Jury Begins Deliberation In Retrial Of Man Convicted In Arson Deaths Of His Two Children
By Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Jury deliberations will resume Friday morning in the murder and arson retrial of 56-year-old Daniel Dougherty. He's accused of killing his two sons in an Oxford Circle rowhome fire decades ago. The panel got the case late Thursday afternoon, and talked it over for about 90 minutes.
Defense lawyer David Fryman says if Daniel Dougherty "maliciously and intentionally set three fires where his two boys slept in 1985," why did the Commonwealth wait 14 years to arrest and charge him in 1999?
He says the fire investigator submitted his report a month after Dougherty's three and four-year-old boys died. That "time lag for prosecution," Fryman says, "represents reasonable doubt."
He also points to the defense-retained fire expert, who testified the original investigators misinterpreted burn patterns and got it wrong.
Assistant DA Jude Conroy says the defense based its entire case on forensic scientist John Lentini's credibility, and Conroy says "Lentini will do anything for a price."
He bellowed to jurors that "a prostitute on Kensington Avenue can hold her head higher than the defense fire expert trying to sell his product."
