Cameron Todd Willingham had been on death row for 12 years when he said his final words, strapped to a Texas lethal injection table.
"The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit," he said.
Minutes later, he would be dead.
The 36-year-old had been convicted of setting his Corsicana home on fire two days before Christmas in 1991.
His three daughters — two-year-old Amber Louise and one-year-old twins Karmen Diane and Kameron Marie — died in the blaze.
Five years after his execution, state officials would order an investigation into claims of arson, and Willingham's family would plead for his exoneration.
His stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, was determined.
"He wouldn't plead guilty," she told a documentary in 2014.
"He was very adamant. He said they could kill him right then and there."
'Where are the babies?'
Amber, Karmen and Kameron were home with their father when the fire broke out on December 23, 1991.
Stacey Kuykendall, Willingham's then-wife and the mother of all three girls, had gone out to buy Christmas presents at a local Salvation Army.
Willingham said he had been asleep when the fire started.
Neighbours rushed to help after noticing smoke pouring from the home and hearing Willingham "screaming".
"I said, 'where are the babies?' [and] he said that Amber woke him up, and the house was full of smoke," neighbour Mary Barbe later testified.
"[He said] she jumped off the bed. He couldn't find her, and he run out.
"Then when [the house] blew up, of course, I knew there wasn't anything we could do."
Willingham, shirtless and covered in soot, ran to the side of the house and moved his car "back into the driveway" to stop the flames from spreading.
Witnesses said he did not try to go back into the house to find the girls.
Prosecutors alleged he had deliberately started the blaze by pouring a combustible liquid onto the floor of the children's room and down the hall.
Willingham's legal team argued the fire could have been started by an oil lantern kept in the front hall.
Willingham declined a life sentence, which was offered to him in exchange for a guilty plea.
It took the jury a little more than an hour to come back with a unanimous guilty verdict.
On February 17, 2004 he had his last meal — barbecued pork ribs, onion rings, three enchiladas and two slices of lemon crème pie — and was taken to the Walls Unit of the Texas State Penitentiary.
The execution chamber, one of the most active in the entire United States, is a small room measuring 2.7 metres by 3.7 metres.
The walls are mint green, and a gurney is set in the middle.
That Tuesday night, Willingham proclaimed his innocence for a final time, then turned to address Ms Kuykendall, watching on from an adjoining viewing room.
"I hope you rot in hell, bitch," he told his ex-wife, then repeated the phrase several times.
He was pronounced dead at 6:20pm.
Texas death penalty figures should cause 'serious alarm'
There are 174 people facing the death penalty in Texas right now, including some who have been waiting decades for their sentence to be carried out.
The oldest among them is Harvey Earvin who was still a teenager when he was convicted of killing an employee during a robbery in 1976.
Inmates wait an average of just over 11 years on death row before execution.
Texas has executed 591 people since it adopted lethal injection in 1976.
Willingham was one of 10 Texas death row inmates executed since then who, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre, had strong evidence of innocence.
In February, 50-year-old Ivan Cantu was executed despite a campaign by former jurors, celebrities and politicians calling for witness testimony and evidence to be re-examined.
A request for a stay of execution was denied.
Two Texas death row inmates in the last year were given court rulings of "actual innocence".
Melissa Lucio, 56, convicted of murdering her two-year-old daughter in 2008, is still waiting for a judge to overturn her conviction after it was found key evidence had been suppressed.
The other, Kerry Max Cook, had been convicted for the sexual assault and murder of a 21-year-old woman in 1977.
After 20 years on death row, he was exonerated and released in June.
Kristin Cuellar, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP), said the decisions should raise "serious alarms".
"They also demonstrate just how many obstacles stand in the way of truth and justice," she said.
"Innocent people should not have to rely on this kind of unprecedented, eleventh-hour intervention to prevent their unjust execution."
[support]Ms Cuellar told the ABC while she believed executions would remain low in Texas and nationwide, there was a risk executions could resume where they had been halted.
"My biggest concerns are that the death penalty will continue to be pursued in an arbitrary manner that has more to do with geography than the circumstances of the crime itself," she said.
"[And] that individuals who have been on death row for decades will face execution for crimes without due process.
"We know that trials that took place decades ago were plagued by egregious flaws.
"Post-conviction appeals have raised troubling concerns about the evidence used in their convictions and death sentences, but most of the issues raised in those appeals are never addressed by any court.
"We have a judicial system that prioritises finality over fairness."
Did Willingham really start the fire?
Months after Willingham's execution, an investigative report by the Chicago Tribune questioned the forensic analysis used in the case.
The newspaper's investigation revealed Texas judges and the state's then-governor had dismissed a report by a fire scientist which questioned the conviction.
The Innocence Project then issued a 48-page report, concluding none of the analysis used to convict Willingham was valid.
[innocents]An arson review panel also commissioned by the Innocence Project in 2006 concluded the evidence found at the scene — alleged "pour patterns", signs of "abnormal" heat, and multiple areas of origin — did not prove the fire was deliberately lit.
"Fire investigators [in 1991] were generally law enforcement officers or fire marshals whose job was to 'catch arsonists,'" the report said.
"They learned to 'recognise arson' from their experienced mentors, and by attending weekend seminars involving 'test' fires … that were not allowed to burn beyond flashover.
"The significant lack of understanding in the behaviour of fire … can and does result in significant misinterpretations of fire evidence, unreliable determinations and serious miscarriages of justice [in alleged arson cases]."
In 2009, Willingham's former wife Kuykendall released a statement claiming he had secretly confessed to her shortly before his execution.
