Rod Ammon: Welcome to the CFITrainer.Net Podcast. Today we welcome the IAAI Investigator of the Year, Captain Chase Hawthorne of the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal. He's here to discuss the fatal arson case that won him that award, and you're going to be pretty stunned by the level of detailed investigation that was required to chase down every twist in this story. Captain Hawthorne started his career as a fire inspector before moving into fire investigation. He currently is assigned to the special investigation unit where he conducts and supervises investigations including origin and cause determination, and follow-up criminal investigations involving arson related crimes in Louisiana. Captain Hawthorne is an IAAI FIT and IFSAC certified fire investigator, a NAPI CFI, and a fire inspector one and two. In addition to being named the IAAI Investigator of the Year, he is also one investigator of the year from the Louisiana Association of Fire Investigators and the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal. Captain Hawthorne, welcome to the podcast. It's great to meet you and congratulations on being named the IAAI Investigator of the Year.

Chase Hawthorne: Well, thank you, Rod.

Rod Ammon: So, this is quite a story. And as wild as it is, from what I've read, there's a lot to be learned from your experience. So, why don't you start out telling us about how you got involved in the case.

Chase Hawthorne: So, the case was March 20th, 2015. I was the supervisor on call at that time. The deputy that actually got the call out, he was fairly new and this would've been his first fatal fire to be the lead investigator. So, he called me about it and I told him I'd meet him there. While we're driving, he calls me back and says, "Hey, I found out this is a police chief's wife." And I said, "Okay." I said, "Was the police chief home?" And he says, "Yeah, he was home with her." And I said, "Okay, did he have any injuries?" And he said, "No, he's there." And I said, "Okay." I said, "Well, don't touch nothing until I get there because I want to make sure we cover everything." Get on scene, park in the road, there's emergency vehicles everywhere, there's concerned citizens, there's family members. I'm changing my boots, getting my stuff together. And the fire chief comes up to me and he starts talking about, "Hey, this is what we got. She's still in the room." As soon as we got the fire knocked down, I had all my guys back out. I said, okay. So, we go walking the scene, walk the exterior, but just looking at the exterior, all the fire damage is limited to one back left corner of the structure. Everything else is just a lot of heat and a lot of smoke. So, we enter through the carport door, which is going to be the front right corner, make it into the room of origin, which is also where the victim is located. And there's still a glow on the floor where all the smoldering wood and chars of everything that's left in the room, it's still just a low burn in that room. So, I photographed the room just as it was, the victim's still laying in the bed, her head on the pillow end of the bed. Of course the pillow in the edge of the bed is burned off, but the left side, she's on the right side of the bed. The left side of the bed is still intact. We photograph it just like it is. There's so much smoke in the room. The photos didn't come out that great, but that's the way I found it, so that's the way I documented it. I had the fire department come back in and fully extinguish the fire so we could work in it without getting overcome with smoke. So, get that done. While they're getting all the smoke and they put fans in it, ventilated it. While they're getting the smoke and stuff out of the house, I go around because I don't know who the police chief is. I've never met him. So, I go around talking with the sheriff's office and the fire department there. They introduce me to him. I tell him I'm sorry for his loss. As we're talking, he has just a different demeanor about him. He's concerned if she got out of bed and all this stuff. And I said, "Well, we'll talk about it later." So, then I start asking him about the details of the night. "Hey, what was she doing before?" So, this fire is at 2:08 in the morning, that's the 911 time. So, "Hey, what was y'all doing before you went to bed?" And so, he was telling me just a verbal that they'd went on a ride. She had been sick, throwing up. They went and got some stuff at the store. They tried to watch a movie and they fell asleep on the couch. And I said, okay. So, then by this time, I just got a quick verbal story of what had happened prior to. So, fire department gets the fire out, we start working the scene. So, we go in documenting everything that's in the room of origin. All my fire is the right side of the bed near her head. Foot of the bed still intact. Dresser is still intact. It's got heat damage to it, but it's still there. The post footboard and headboard on the right side of the bed are burned down. So, the bed's at an angle. The left side, the footboard and headboard are still intact. So, the bed's cockeyed. And so, we document it. We call the coroner, we were photographing her. So, on her right side between two of her ribs, there is a distinctive hole. And that distinctive hole has got a steady drip stream of blood coming out. Which is odd because most fatals, the fire singes and you don't have a leak like that. You may have it at an eye, mouth, nose, but you normally don't have it right in the middle of a rib cage. So, it just looks odd. So, we process the body and we triangulate it. Coroner comes, we turn the body over to the coroner, request the autopsy, they're going to conduct that the next day. At that point, the guy that was actually going to be his fire, at this time, I'm realizing this is going to turn into something because the circumstances are not adding up. And so, I tell the guy that was going to be his fire, I said, "Hey, you probably won't let me take this. It's going to turn into something." And so, he was not opposed to that because like I say, he was brand new. He had just got his canine certification. And so, he was okay with it. So, we get everybody out of the house, we run the canine, the canine alerts beside the bed and at the foot of the bed. We collect samples, turn them into the lab. They later come back to no known accelerants. So, that question come in at that point is what are the known accelerants? That way we can see if we can find something that is not known. But they couldn't give us a complete list. So, there was something there, but they couldn't tell us what it was. So, we had negative samples. So, we finished processing the room, digging it out. We sifted the whole room, we shoveled it. We found a recliner that was in the corner. We found a lamp that was at the head of the bed, processed the lamp out. It was one of the tall lamps that plugs in. It's like the old halogen kind of lamps. It wasn't even plugged up. So, the cord, actual end of the cord was stuck in a rug. So, it was never even plugged up. So, we keep sifting, digging. We found some round glass like you would have those little glade candles, but there was no wax in them. There was nothing left. We never found cigarette butts. We didn't find ashtray. It's just an odd situation. So, we finished that whole room. We found a duty belt. We found casings that had popped on the sides. We found parts of pistol mags, but we never found a pistol. Which was odd because he's the police chief. And so, we kept processing, I'm sorting everything out. I found this pepper spray can. We're sticking everything to the side as we're sorting. We sifted the whole room on the right side of the bed because that's where our fire was. So, we found no causes, nothing on that side, no ignition sources that would've started our fire, other than the possible round glass that could have been a drinking glass, and it could have been a glade glass. We just never found any wax. So, finished processing it. While I'm in the room, it's probably three of us in the room. We have a light outside the house and the light is shining through the window because this is a small house. So, the total house was maybe 900 square feet, and that's a two bedroom, one bath. A very small house. So, this room we're working in I think was only a 10 by 11, nine by 11, something like that. So, it's super small. And this is a queen-size bed in this room. So, the light is outside the house and I see the light move. When I see the light move, I turn around and look and he's standing in the window and I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I just wanted to see." I said, "Get out of my crime scene." And when I tell him that, he just loses it, "Why are you calling it a crime scene?" So, then I leave the room and I said, "Get out." So, the fire chief is behind him. Like I say, "I've never met this guy. I didn't know he was the assistant fire chief. I didn't know him and the fire chief are good friends." So, the fire chief's name was Clint. I said, "Clint, get him out of my fire scene." And so, I walk through the house, go out the front door, I meet him at the front and I said, "Get out of my fire scene." I said, "This is a crime scene until I can figure out what happened." And so, he goes into the, "Why are you calling it a crime scene?" I said, "Because I don't know what happened to her." And so, "You think I've done something to her?" I said, "I'm not saying that." I said, "But until I can figure this out, it's a crime scene for me." So, at that point, I'm trying to give him something to do. So, I said, "Hey, why don't you give me a written statement?" So, I went and got written statement, blank written statements out of my truck, bring them back, give them to him. And I said, "You give me a written statement and that'll keep your mind off of things until I can get done." So, at this time, another good friend of his pulls up who is a police officer in a neighboring community. So, he says, "I'll help him." I said, "Okay." So, they go off and they're doing the written statement. So, I continue to work the scene, me and these other two guys. And like I say, we went through the entire right side of that room. The left side of the room was still intact, still had paneling on the wall, the right side. So, all my fires on the right side. So, we went through everything. We didn't find anything. So, we finished the house, we documented it, we went through, we photographed the doors. The back door had been kicked in the door casing is busted. The carport door had been kicked in. The door casing is busted. His police radio, which is direct line to 911 center, is going off. It's at the back door on the counter and all the pages are coming through it, so we can hear everything that's coming through on the page. We work the thing, we documented all. We noticed the back door, there's a water hose that hooks to the right side of the door. If you go out the back door, you step over that water hose every time you go in and out. So, water hose is connected to the house and it's just run out in the yard. So, go around the house. Like I say, no fire damage on the outside of the house at all except for the back left corner, my room of origin. And I have high heat and ventilation from the fire venting out the windows. There's two windows in this room and there are one on each corner. So, the only fire damages is above the windows. And the roof of that room, the ceiling had burned completely through and the roof had burned completely through. So, the house had those-

