CORSICANA (September 26, 2009)—The Texas Forensic Science Commission will review an independent report next week that concludes that the arson investigation that led to the execution of a Corsicana man for setting a fire in 1991 that killed his three daughters was poorly conducted and couldn't be supported by fire science or investigative standards.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004, but maintained his innocence to the end, saying in his final statement he was “an innocent man, convicted of crime I did not commit.”

“I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do,” he said.

Willingham's prosecutor still believes in Willingham's guilt, but Innocence Project co-director Barry Scheck says there's no longer any doubt an innocent person was executed.

The report from an independent expert hired by the state, which was released a month ago, mirrors the 2006 findings of fire investigation experts hired by the Innocence Project.

Fire scientist Craig Beyler wrote in the new report requested by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, "the investigators had poor understandings of fire science."

The Forensic Science Commission meets Friday in Dallas and will discuss the findings with Beyler.

According to the meeting agenda, the commission will also decide about the next steps to take in the case and assign duties for development of the commission’s final report.

Forensic Science Commission chairman Sam Bassett said last month the final report is likely to be issued in the first half of 2010.

The Forensic Science Commission agreed in August 2008 to review investigators' conclusions that Willingham set the fire at his family's home in Corsicana two days before Christmas in 1991.

Trial evidence suggested an accelerant was used to start the deadly fire, but the Innocence Project says experts in a report it commissioned concluded the fire was not intentionally set.

It’s the first investigation to be conducted by the commission, created in 2005 to look into allegations of forensic misconduct.

Willingham was arrested and charged on Jan. 8, 1992, two weeks after the three girls died.

Evidence at his trial showed an accelerant, believed to be charcoal lighter fluid, was used to ignite the floors, a front threshold to the house and on a concrete porch, and neighbors testified they saw Willingham outdoors even before the flames engulfed his home.

Witnesses said he showed no grief over the deaths, but instead was upset about his car and a dartboard

One of the prosecutors called Willingham a sociopath whose children were an impediment to his lifestyle.

Willingham insisted in a death row interview that he was innocent and that his trial was a joke.

Willingham initially told investigators the fire started as he and his children slept, but Corsicana investigators found evidence the fire was set deliberately with a flammable liquid.

Amber Louis Kuykendall, 2, and twins Karmon Diane Willingham, 1, and Kameron Marie Willingham, 1, died in the fire.

Willingham's wife, who was out shopping when the fire broke out, initially supported her husband's version that a lantern must have fallen, igniting the fire, but Stacy Kuykendall later told the Corsicana Daily Sun she no longer believed her former husband's story.