"He told me he believed I was going to [divorce him] but he couldn't let that happen," she told the Star-Telegram newspaper.
"[He] told me that it was stupid but it was like an obsession … I could never have Amber or the twins with anyone else but him.
"He told me he was sorry and that he hoped I could forgive him one day."
Her statement contradicted her previous statements made to the media, in interviews and in letters to public officials and Willingham's legal team.
Willingham's stepmother, Eugenia, told the same newspaper the following week she didn't believe the claim.
"Every time we think the truth is finally coming to light, a new twist reopens old wounds," she said.
More questions would be raised in 2014, relating to a jailhouse informant who was a key witness at trial.
Inmate Johnny Webb testified Willingham had confessed to killing his children while the two were incarcerated together.
The Innocence Project claimed a handwritten note found on the district attorney's documents suggested Webb, accused of robbery, had been given a reduced charge in exchange for the information.
Webb told the jury he had not been given any incentive to testify.
Webb told criminal justice outlet The Marshall Project in 2014 Willingham "never told me nothing".
As Trump's second term begins, more than 2,000 await the death penalty
There are 2,168 people on death row across the 27 states which allow capital punishment.
There are just three men left on federal death row.
On the day of his inauguration, Mr Trump ordered his attorney general to seek the death penalty for all capital crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, as well as all federal capital crimes involving the murder of a law enforcement officer.
He also directed the attorney general to "take all appropriate action" to overrule Supreme Court rulings which would "limit the authority of state and federal governments to impose capital punishment".
It was something he repeatedly indicated he would do during his 2024 campaign.
"We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," he said.
More than a dozen federal inmates were executed during his first term, including the first woman in almost 70 years and the only Native American on death row.
A Death Penalty Information Center review found the Trump administration had conducted more executions in the four months leading up to the 2020 election than any president in almost 80 years.
In December 2024, President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 federal death row inmates, reducing them to life in prison without parole.
"I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level," he said.
In the same statement, he also suggested the incoming Trump administration was part of his reasoning behind the commutations.
On his return to the White House, Mr Trump directed the attorney general to "evaluate the places of imprisonment and conditions of confinement for each of the 37 murderers whose federal death sentences were commuted by President Biden".
"And the Attorney General shall take all lawful and appropriate action to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose," his executive order states.
Biden added that "in good conscience" he could not stand back and let a new administration "resume executions I halted".
In Texas, another father awaits execution
Waiting in the same facility where Willingham met his end is another man whose guilt has been called into question.
For more than 20 years, Robert Roberson has been on death row for the murder of his two-year-old daughter.
In January 2002, Roberson rushed his daughter, Nikki Curtis, to an emergency room in the Texas town of Palestine.
She was not breathing, and her skin was blue.
Roberson had only recently been granted custody of his daughter, who had been living with her maternal grandparents, after undergoing DNA testing.
He said he had gone to sleep with her and woken up in the morning to find her lying face down on the floor, having fallen out of bed.
[the innocence project]He later told police she had blood on her lips and a bruise on her chin, stating he wiped her mouth before they went back to bed.
When the alarm went off a few hours later, he said, she wouldn't wake up.
"[I] grabbed her face and shook it to wake her up," he said.
"Then when she wouldn't wake up, I slapped her face a couple of times … I don't know what caused the head injury. She is a clumsy child. She stumbles and falls sometimes."
Hospital staff were suspicious of Roberson, who they described as unemotional and uncaring.
Roberson was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the years following his incarceration.
His strange behaviour and the "triad" of his daughter's internal symptoms led them to believe this was a case of "shaken baby syndrome".
The prosecution later stated there was evidence of bruising around her face, signs of a brain injury and bleeding in her eyes.
This, they argued, was not consistent with a fall.
Roberson was charged with capital murder and sentenced to death on February 21, 2003.
[state by state]Roberson's legal team has since argued his daughter was suffering from undiagnosed pneumonia.
She had also been prescribed, according to court documents, several medications which are no longer considered safe for children because of a risk of breathing issues.
She also allegedly had a history of health issues which meant she would suddenly stop breathing and collapse.
In the years since Roberson's conviction, there have been multiple disproved cases of shaken baby syndrome across the US.
In 2009, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended health officials should stop using the term entirely as more research into the condition was undertaken.
At least 32 parents and caregivers convicted of shaking their babies to death have been exonerated, according to the Innocence Project.
Roberson's case has gone on to garner widespread support from medical experts, anti-death penalty advocates, religious leaders, federal judges, and celebrities, including best-selling author John Grisham.
Among those still fighting for Roberson's freedom is the very police officer who helped put him behind bars.
"For over 20 years, I have thought that something went very wrong in Mr Roberson's case and feared that justice was not served," former assistant chief of police Brian Wharton said.
"I have come to believe that Nikki died of accidental and natural causes and that there was no crime.
"I am convinced that Mr Roberson is innocent."
For now, Roberson's fate still hangs in the balance.
His execution was scheduled for October 17, 2024, sparking 84 members of Texas' 150-member House of Representatives to sign a bid for clemency.
[protest tweet]All appeals, including one to the US Supreme Court, were denied.
A final stay of execution was granted 90 minutes before the execution was to take place, only to be overturned by an appeals court.
As the back and forth continued, Roberson waited in a cell adjacent to the execution chamber.
At 10pm that night, four hours after it was scheduled to take place, the Texas State Supreme Court approved the stay of execution.
A new execution date has yet to be scheduled.