Rod Ammon: it's really hot

Chase Hawthorne: That's right. It's all concentrated. So, the house had-

Rod Ammon: I think you had said that the rest of the house was intact, correct?

Chase Hawthorne: That's right. The rest of the house was intact. You had high heat, so you had some charring at the roof lines and down maybe a foot. The wall between the bedroom, it backed up to the back of the kitchen wall. That wall had burned through just because of the heat in that room. This house had wood paneling in the whole thing. So, that neighboring wall had burned through, but the rest of the house was just high heat. And so, the house had the styrofoam ceiling tiles. They stay flown and their styrofoam. Normally they're like a Masonite type material, but these are styrofoam. So, when the fire got going, those quickly burned away, which let the fire vent straight up. The flames were hitting the roof deck and it burned a hole straight through the roof deck.

Rod Ammon: I'm going to stop you for a second because one thing I wanted to say right off the bat was I really love the team spirit. The fact that you came out there with somebody who was new to the job. The fact that he called you, that he let you take over the case, and I'm guessing worked with you on it. That's a great part of the story to start out with. And I really liked the idea that you gave him a statement to write, the deputy chief. I think that was pretty ingenious to get something right away and also get yourself some space. So, I'm going to try to carry this along in the order that I'm remembering it. How did the husband become a person of interest?

Chase Hawthorne: So, him and her were the only people in the house prior to the fire. So, they didn't live there alone. She had two kids and he had two kids. Her two kids live with them, but they were gone to the biological father's house. They were supposed to come home that night, but he called. That was a little later on in the story. But he had called the stepmother and said that she was sick throwing up and he was going to bring them to her mother's house. This was going to be the night before. So, the fire was early Saturday morning. This was going to be on Friday afternoon, the kids were supposed to come home. And he brought them to her mother's house instead of bringing him home because he said she was throwing up. So, he was making sure the house was empty. Just the circumstances, the stories that he was telling me, it just didn't make sense. So, he was my main person of interest from the start. It's just because of the way he was carrying himself, the way he was talking. He wasn't really concerned and distraught about losing her. He was just there. They was all there just working a regular fire scene because he is assistant fire chief. And so, it just didn't come across. Like I say, I worked a lot of fatals. And usually the family members are just completely beside themselves. They're so upset you can't get a statement from them. I mean, they're crying, they're upset rightfully so, but this guy wasn't that way. He's just standing there, walking around looking. And so, I tried to justify it by him being a police chief. He's seen tragedy. He's seen bad things. Him being a fire chief, he's seen bad things. But I just couldn't justify why he was acting the way he was acting. And so, like I say, the statement was to try to get something in writing before he had time to try to figure out what was going on. Because he moved that light for some reason to look in that room where I was processing that scene to see what I was doing. So, like I say, just everything together just made it odd. And so, like I say, I was trying to just get all the information I could.

Rod Ammon: You said there were a lot of things that he had said that did or didn't add up from the beginning. Can you go through some of those?

Chase Hawthorne: So, whenever I get out of my vehicle, when I first get there, it's completely dark. I mean, this is a very rural road. There's no streetlights and it's completely dark. I parked beside a 18-wheeler. And so, I hear somebody in the darkness just crying and bellowing, and almost like it was a made up crying of bellow. Like one of your kids whenever they're getting in trouble and they don't want to get a butt whooping or something, and they just going off and I'm like, man, what is that? So, I'm continue to change my boots within out of the darkness, this guy steps out and he automatically stops crying. And so, I don't know who he is. I've never seen him. So, I continued to change my boots, get all my stuff together, my gear, gloves. And so, then I take off walking towards the house where the guy just stands there and watches me. Well, then later on, that's my victim, is the husband. That's my suspect. And so, I was like, man, that's odd. And so, then while I'm walking the exterior, the sheriff's office is there. They tell me the story that he had called 911 three times. And I said, okay. And then he made the statement, "Make sure that everybody knows that my duty rounds are in there and they're going off. I don't want nobody to accidentally get shot." And so, I said, well, that's really odd because if you're a fire chief you know that round just laying there is not going to do anything. And so, just the circumstances around it. The sheriff's office told me about previous domestic abuse between them. So, she was young. He was young. He has no type of injuries on him at all. He is fully clothed, socks, shoes, there's no burns to his arms. There's no soot on him. I mean he looked like he had just come from Walmart shopping. And so, I'm putting myself, and that's his situation. If that would've been me and that was my wife, I would've been burnt up myself trying to get her out and he had nothing. And so, like I say, just the circumstances around it, it's what led me to say I got to get something in writing from him.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, there was something also about him saying that he had been sick. Also, his bunker gear. What was up with that?

