But this logical error, this non sequitur, was a driving factor in the investigation and prosecution of the murder of Tammy Lohr. Prosecutor Stan Levco took great pains to emphasize that several witnesses did not see smoke before Patrick Bradford arrived and reported a fire at Tammy's house. The argument he advanced was that if the fire and smoke had been present as Patrick reported-light smoke rising from roof vents-then somebody would have seen it before him.
Such evidence is not necessarily irrelevant, but logic requires that much more be taken into consideration. What did all the witnesses report, and what were the conditions under which their observations were made? With sufficient data, some reliable conclusions can be drawn. Following is a timeline with synopses of witness observations.
TIMELINE
5:30-6:00 AM:
(Stacy Moser) Neighbor in house, one block west, smelled smoke (Pet. Exh. 28, p.4; Exh. 29, p.3)
6:15-6:20 AM:
(Ronetta Smith) Commuter in car--north on Boeke past 1106--, saw no smoke.
Not looking "in particular" (1183-1190).
(Terry Rickard) Commuter in car--north on Boeke from Washington--saw no smoke.
Attention at street level: "looked both ways" for traffic (1191-1200).
6:25-6:30 AM:
--6:25--
(David Coleman) Commuter in car--south on Boeke past 1106--saw nothing unusual.
No special attention to 1106 (1202-1208).
--6:26--
(Joyce Martin) ATM user in car--Boeke and Bayard Park--didn't notice smoke anywhere.
(1218-1220)
--6:28--
(Gerald Johnson) Paper carrier on foot--1106 S. Boeke (scene of fire)--smelled wood smoke.
(2930-2960).
--6:30--
(Randy Baugh) Commuter in car--Boeke and Washington--saw no smoke.
Attention focused at street level, on other vehicle at intersection (1055-1117).
6:33 AM:
(David Steward) Commuter in car--North on Boeke past 1106--saw no smoke.
Tree-lined street; custom-tinted upper windshield (1138-1149).
6:35 AM:
(James Lofton) Neighbor on foot--in front of 1106--saw no smoke.
Very elderly; said "it could have been there, I wasn't looking" (1177-79).
Did not look up at eaves or vents (1177).
(Patrick Bradford) In car--S. on Boeke from Washington--saw haze of smoke at roof level.
Didn't notice column of smoke above house until arrival (2481-3410-13).
(Nancy Satterfield) Commuter in car--S. on Boeke past 1106--saw no smoke.
Saw Officer Bradford; "main focus" was looking around for a police car.
Didn't look up to roof, eaves, or vents (1229-1263).
6:36 AM:
(Linda Allen) Jogger--Boeke North of Powell--saw smoke above the trees (907-918, 2282).
(Sue Bengert) Jogger--Boeke North of Powell--saw smoke column up in the air.
"Very dark, black-looking, and so thick" (922-932, 2282).
6:38 AM:
(Michael Dietsche) Commuter in car--North on Boeke past 1106--saw smoke coming from front door.
"That's the only place I observed smoke" (933-938).
(Kenneth Taylor) Responding officer--Boeke and Washington--saw smoke in the air above house.
Upon arrival, didn't see smoke column rising from vents (956-981).
(William Schaefer) Responding officer--Washington west of Boeke--saw smoke rising above treetops.
Upon arrival, didn't notice smoke column rising from vents (983-996).
6:39 AM:
(Jennifer Greenwell) Neighbor in house--Across from 1106--saw officer at front door.
Saw smoke from door and eaves, did not see smoke column above house,
(939-946)
6:40 AM:
(Ryan Rizen) Responding officer--Boeke South of Lloyd-- saw smoke column in sky (997-1020).
6:41 AM:
(Randy Baugh) Responding fireman--Washington at Ross Center--saw smoke above house.
"dark, thick column" (1055-1117).
6:43 AM:
FIRE EXTINGUISHED (1116)
6:50 AM:
Smoke still coming out after extinguishment (1142)
6:55 AM:
(Nancy Satterfield) Commuter in car--Boeke and Washington--saw no smoke or emergency vehicles (1229-1263).
Bearing in mind that it is faulty logic to conclude that something necessarily does not exist before it is seen, the following conclusions are sound:
I. The fire was detected before Patrick's arrival
While it is technically true that nobody reported seeing smoke before Patrick's arrival, at least two people smelled it. Ms. Moser, a block away, smelled smoke between 5:30 and 6:00 AM. This might be written off as coincidence, but it would be a huge coincidence, given the significance of the event that would be discovered just a half-hour later.
The odds against mere coincidence become insurmountable with a second witness to smell smoke, not a block away, but standing at the corner of the house where the bedroom burned, Mr. Johnson, the paper carrier, reported smelling wood smoke there at around 6:28, 7-8 minutes before Patrick's arrival.
II. Non-sightings are all but irrelevant
Following Levco's logic, a huge column of dense smoke must have appeared and disappeared several times. The distinct column was seen by the joggers from two blocks away above tall trees at 6:36. Then, at approximately 6:38 when the joggers had made it all the way past the house, Mr. Dietsche did not see it as he approached on Boeke--not even after he became aware that the house was on fire!
Officers Taylor and Schaefer saw the smoke above the trees on approach on Washington, but didn't notice the column rising from the roof vents after they arrived. Ms. Satterfield, driving by just after Patrick arrived, didn't see smoke. But she also didn't see either smoke or any emergency vehicles from a stoplight at Boeke and Washington at 6:55, when smoke was over the whole neighborhood and police cars and fire trucks littered the street all the way up to Washington.
Even Patrick reported first seeing only a haze at roof level, not noticing the distinct smoke column until pulling up to the house.
III. It appears that drivers' observations were impaired
Nobody who was in a vehicle saw the smoke unless they were already alerted to the fire and/or house (responding police and firemen). By contrast, three out of four witnesses on foot detected smoke, though none of these had been otherwise alerted. (The one exception being the very elderly Mr. Lofton).
Two probable explanations are:
- A vehicle roof obstructs upward vision.
- As several of the commuters explained (and for the rest, it can be inferred) their attention was at street level, and/or they had no reason to look at or above the house.
No witness who did not see smoke reports having looked where the smoke might be: above the house, on the roof, under the eaves.
IV. The report of the joggers is actually an account of smoke before Patrick's arrival.
The two joggers' sightings of a dense column of smoke above the trees were at 6:36. This was about one minute after Patrick's radio report of the fire. However, the fire obviously had to have been burning well before then for enough smoke to have escaped through the one-inch bedroom door opening to be seen in such density from such a distance.
Although this is intuitively obvious, it has been scientifically proven. Don Belles, a prominent fire scientist (ret.), calculated the time and mass it would take to produce such a column visible above the 75' treeline. It would be many times longer than the present one-minute interval. These calculations were solidly verified in full-scale fire testing. Several minutes into the precisely recreated fire, only light wisps of smoke are seen escaping the test house (video-documented).
The joggers' sightings unmistakably establish that the fire was initiated before Patrick's arrival.
This has been an exercise in simple logic. But even simple logic can be obscured and twisted by a skilled and unscrupulous rhetorician. Stan Levco lobbed one such fallacy after another past a not-too-bright jury. His success was a failure of both logic and justice.
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