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The Case of Deborah Nicholls
📻 Episode #331
🎙️ Hosted by Maggie Freleng
📅 Feb 06, 2023
About This Episode
One evening in March, 2003, a fire broke out in Deborah Nicholls' Colorado Springs, CO home, killing her three children. Her husband suffered significant burns, but escaped. After a 2-year investigation, it was determined that the fire was not accidental, and that Deborah and her husband started it for the insurance money. The trial was…
The Case
One evening in March, 2003, a fire broke out in Deborah Nicholls' Colorado Springs, CO home, killing her three children. Her husband suffered significant burns, but escaped. After a 2-year investigation, it was determined that the fire was not accidental, and that Deborah and her husband started it for the insurance money. The trial was a battle of the experts – one presenting the junk science of arson evidence, one asserting that the science was outdated. The former triumphed, and Deborah was sent to prison for the murder of her children. Maggie speaks to Deborah Nicholls, Deborah's father, Douglas Baumgardner, and Deborah's attorneys, Anne-Marie Moyes, Director of the Korey Wise Innocence Project and Kathleen Lord, Staff Attorney at the Korey Wise Innocence Project.
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/149-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-arson-evidence/
https://www.colorado.edu/outreach/korey-wise-innocence-project/
https://giving.cu.edu/fund/korey-wise-innocence-project-fund
District Attorney John Newsome:
https://www.denverpost.com/2009/01/15/former-springs-da-cited-for-official-misconduct-for-misusing-funds
In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:04:31“Speaker 1: She recognized the song right away. Speaker 2: You Are My Shining Star, which is one of my Speaker 2: favorite songs in like eighth grade. And he was really Speaker 2: cute and he was new and I had never seen Speaker 2: him before, and I was like, hey, that's one of”
00:17:45“Speaker 2: a shift to losing my whole little family. Speaker 1: Deb and Tim had lost their children, their home, and Speaker 1: everything they owned, and as they struggled with their grief, Speaker 1: their marriage was deteriorating. Speaker 2: We weren't doing well at all. Actually, our souls were broken.”
00:30:20“Speaker 8: So the main thing that we've done is brought on Speaker 8: new leading experts in fire science to explain the changes Speaker 8: in fire science that have taken place since the time Speaker 1: And not only that, in the time since the trial happened, Speaker 1: the state's expert, John Dehn, has been discredited.”
Listen to the Episode
🎧 Listen on Omny / the podcast's platforms
🎧 Full episode page — Lava for Good
📺 Video referenced in this episode: Watch on YouTube
Resources & links from the episode:
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Also on the podcast: #587 Deborah Nicholls