Chase Hawthorne: So, we finished the scene, we documenting, we photographed the carport, we photographed the doors because both doors were kicked in. There's an obvious footprint on the carport door. It's a white door. The back door is a brown door, so you couldn't see it as great. The carport door is a white door and there's a perfect footprint. Photograph the footprint, look to the right of the door. You could hold the doorknob and hold his bunker gear. So, I make sure we got a photograph of the bunker gear because it's literally right there. His police car is directly beside the carport. Photographed all that. Photographed the police car as we're working it. The keys are in the ignition of the police car. And this is a brand new police car. And so, that was odd to me that the keys would be in the ignition. So, just photograph and everything. We later on bring him down to the sheriff's office to get a statement from him. Let me back up a little bit. So, he brings me the written statement. So, then he brings me the written statement and there's no signature on it. And I said, "Okay, hey, sign this." And he said, "Well, I didn't write that." And I said, "Well, why didn't you write it? This is a written statement for you." He said, "Well, I was too upset. I couldn't write it." I said, "Okay." I said, "Read this statement, make sure it's accurate." He had his buddy that was the police officer from a neighboring community write the statement for him. He dictated it and the guy wrote it. And so, I said, "Read this statement and make sure it is exactly what you want it to say." And he said, "Okay." And I said, "Then sign it." And I said, "I'm going to have him sign it." And he said, "Okay." So, then we get that done. We go down to the sheriff's office. We interview him probably five hours. We had a Mirandizing. We interview him. He never really gets upset until we start accusing him, and then he gets defensive. And so, the interview was very lengthy. I told him we was going to collect his clothes. As soon as I tell him that we were going to collect his clothes, he immediately jumps up because the conversation was not about anything except for, "Hey, this is what we're going to do. We're going to document this entirely," because I didn't want anybody to ever say that I tried to show him any favoritism because him being a police officer. And so, I said, "We're going to collect your clothes. We're going to collect your phone." Well, he immediately goes on the defensive and he said, "Why do you want my clothes? Her DNA is going to be in my underwear because we had sex today." And I said, "Whoa, where did that come from?" I said, "We wasn't even talking about that." And I said, "But we'll come back to that in just a minute." So, we get his clothes. The room is recorded, so it's recording his injuries. He has no injuries on him. It's a small room. We don't smell smoke. We documented all that in our report. After we get his clothes, we get his phone. We go back to that and I said, "Hey, you're going to have to tell me how that works." I said, "Because she called in this morning and throwing up sick, and then you're telling me that you had sex with her." I was like, "How does that work? That don't happen at my house." I was like, "That don't make sense to me." And he said, "Well, it just happened." And I said, "Tell me how." And so, he's like, "What? Do you want me to go through it?" And I said, "Absolutely." And I said, "Because I don't see how that goes down." And so, he gives me a story that he was rubbing her back and then it happens. And I said, okay. So, then we keep going through the whole interview. Like I say, he never admitted to anything. He gives us statements of where they was prior to, which is different than what the written statement says. And so, I said, okay. So, we just documented all. So, I took all my notes and I transcribed them on the timeline because whenever he'd tell me he went somewhere, I'd say, "Hey, what time was that?" And he'd give me a time and I'd write it down. So, we went through the entire day before. So, this would've been Friday, fire was early Saturday morning. We went to his entire day. I wrote down every place he said he went approximate time that he said he was there. And I made a complete timeline of his whole day. Nobody talked to... Shelly is the victim's name. She's the one called in to work at 5:40 in the morning. That's the last person that talked to her that day. She didn't have a phone. He had taken her phone away from her and they only had one phone, which is his phone. So, somebody called, they called him and he would give her the phone. So, she was the jail supervisor at the sheriff's office. So, they would have questions throughout the day, "Hey, how do you want me to do this?" So, every time somebody would call, he wouldn't be home and he would say, "Hey, when I get home, I'd get her to call you back." Well then, he never called back. So, the whole day went on. The kids, he called the stepmother. The kids were at the father's house. They were supposed to come home that night. He called the stepmother and said, "Hey, Shelly's sick. I'm going to meet you to pick the kids up and I'm just going to bring them to her mama's house." Okay, well then, he is late getting to their meeting place and tells her, "I'm sorry I'm late. I had a broke a tooth. I was at the dentist." So, like I say, all this goes into my timeline. And I went back and I basically just picked his whole day apart. And it wasn't just me. It was a couple of our guys and the sheriff's office, because the sheriff's office is your biggest asset in a small town because they know all these street names and they all know all these places. So, we went back through and we picked apart everything he said, and almost nothing he said happened, happened the way he said it did. He never went to the dentist. Now, later on, he denies even telling the step-mama that he broke a tooth and everything. But I disagree with that. I think he did tell her that. So, we got cell phone records, we dumped his phone. We got all kinds of stuff off his phone as far as he was texting multiple other women, girls. He met up with an ex-wife in Natchitoches, which is about an hour and a half north of the town that he lives in. He tried to have sex with her in the car. This was going to be maybe a week before the fire. And she turned him down. She described their relationship as very toxic, and that he was abusive, and he would choke her out. He would get behind her and put her in a rear chokehold and choke her out. Sometimes she'd wake up, he had held a gun to her head, he would slap her. So, let me back up to the autopsy. So, day after they do an autopsy, the autopsy comes back. She has no smoke or soot in her lungs. Her high bone is still intact. But the forensic pathologist says that he can't rule out that she was smothered, or he puts his arm up to his neck like a rear chokehold, or that she was choked out in that manner because that would not damage the hide bone. And so, that's the information we know the next day. So, when we're interviewing ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, all but one describe him doing that exact thing to them. So, he's becoming our suspect even more and more every single day.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard a story with so many contradictions so fast. I had notes here that said that he claimed he vomited.

