn't want to shop for school cause then we did go but he didn't want them to take the tags off and he wanted to place the whole sack in our closet and that was odd days after the fire had returned the clothes and got his money back and then there were the insurance policies Eadie took out on the voice we heard allegations that Ed had embezzled money from the bank he had worked from before and that then became what I felt was the motive for getting the insurance policies on these little boys as soon as the insurance policies were effective within days is when he committed the murders and continued to proclaim his innocence and reportedly had answers for everything he said the insurance policies were a way to save money for the boys college he kept the tags on in case the clothes didn't fit Ed's defense the boys accidentally set the shed on fire and there were a lot of people who believed in Ed's innocence I think he's a winning personality because he had at least 20 character witnesses come testify on his behalf I think it is a sociopath when I was testifying I did look at me and stared just kind of stared at me it was his intimidation I had no problem looking at him looking right back at him as the case went to the jury no one felt 100% confident did you ever feel this was a slam-dunk case against that graph oh heck no no it was not a slam-dunk case it was a circumstantial case almost no case is slam dunk look at OJ Simpson he should have been convicted and they let him go after hearing three weeks of testimony and spending only four hours deliberating the jury came back with the verdict when the jury said the guilty verdict it was it was just the relief it was some peace guilty ed was convicted of capital murder the sentence life in prison he narrowly escaped death unlike Joby and Jason and that's where the story would normally end not this one graphs case is being reexamined and so are others in which defendants were sent to prison for setting fires based on expert testimony about burn patterns or charring that is now considered suspect 22 years after ed Graff went to prison the Innocence Project partnered with the Texas State Fire Marshal's Office to conduct a review of previous arson convictions at Graf's case was one of the cases the Innocence Project believed warranted attention if the original investigators had looked at the photographs objectively and seen they would have seen that there was not any forensic evidence there to support their conclusions two years later the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said the scientific testimony used to find EDF guilty of arson has been proved false I was at some of the hearings it was just sort of like opening the wounds again Clare's heart nearly stopped after 25 years behind bars and Graf was granted a new trial all I can tell you listen you know I didn't I didn't do it coming up for Claire justice for Joby and Jason had become a never-ending fight there was a hush over the room we knew knowing ed we knew there was a plan Claire Bradburn thought justice had been served for the tragic and shocking deaths of her two young boys nine-year-old jovi and eight year old Jason I love them and I treated her I'm trying to treat him like long it's a terrific loss all those things especially all at one time it's a heavy burden her ex-husband ed Graf jr. was sentenced to life in prison for the appalling crime burning down the family shed with his two stepsons inside in an exclusive prison interview at Graff spoke with John Carroll from our affiliate kW TX you didn't put the boys in there forcefully close the doors either lock it padlock it or whatever and start the fire no sure and you didn't you didn't kill Jason and Jovi no sir but in a cruel twist of fate that graph was granted a new trial after the fire science used to help convict him in the first trial was deemed junk science [Music] trial number two was going to be full of twists and turns and would have an outcome nobody could have imagined McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna new retrying graph was going to be tough but he was ready essentially what you've done is taken a case that was originally an arson case and basically you're pulling it out and just making it a murder case you're now relying on purely circumstantial evidence but there was a lot of it and I felt confident that we have the ability to obtain a conviction on mr. Graff for murder the prosecution may have felt good about the circumstantial evidence but the fire testimony this go-around looked like a win in the defense's column fire investigator Thomas Singh was originally brought in during the appellate stage I was hard but in the Clinton County DA's office they were reviewing that Edward Graff case I analyzed that fire the DA subsequently did not call me to the court but Walter Reeves the defense attorney did Singh said in his report that because the shed had been taken away the night of the fire and investigators worked only from photographs there was no way to conclude if the door had been opened closed or even where in the shed the fire started Singh also said there were multiple reasons for how the fire could have started and why the boys didn't get out all of which brought him to rule the fires cause undetermined you shouldn't be able to someone on speculation I think you did it personally I do not and with that graph still proclaiming his innocence the defense decided to stick with the same script the boys accidentally set the fire Farina and his team the fight to keep Graff locked up was personal I'm a twin Jason and Joby reminded me they remind me constantly of my brother I think that was always in the back of my mind his brothers would not have laid down and let each other die and that's the that's a garbage to that graph wanted the world to believe after two weeks of testimony the case went to the jury a few hours later a note was sent out saying that the jury was deadlocked 10:00 to 2:00 was it 10 to 2 to convict or 10 to 2 to acquit with lengthy deliberations and the possibility of a hung jury the defense team started negotiating a plea deal then as the verdict was about to be handed to the bailiff something happened that sent shockwaves through the courtroom there was a hush over the room we knew knowing ed we knew there was a plan and was there ever a plan ed Graff changed his plea from not guilty to guilty admitted for the first time he killed Joby and Jason the judge sentenced Graff to 260 year prison terms to run concurrently the possibility of a deadlocked jury and having to come do this all over again in another year and I think he just made the decision to enter a plea now and end it it's what everybody had been hoping to hear for a very long time the feeling that the courtroom had when Ed Graff finally admitted guilt to me was a career moment because Graff had lied to the world for three decades ed graphs biological son who had been a baby at the time of his brother's murders took to the stand to talk directly to graph you are not a father you're not a man may God have mercy on your soul could no one on this earth should despite the feeling of relief there was about to be a second detonation of shock waves from Graf's plea of guilt just two weeks after confessing to killing his two stepsons Edie Braff walked out of prison a free man by admitting guilt Graff was able to take advantage of a little-known Texas loophole called the mandatory release law Claire's worst nightmare became a reality part of the plea for Edie was not only that he confessed to murdering jovi and Jason part of the package was that he would be able to get credit for the years that he had already served so that he would be eligible for mandatory release mandatory release law it was enacted primarily to help alleviate prison overcrowding the Texas law states of a felon committed a violent offense between 1977 and 1987 that person can be released from prison after time served and goodtime credits total at least the third of their initial sentence there was nothing that can be done to prevent the automatic release of a double murderer of two young children and if that doesn't hit home for you as to the serious nature and the flaws of this law I don't think anything else will some wonder if Ed Graff fully knew if he pleaded guilty he would quickly grab himself a get-out-of-jail-free card if it was a strategic move then it was a good one because the jury was going to return a guilty verdict prosecutors aren't buying it and say ed grabs release is not only an injustice it's a license to kill I feel that I grab will always be a danger to society I mean when you really think about the moments when he's putting them in the shed and he's killing them I don't think you can ever fully trust someone who's capable of doing that Graff is that a prison but he couldn't escape all crime watch daily cameras when we tracked him down in Kerrville Texas on his way to work ed Graff Jason Mattera with crime watch a daily how does it feel to be a free man get out your face how come you haven't shown any remorse why did you kill those boys mr. Graff don't you think you should give Claire closure mr. Graff come on we know you hear us don't you think you should give some sort of an explanation why you killed Jason and Joby why'd you burn the shed Claire will always live with the pain of losing her boys words can't express how much I miss the voice my children are buried here but they are with me every day there's a part of her that feels responsible I have guilt over the fact that I brought the boys into a marriage with the sky and they called him their father and he turned on them like a like a viper and now in Kerrville Texas a confessed killer walks free if there's one thing I could say to add is that his true judgment has not come that he will be judged again one day for his deeds

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 4,533,933

Keywords: Crime Watch Daily, True Crime Daily

Id: NFokaVcwF0w

Length: 20min 22sec (1222 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 10 2018