Todd Willingham: Ex-wife says convicted killer confessed

The former wife of a man whose 2004 execution in Texas has become a source of controversy has said he admitted setting the fire that killed their three daughters during a final prison meeting just weeks before he was put to death, according to a Texas newspaper.

Stacy Kuykendall, the ex-wife of Cameron Todd Willingham, said in a statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published Sunday that Willingham told her he was upset by threats to divorce him after the new year. The fire that killed the couple's three girls was Dec. 23, 1991.

Her last threat to divorce him, she said in a statement, occurred the night before the fire.

"He said if I didn't have my girls I couldn't leave him and that I could never have Amber or the twins with anyone else but him," according to the statement from Kuykendall to the newspaper.

Willingham went to his death proclaiming his innocence.

And over the years, she has offered differing accounts.

A Tribune investigation in 2004 showed the indicators of arson that fire officials used had been disproved by scientific advances and no longer were valid.

The first word of a confession came just before the execution, when Kuykendall's brother signed an affidavit in which he said that she told the family that, during the prison visit about two weeks before the execution in 2004, Willingham made a confession.

But in a story in the local newspaper after the prison visit, she made no mention of a confession. In fact, she told the paper Willingham stuck to his story about his actions during the fire.

In a brief interview at her home in 2004, Kuykendall told the Tribune Willingham never made such an admission. She confirmed that this year to a reporter from the New Yorker magazine.

Her statement that he confessed -- and that he said he set the fire because she threatened to divorce him -- also conflicts with other accounts that she has provided.

Eight days after the fire, in an interview with fire investigators and police, Kuykendall said that she and Willingham had not argued for at least two weeks and she made no mention of a threat the night before the fire to divorce him.

On that night, she told authorities, the couple went to a Kmart and picked up family photographs that she intended to give as Christmas presents.

She failed to mention a threat of divorce in a second interview as well, and under oath at the punishment phase of Willingham's trial said he never would have hurt their three girls.

Kuykendall could not be reached for comment.

Source: Chicago Tribune, Oct. 26, 2009