Chase Hawthorne: That's right. So, when we was at the scene, so we interview him for five hours at the sheriff's office. So, then while we're there, they have, it's a lie detector. It's called a DVSA, a Digital Voice Stress Analysis. So, one of the deputies at the sheriff's office is a... I'm trying to remember what they call not a person that's certified to do that. And so, I said, "Hey, would you be willing to take a DVSA?" And he said, "Absolutely." He said, "Just set it up for next week and I'll meet with Jeremiah." So, he knows all these people at the sheriff's office. And, "I'll meet with Jeremiah to do it." And I said, "Well, you're in luck. I said, because I'm certified to do it too. I got my computer in the truck, we'll do it right now." And then he said, "Well, wait a second. I really don't have time to do it right now. I need to go and make some funeral arrangements and everything." And I said, "Okay." So, I said, "Well, come on, let's go smoke." So, we go outside and smoke. And while we're outside smoking, I'm asking him questions, very, very basic, because we're not being recorded at this time. "Are you okay? Do you need anything? You hungry? You want anything?" And so, he's like, "No, I just need a cigarette." And so, I'm asking him about where something was located at the house. And he says, "Well, you want me to bring you back over there and show you?" And I said, "Do you have time?" Because he had just told me he didn't have time to do the DVSA. And he says, "Well, yeah, I got time." And I said, "Okay, let's go." So, we go back into the interview room, we set it up with the sheriff deputies, the patrol deputies to meet us over there with their body cams. And so, during the interview, I was asking him what they was doing prior to falling asleep. And he said, "We was watching a movie." And I said, "Well, what movie was y'all watching?" And he says, "I don't know, some movie." And I said, "What was the name of it?" And he's like, "I don't know." Because he was making this up as he went. And so, his mind couldn't think fast enough. And I said, "What was one person in the movie?" And he says, "I think it was Will Ferrell." I said, "Oh, okay." And he says, "Maybe it was that Step Brothers movie." And I said, okay. I said, that's fine. So, then we go through the DVSA thing, then we go back to the house. Well, right beside the TV, the top DVD is the Will Ferrell Stepbrothers movie. So, then the sheriff's office, the detective was in the interview. He looks in the DVD player and there's no movie in the DVD player. And so, we said, "Well, how was you watching a movie if there's no movie in the DVD player?" "Oh, we ordered one on the satellite dish network." And I said, "Oh, okay, well, that's fine." Well, then whenever the detective tried to look at the movie and the DVD player, he makes a joke. He says, "Hey, man, aren't we trying to steal my copper?" Now this is maybe seven hours after his wife died about 10 feet from us, and he's making a joke about stealing copper in the house. And so, like I say, it's all on the body cam. And so, the detective said, "Do what?" And so, he says it again and he's like, "Charles, I wouldn't be trying to steal your copper. I'm trying to figure out what happened to your wife." And so, he just went to making, just like I say, the guy was very odd in his responses. He had no remorse as far as she just died right there. Somebody that was truly distraught over losing a family member, somebody they loved is not going to be making jokes. I mean, you can see where we processed her because part of the wall is burned out. You can see straight through to where she was laying. And so, it was just an odd situation. So, then we start saying about vehicles, his cop car. And he said, "Well, my police car's out there, it's unlocked." And I said, "Oh, where's the keys?" I already knew the keys were in the ignition because I seen them. And he said, "Oh, they're in ignition." And I said, "You leave your cop car unlocked with the keys in the ignition?" He said, "Yeah, it's a good neighborhood." And I said, "Okay." So, I said, "Well, walk me through it." So, he tells me the couch is still there. The couch just has heat. The material had burned up on the top, but it's still intact. No fire damage. And so, he said, "I was laying on the couch." And I said, "Okay." I said, "Did you put your shoes on?" He said, "No, I had my shoes and everything on." I said, "Okay." I said, "Where was your cell phone?" He said, "It was in my pocket." I said, "So, you fell asleep, fully dressed with your cell phone in your pocket, and the keys to the car in your pocket, and the keys to your police car in the ignition?" "Yeah." And I said, "Okay." So, then he tells me, fire comes out. He wakes up to the taste of smoke, not the smell of smoke. He was very adamant he could taste it. And I said, okay. So, he said he slides off the couch, he looks at where she was last, which was literally he could have touched her foot. The couch and chair were so close together. He looks up and she's not there. So, he knows she went to the bedroom. So, he tries to crawl to the bedroom and the heat and smoke in the house was too much. I said, "Where'd you see fire?" "I didn't see any fire." I said, "Okay, what'd you do?" He gets up and he runs to the back door and goes out the back door. Now, he ran past the carport door to get to the back door, but maybe he was confused. And so, he goes out the back door. That's whenever he calls 911. The first time he tells 911, "Hey, my house is on fire." He keeps telling his name, "My name's Charles. Charles. My house is on fire. My wife's inside." And they're saying he's calling from a cell phone so they can't get his address. "Hey, who is this? What's your address?" And he don't ever respond to the address. And so, they're trying to get the information. He goes on, I think that first call was a minute long. Sounds like a long time, but in the moment, it's not really a long time. And so, he never gives him the address until the very end. And they finally figure out who he is and what the address is. And they said, "Okay, we're going." And he says, "I'm going back in the house, I'm going to get her out." Well then, he says, he goes back in the back door and he makes it to the bar. Now from the back door to the bar is only about five feet. And he said the smoke and heat was too much. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't do it. It was unbearable. And I said, "Where'd you see fire?" He said, "Didn't see fire." And he goes back out the back door, he calls 911 again. And said he tried to get her out but it's just too hot in there and too much smoke, and he can't see anything. And I said, "Where'd you see fire at?" He said, "I could see it in the back window." This would've been the bedroom window. And I said, "Okay." He said it was barely coming out at the very top. And I said, "Okay." So, he tells 911, he's going to go back in. So, this time he goes back in again, but he only gets in the back door. And he said it was too much. He comes back out. Now all this time he's stepping over a water hose that's already hooked up. And so, he said, he comes back out, he could hear the fire truck coming. He takes off running around the house to the road. He said he tripped. He throws up by the back corner of the house. So, when we go back to the house, I said, "Hey, where'd you throw up?" He said, "Right there." And I said, "Okay." So, then I took a picture, there's nothing there. When he comes around the front of the house, the fire truck is going to the end of the house where all the fires at. So, he said he tripped and falls by his police car and throws up again. So, I go over there, I make him point to it. I said, "Hey, where was it?" He said, "Right there." I take a picture right there. There's nothing there. So, when the fire truck stops, now he's the assistant fire chief. So, when the fire truck stops, he don't go help the fire truck get the hose, none of that. He says he goes to the carport door because he knows they're going to have to make entry into the house and he kicks the carport door in. And then after he kicks the door in, he was exhausted. So, he goes and sits on a bucket. And he has to catch his breath while the one firefighter is there, which is ultimately the fire chief, is there getting hose off the truck trying to start fighting the fire. And so, he never assists in putting out the fire. He sits on a bucket because he was exhausted because he'd been running and he had breathed in all that smoke and everything.

Rod Ammon: It's just amazing.

Chase Hawthorne: So, that's the reason, whenever we interviewed him in that small interview room, we was making sure we note we didn't smell any. So, anybody that had went in and out of that house three times and was exhausted from all the smoke that they had breathed in is going to smell like smoke. So, he had no smell of smoke at all. And so, even when I go work a fire, I'm going to work a fire that's extinguished. But when I get home, my clothes smell like smoke. So, like I say, it was odd. Now, the fire chief in his statement says when he pulls up, Charles was running away from the house. And so, that was his statement. And so, like I say, everything just put together. It was just everything was pointing to the police chief right off the bat. And so, they get the fire out. I'm trying to go back to my story here while we're walking through. He tells me every place he threw up, I took a photo, there was nothing there. We go to his car. He's got a Lincoln Navigator that's only a couple of months old. It was a new to you. It wasn't brand new, but they had just gotten it. And so, he has the keys in his pocket. We ride a search warrant because I want to look in the car. He's fully dressed, cell phone, clothes. I want to see if there's something in the car that he might would've took out of the house before it burned. So, we write a search warrant, we get a search warrant for the house and the car. He's got a Jeep in the yard, the Jeep, the police car, and there's a little shed. And so, we open up the Lincoln Navigator and there's a Walmart bag, prescription bag on the seat. So, pull it out, it's a pill bottle, a Klonopin. And so, he had just got it filled that day. He told us that in his written statement and he told us that in his recorded statement. So, I poured the pills into my hand and there's like, I want to say it was three and a half pills missing. Well, no prescription is going to tell you to take a half a pill. So, the half a pill is what made me count them all. And so, then when I counted them all, there's three and a half pills missing. Well then, I look at the prescription, it says, take one a day. And this was filled Friday during the day, so he would've possibly, possibly taken one. And so, I said, "Hey, you're missing three and a half pills." And he said, "I don't know, maybe I lost them." And I said, "Okay." So, like I said, we just photographed them, we documented it, we're searching. His police car opened the door, the laptop stand is there and there's no laptop on it. And I said, "Hey, where's your laptop?" I said, "You said this was a good neighborhood. Did somebody already steal your laptop?" Just trying to make a joke with him because he was making jokes. I figured I'd do the same thing. And so, he says, "No, no, the town never bought me a laptop." And I said, "Well, how do you do your police work if you don't even have a computer to work on?" He said, "I use my phone." And I said, "Okay." So, then we keep going through, we look in the trunk of his car. He's got his Nomex. He's got some other bunker gear and stuff in the trunk of the car, but really nothing in the car other than the keys and ignition is what made it. And it's unlocked. And there's a shotgun in the trunk, but that's another story. So, we finish up there. I have a drone, a state issued drone. I fly my drone, I document the only fire damage from the top down is the room of origin. And the roof just burned through the. At that point he says that he really needs to go, he has to make funeral arrangements. And I said, okay. So, we let him go. So, then the days after we do cell phone records, we do cell phone dump, Facebook, Instagram, his vehicle, he had just gotten it. And so, the vehicle, if your credit is not good enough, the dealership will put a GPS tracker on your vehicle with an ignition kill. And if you don't pay the mortgage, they can shut your vehicle off whenever you park it at home and it won't start. And it's remote, it's got a cell car. And I said, why ain't that something? I've never even heard of that. So, I'd done a search warrant for the company that had those records. And because he was current on his mortgage, they only pinged the vehicle one time. I was trying to get a active track ping. And so, only when mortgage is current, they only ping it once a day. And so, I was hoping it was going to ping it nonstop and that way I would've knew exactly. Because like I say, the statement he's given about where he was, what he'd done, it just didn't make sense. So, I was going for trying to track him. So, we done phone records, we used the phone records to, I guess, you can say prove the statement. He gave us written statement and recorded statement was a lie because where he said he was, there's no way the phone records could showed that. So, where he never told us he went, the phone records put us out in a very remote wooded area that is extremely rural. And so, we go out there, his phone sets still on this remote rural area, probably I think maybe 12 minutes, and it's just stationary. And then I go out just seeing what's there because I don't know what's there. And it's a very remote area. It's got some giant culverts where when the water comes up, the water backs up in there. I'm also looking for his computer because there's no way you're a police chief and you don't have a computer. So, don't find a computer. I personally think he was going to thinking about dumping her out there and then he changed his mind because he knew there's no way he could explain that. That's what I think because that was probably two and a half, three hours before the fire time he was out there. Now, when we questioned him about it, he says he was out there patrolling the area, making sure nobody was doing anything wrong, but he was outside the city limits. So, you're only a city police chief, you're not in the parish. And so, like I say, he had an excuse for everything we confronted him with. Once we arrested him, we went back and hit him with everything we knew.

Rod Ammon: Well, that's what I was going to ask you. And then we'll move over to this because it sounds like you're moving into the follow-up. At what point did you make the arrest?

Chase Hawthorne: So, from time of the fire to the time of the arrest was about four months. And what was holding that up was the autopsy results. The final autopsy results took 12 weeks. So, I couldn't arrest him for murder if I didn't have a autopsy result paperwork saying that she died. It was a homicide. I had a verbal that she did not have any smoke or soot in her lungs, but I didn't have anything in writing. So, it took 12 weeks for that. Well, in that 12 weeks I interviewed every person that he knew, he talked to. We got his phone records, I tracked every phone number down and we interviewed every person. So, the morning she calls into work, he drives that 18-wheeler. That's his full-time job. He calls into work and says she has a miscarriage and that he was on his way to the emergency room to bring her to the hospital. So, that's the story he told his boss. He never told us that story When we interviewed the boss, "Hey, why didn't he work that day?" The boss says, "Well, he called in and said she had a miscarriage and he was bringing her to the emergency room." So, in the meantime, we had went to the emergency room, got the video. He never went to the emergency room. He never told us that until we arrested him. And we brought up the fact, "Hey, you told your boss that she had a miscarriage." And he said she did. And I said, "Okay." I said, there's a lot of questions there. I said, one is how can she have a miscarriage whenever she had her tubes tied whenever she was younger? He didn't know that she couldn't get pregnant. And so, that proved him, he was lying right there. I think it was a tubulization, something like that, the direct term for it. So, then I go back to the, if she had a miscarriage, how did you have sex with her that day? Well, she wasn't bleeding at that time. And I said, okay, considerate of you. So, like I say, it turned into that. He still never admitted to anything. The arrest, like I say, was probably four months later. We booked him. We tried to interview him the next day. He stuck to his story the next day. I figured once he sat in jail overnight, maybe he'd give us a little something else. He didn't. And so, that's how our case went. It was basically everything he said he did, we went back and tracked down to see if that's what he did. And very little of it was the truth.

Rod Ammon: It's amazing. Once again, I don't think I've heard so many contradictions. And that's why I was asking when the arrest was and you said after the autopsy came back. Initially when you saw the puncture wound, what was the thought there?

Chase Hawthorne: So, the hole in her side and the fact that he had called 911 saying, "Hey, I just want to make sure everybody knows that there's rounds going off. I hope nobody gets shot," I was thinking that was going to be a bullet hole. So, when we interviewed, that's what we confronted him with. I had a picture of it, and so I asked him, "Hey, how can you explain this?" So, when they done the autopsy, the forensic pathologist said that was just caused from heat. And so, I was good with it, but I was betting money it was going to be a bullet hole or a puncture, screwdriver, ice pick, something like that. So, that wasn't the case though.

Rod Ammon: Well, I think you talked a little bit about social media records and-

Chase Hawthorne: That's right.

Rod Ammon: There was some other things about the pawn shop that I thought were interesting.

Chase Hawthorne: That's right. So, whenever we're getting his statement where out front of the house, that's when I'm giving him the blank statement to go write it. His buddy that was the police officer says, "Hey, can you get his duty weapon? That way it don't go missing." And I said, "Absolutely. Where's it at?" Because we had already dug out the room, so I knew there was not a gun in that room. And so, he looks at his buddy and he looks at me. He said, "Well, I pawned it." And I said, "You pawned your duty weapon?" And he said, "Yeah, I was in a bind." And I said, "So how are you doing your police work if you don't even have a gun?" And he said, "Well, I just was choosing on what I'd done." And I said, "Okay." So, that was a shock to his buddy that he was actually the one asking to get it. And so, that's how we found out he had pawned it. We later on went to the pawn shop and got the pawn receipt, and that way we could prove that he did pawn his duty weapon. I think it was probably a month before. You had just said something that made me remind me of something.

Rod Ammon: Social media, I think you were going to say.

Chase Hawthorne: Social media. So, we went back through, we got social media warrants. He was messaging a lot of females on social media looking for I guess friendships, companionship, all that type of stuff. And so, it just showed his character, I guess you could say. Nothing damning as far as he's admitting to it or nothing like that. During the phone dumps, we dumped the phone twice, two different programs, and we got a little bit different information from each program. So, one of the programs gave us a text message that she sent him probably about a month before. And he had deleted it off of his phone, but the program ended up pulling it back up. And the text message says, "Why should I come home? All you're going to do is beat my ass again." And so, we confronted him about that whenever we made the arrest, and he said that they was just playing around. That he never hit her, they was just playing. So, in the interviews with all the co-workers, friends, mainly the co-workers at the sheriff's office, because they work literally side by side, their shoulders would touch. I mean, like I say, it's a small sheriff's office. And so, they all describe cigarette burns on her arms, marks on her throat, around her throat. She come to work with a black eye one day. They would overhear the conversations on the phone where they would be yelling and arguing at each other. And how she would tell him that she wanted divorce and she didn't care what he did. And it was all circumstantial, but it was all pretty much consistent between every single person that she worked with.

Rod Ammon: So, there were some unconventional techniques that you used in the investigation. Can you talk about what they were?

Chase Hawthorne: So, we sent the nine-one-one callers to a... I'm trying to remember exactly who it is. I can tell you in the report. The guy analyzes 911 recordings. And he goes back and he says that Charles referred to himself like 19 times during the three phone calls, but he only referred to her as once. And he was trying to buy time and all this stuff. So, we was not able to use that report during the trial. It's because the defense was going to Daubert because it's basically opinion-based. It's nothing that's scientifically proven, but it was just the analyst, I guess you could say of the 911 calls. So, that was different. We had seen him at a homicide conference and he was just done a little presentation on what they do that they didn't charge us to do it, but it was just a little bit more evidence that we could possibly have used. But like I say, we was unable to use it.

Rod Ammon: You also did the digital voice dress analysis. That was an interesting interaction.

Chase Hawthorne: So, we tried to, he wouldn't go with it. We tried to set it up. Like I say, I have one, or at that time I had one, and he turned down it because he said he needed to make the funeral arrangements. And we tried to set it up on another day. We had it set up. We was at the sheriff's office waiting on him. He never showed. Finally, about an hour later, he called and said that something come up and he wouldn't be able to come do it.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, that was-

Chase Hawthorne: We attempted to use the [inaudible 00:50:06].

Rod Ammon: Yeah, his availability and unavailability all within minutes were an interesting thing.

Chase Hawthorne: That's right.

Rod Ammon: All of this, I mean, it looks like there's so much incriminating evidence. And still, you reached out to the ATF. Can you talk about why?

Chase Hawthorne: I did. Because of the circumstances is I knew I was right, but I guess I wanted a little bit more assurance that I was right. So, I reached out to the ATF, two agents came, one from Louisiana, one came from Texas. We wrote a search warrant. We went back to the scene. We collected sample material of shingles, flooring, walls, just in case we needed to do a test burn later on. We actually done a test burn of the styrofoam ceiling tiles because I was trying to rule out that possibly the fire started in the attic and that was dropped down. I mean, that's a possibility. And so, we took a torch, lit one of the ceiling tiles, and it instantly went out. So, they wouldn't drop down, so we wouldn't have a drop-down fire. So, basically we worked the whole scene or I worked the whole scene with them and they agreed with my findings completely. They're like 100%. That's it. So, room of origin, like I say, we worked back through all the electrical system in that room. We ruled out everything. And it was basically, I guess to make myself feel better about... because once we arrest him, we're pretty much ruining his career as a police chief. And so, I just wanted a little more assurance that, hey, I'm not wrong.

Rod Ammon: Yeah. Well, good for you. I think that's just a good sign. I love to hear when people reach out, and it started with the teamwork that you began the call with and right on through to closing things up. What do you think were the key actions that you took? It seems like solving the case came from a lot of good questions, and good follow up, and documentation. But what do you think was key to solving the case and getting the conviction?

Chase Hawthorne: I think our biggest benefit was we got a story early on. We got a story before there was time to think about, "Hey, what about this? What about this?" So, we took what he gave us, and the written statement was different than the recorded statement. And I'm saying different is because there would be more details in the recorded statement. Every time we talked to him, we'd get a little bit more. So, as he could read what we was asking, he could read the questions we was asking and he would try to add to his story to justify why something was a little different than what he originally gave us. But I think that caused him to keep thinking about, "Hey, they going to ask me this, so I got to tell him this." And so, we was able to prove a lot of the stuff that it wasn't true. He tried to make up, like I say, whenever we questioned him about going out in that rural area, he said he was out there because there was report of people hunting deer out in that area. Where did that come from? You didn't get a phone call before that. The Wildlife and Fisheries didn't have a report of that. So, he said, hey, that's why he was out there. I said, okay. So, during all the investigations, the interviews, I went and talked with the town clerk. So, directly diagonal from our house where the fire occurred is the fire station, and I guess you would call it maybe city hall. It was like a city complex type building. So, the town clerk was in that building. So, that building has cameras on it, front and back. Directly behind that building is a little small portable building. That was the police department. So, we didn't know this. You can't see it from the road. So, when I went over, we got the DVR from the fire station and got all the video. So, I knew exactly what time he came and left because there's a camera pointing directly towards his house. And so, I knew exactly what time the vehicles came in and out. The camera on the back was pointed at the police station, so it didn't get the whole driveway. So, while I'm looking at the DVR and reviewing the footage, I'm writing down what time the navigator comes in and out of the driveway. So, then the camera jumps to the back and it shows him pull around so you couldn't see one end. So, when he made a turn, you could either turn right and do a little driveway to come around the back of the fire station, or you would go left and go out to the highway. With the video, the view didn't show that corner. So, while I'm watching he leaves, then all of a sudden, the camera on the back pops on and he had pulled around the back. Well, the vehicle was not in view, but he walks up to the police station. Well, he don't pull a key out of his pocket, nothing. He just grabs the door knob and walks in. And so, we didn't even know that was a police station. So, then I asked the town clerk, because the police station walks to the town, they have control of it, the mayor's there. She called the mayor. Mayor gives consent. "Hey, can I go look in the police station?" "Sure." I go back there. The door of the police station has been kicked in. So, now, both doors at his house is kicked in, the door of the police stations kicked in. So, I go in, it's just a mess. There's stuff everywhere. So, there's a desk, there's a printer on the desk, and there's the power cord for a laptop that's rung up from a plug on the desk, and there's a spot where a laptop would be. So, all this tells me he had a laptop, he just got rid of it somewhere. And so, when I'm talking to the town clerk, I'm like, "Hey, what kind of guy was he?" And she's like, "Well, he was okay, but I think he could have done more for the town for the amount of gas he burned." And I said, "What are you talking about?" And then she pulls out, she had records of everything. So, I asked her about the laptop. She says, "Yes, we bought him one." She gives me the receipt, she makes me a copy of the receipt where they bought him one. And she says, "Look at this." And so, she hands me his gas receipts. So, he's got a brand new Ford Taurus police car. It's maybe two months old. And so, she's like, "Look how much gas he burns." So, then I'm looking at the gas receipts and it's 32 gallons, 30 gallons, 26 gallons, 30 gallons. There's no way that Ford Taurus is holding 30 gallons, but that Lincoln Navigator will. So, they have a charge account set up at a little local store down the road. So, then I go to the store, talk with them, get their video, and he's filling up his Lincoln Navigator on the town's charge account. And so, that's where I charged him with malfeasance, and theft, and all kinds of stuff. And so, whenever we arrest him, I asked him about that. Well, he said, "Well, I was doing police business in my personal vehicle, so I felt like it was only right that I used the town's gas." And I said, "Okay." So, like I say, he was just justified everything we found out, he was quick to figure out a way he could justify what he was doing.

Rod Ammon: You did some other things. You did some work with a timeline, you interviewed, I have in the notes, 50 people around a small home [inaudible 00:57:33].

Chase Hawthorne: We interviewed, like I say, every person at the sheriff's office that had any interaction with either one of them. There was probably just 20 from the sheriff's office that we interviewed. Her friends, ex-husband, stepmother, his ex-wives, girlfriends. Like I say, we traveled a lot because all these people didn't live in close proximity. So, we had to travel and go meet them to interview them. Like I say, it was a collaboration between our office and the sheriff's office of interviews. Because like I say, a local is going to get a better statement than somebody that's not local. So, some of the interviews we allowed the sheriff's office to do an interview is because they already had that rapport with them. Some people are skittish on giving statements whenever they don't know who you are. And so, we tried to work every angle we could to our advantage.

Rod Ammon: Well, it seems like [inaudible 00:58:38].

Chase Hawthorne: Yeah, the police officer that is the friend of his, when we interviewed him, he was trying to defend him. And then the sheriff's office captain over the detectives, they were friends. And so, we allowed him to do that interview. And so, he was trying to defend him. And then once they started defending him, he's like, "Well, think about this. How would you have handled this?" And so, before that interview was over, he's second guessing his friendship with him. And so, we was trying to flip one of them to see if we could get the whole story, because we knew we wasn't getting the whole story. There was more to it. So, the only person that we found that said they talked to our victim after 5:40 AM was the police officer friend. And he said he talked to her on the phone. And so, I said, "Are you sure?" He said, "Yeah." He said they was driving down the road and the two of them were in the vehicle. And so, the navigator has the, I guess, it would be the audio, so it's coming through the vehicle speakers. And so, he says he's talking to her through the vehicle. And I said, "Okay." But he's the only person that said he spoke to her after 5:40 AM the Friday before. We just wonder if that's the truth. I think he's trying to help cover farm a little bit, but we couldn't prove it. He wouldn't give it up and then we couldn't prove it was not right. We knew the phone call took place because we had the phone records. Like I say, we'd done phone records for that guy, too, because we thought maybe there was another phone involved that we didn't know about. So, like I say, I'm just going to say probably 30 warrants between phone records, social media, all that kind of stuff that we did.

Rod Ammon: Well, you were quite a busy guy and you had some folks working with you, which is nice. One thing I'm not sure I heard, I heard you say that with the lab, you got back that it was a flammable liquid or an ignitable liquid. What was the confirmation?

Chase Hawthorne: So, the lab results come back to no known ignitable liquid. So, then we started questioning, okay, what are the known? And let us see if we can find something there, a can, a bottle of something that is not on your list of known ignitable liquids. And they couldn't really give us a list. They said that there's really no list. They could see something in the sample, but they couldn't tell us what it was. So, we don't know what it was. But in the photographs, when I photographed the scene when I first got there, you can see the water on the floor and you could see a sheen, like an oily sheen in that water. Now, like I say, that's where the dog hit, but it comes back to no known ignitable liquids. So, like I say, we had to go with it being a negative sample.

Rod Ammon: Give me a quick synopsis of the trial.

Chase Hawthorne: So, trial right off the bat, at that time, our office did not require us to be investigators, to be CFIs, CFEIs. There was no, I guess you could say minimal threshold. You had to attend all these training classes. You had to get all this stuff, I guess you could say under your belt. But there was no certification required to do fire investigation. Since then, we have implemented that and now we have that. But at that time, like I say, this is 2015. So, at that time we did not have that. And so, I had went to National Fire Academy a couple of times. I probably had 300 hours or so of just fire investigator training. I'd worked, I don't know, a couple of hundred origin calls, 40, 50 fatals. I had a lot of experience. So, they was trying to get me disqualified as an expert because I did not have a certification. And so, that was a big learning lesson there is, no matter how much training you got, if you don't have any type of certification, you can't defend that. And so, like I said, since then, I've gotten it. But at that time we didn't have that. And so, that was the biggest thing. I was on the stand for almost six hours, and probably three and a half of that was them trying to disqualify me as an expert.

Rod Ammon: Anything else notable about the trial?

Chase Hawthorne: Not really. It was a week long. I was sequestered after I testified. The first day I was sequestered to the end. The jury went out. They was probably out two hours. They come back with a question, answered the question, and they went back out, and within maybe 30 minutes they come back with a guilty verdict.

Rod Ammon: Are we allowed to know the question the jury asked?

Chase Hawthorne: They just wanted the clarification between second degree murder and manslaughter. That was the only question. They just wanted to be clear on what that was.

Rod Ammon: It's an amazing story. And sounds like you had quite a job to do. It almost sounds like you had too much pointing at the sky.

Chase Hawthorne: It was definitely a task. I ain't going to lie.

Rod Ammon: So, any advice? Any messages you want to share with the other fire investigators that are listening?

Chase Hawthorne: Just the timeline was the biggest deal. Be open-minded whenever you're looking at this stuff. Like I say, this guy, whenever the fire first come out, there was a deputy that had just started working for us that was not on call. This police chief was, I would say friends, but if you ask the deputy, they weren't friends. They knew each other. So, this police chief was asking for him to come there. And I think he was asking for him to come there to see if he would tell him what information we knew. So, when that deputy came, we're trying to comfort him. He just lost his wife. So, I called this deputy and I said, which lives close in proximity to him. And I said, "Hey, would you mind coming over here and trying to comfort this guy?" And he says, "Yeah." So, he comes over. But when he got there, I told him, I said, "Don't you tell him anything that we got going on." I was like, "I want you to come. Just comfort him. Make sure he is okay. He's mentally stable. Make sure he is not going to harm himself and see what he tells you." And so, he did. But I really feel like he was asking for that deputy to come there to see if that deputy would tell him any information that he knew about what we was doing, how we was proceeding and stuff like that. So, definitely be open-minded. Use common sense. If the story don't add up, it don't add up. Try to justify why. So, I was trying to justify some of the stuff that he'd done because one, I've never been put in that situation. But some of the stuff, it just didn't make sense. From the time of the 911 call to the time the fire truck is pulling up, it's 11 minutes. So, 11 minutes is an eternity to do nothing. That water hose was right there at the back door. He stepped over that water hose three times going in and out, calling 911. He could have easily turned that water hose on and tried to put the fire out. So, fire damage is only limited one bedroom.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, I think you even said his bunker gear was right near the door.

Chase Hawthorne: That's right. His bunker gear is right beside the carport door. So, he had a water hose and bunker gear at his immediate disposal, and he waited 11 minutes and never done anything. So, just use common sense and use that timeline. Listen to what he's got to say. Like I say, we just took the time to listen to what he's telling us. And what he's telling us, we used the common sense and said, well, that don't make sense. Why would you have done that? Or why wouldn't you have done this? So, when we're interviewing him, I'm trying to justify why he didn't go get the firetruck. So, carport door to the front door of the fire station was like 350 feet, 375 feet. I measured it off. And so, I said, "Hey, did you not have keys to the fire station or something?" He said, "Oh, no, you don't need keys. It's a key pad. You just punch the code and you can walk in." I said, "Okay." I said, "You know that code?" He said, "Yeah." And I said, "All right." So, I was trying to find ways to justify why he didn't do anything and I couldn't find any. So, if he would've said, "No, I didn't have the key or I lost it," or whatever, then that helps me. But I just couldn't find a reason why he didn't do anything. The water hose, he just didn't think about the water hose. I was like, "Why don't you just take the water hose and try to put it..." I didn't think about it. And I said, okay. And then eventually I kept hammering him so much about, "You sat there 11 minutes." So, the interview probably wasn't the interview you would brag about because we got rough with him there for a while because you're trying to get a confession. You're trying to find out exactly what happened. And he finally says, "I guess I'm just a coward because I didn't do nothing." And I told him, I said, "Absolutely you are." I was like, "You didn't do anything to help your wife who died right there." And like I said, we're trying to get him to give us something and he just wouldn't give us anything.

Rod Ammon: Just so we're careful about the word rough, you mean it was verbally difficult.

Chase Hawthorne: That's right. Verbally, yes. Yes, not abusive.

Rod Ammon: I really appreciate you sharing this story. It's incredible. What ultimately happened? What was his sentence?

Chase Hawthorne: So, originally we had charged him with second-degree murder, aggravated arson, seven counts of malfeasance in office, and seven counts of theft that come from the fuel. And obstruction of justice because he burned her, and she was our evidence. So, they only built him on the second-degree murder. That was our trial. He was ultimately convicted on the second-degree murder. He received life in prison without the possibility of probation or parole. That was 2017. 2020, Louisiana at that time had the... 'in 17, it only had to be 10 to two. It was not a unanimous decision for life sentences or death penalty. So, since then, the law has changed in 2020, which his case went through all the appeals. The Third Circuit, the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court hadn't issued their final ruling on it until the end of January. But when the law changed, they backed it up and said if the Supreme Court hadn't issued their ruling by January 1st, then they got a new trial. So, he ultimately got a new trial. Granted October of '20. The trial date was for September of '22, if I remember right. And right before the trial, he pleads guilty to manslaughter. The DA's office went back through the victim's family. The victim's family did not want to go through another trial. So, it was not just one person. They made sure everybody was good with the decision. So, he got 20 years and that's what he's serving now.

Rod Ammon: Well, I think everybody's grateful for your work. This has been an amazing story and we appreciate hearing about all the investigative work you did. I want to thank you for your time and thanks to the Office of the State Fire Marshal for making available to talk about the case.

Chase Hawthorne: Yeah, no problem. Like I say, it was definitely a learning experience.

Rod Ammon: Well, it was also a good teaching experience for a lot of folks who got to listen to this. Thanks, Chase. This has been quite fascinating. We appreciate the solid, detailed investigative work. Thanks so much for your time and thanks to the Office of State Fire Marshal for making you available to talk about the case. This podcast and CFITrainer.Net are made possible by funding from a fire prevention and safety grant. From the Assistance to Firefighters grant program administered by FEMA and the US Department of Homeland Security. Support from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and voluntary online donations from CFITrainer.Users and podcast listeners. Thanks for joining us today on the podcast. Stay safe. We'll see you next month. Like to give a shout-out to Cathy DiPierro. We appreciate her research and writing for these podcasts. For the IAAI and CFITrainer.Net, I'm Rod Ammon.

Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal