Megan Wallace had<\/span> just been booked at the St. Johns County Jail in St. Augustine, Florida, when she started hearing gossip about its most notorious resident. Michelle Taylor had allegedly set fire to her own house in 2018, killing her 11-year-old son. The motive was insurance money. Everyone at the jail seemed disgusted by her. \u201cThe guards treated her like shit,\u201d Wallace said.<\/p>\n A mother herself, Wallace vowed to stay away from Taylor. But after a couple of months, Taylor was moved out of solitary confinement and into her cellblock. \u201cThe stories I\u2019d heard didn\u2019t add up to how she was in real life,\u201d Wallace said. Taylor was withdrawn and heavily medicated. Other women at the jail were openly cruel toward her, but she didn\u2019t lash out. \u201cShe slept all day and wouldn\u2019t get up for breakfast or lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallace knew how it felt to be judged by people who didn\u2019t have all the facts. She had spiraled into addiction after the sudden death of her husband, culminating in her arrest two days after Christmas in 2022. Prosecutors accused her of drug trafficking, which she insisted was bogus. As Wallace fought her own charges, she started to feel sorry for Taylor. \u201cAll she did was cry about her son,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cShe was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to live.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Wallace eventually opened up to Taylor about losing her husband. They formed a bond that strengthened over time. As Wallace got to know Taylor, she seemed less like a monster and more like a grieving mother who had suffered unspeakable trauma. David wasn\u2019t the only child Taylor had lost. Her middle child, Natalie, who was born with cerebral palsy, died in a tragic accident five years before the fire. News reports about Taylor mentioned her daughter\u2019s death, leading to callous comments online and lurid rumors at the jail. \u201cPeople said she drowned her daughter in the bathtub and locked her son in a closet and took off the door handle,\u201d Wallace said.<\/p>\n Taylor didn\u2019t talk about the fire in jail. But she\u2019d always sworn she had no idea how it started \u2014 she barely escaped herself. Although Wallace had no way to know the truth, it seemed obvious to her that Taylor had loved her children and her home. By the time Wallace saw her own charges dropped in the summer of 2023, she felt certain that the fire had been an accident and that Taylor had been wrongly accused.<\/p>\n Back home, Wallace started reading everything she could about arson cases. She learned about people who had been wrongfully convicted based on junk science. And she discovered that the Florida state fire lab, which examined the evidence in Taylor\u2019s case, had once lost its accreditation after misidentifying gasoline in numerous cases. One name came up over and over again: John Lentini, a renowned Florida fire scientist who had helped <\/a>exonerate people<\/a> all over the country. In October 2023 she wrote him an email with the subject line \u201cPlease help.\u201d<\/p>\n As it turned out, Lentini had been contacted about the case before, by a defense attorney who no longer represented Taylor. At that time, Lentini was skeptical he could help; there appeared to be overwhelming evidence of arson. According to the lab, a dozen fire debris samples taken from Taylor\u2019s home contained gasoline.<\/p>\n \u201cThe lab report that says they found gasoline is bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Although Lentini was a fierce and vocal critic<\/a> of the lab, he found it hard to believe that it would produce a report containing so many false positives. In a call with Taylor\u2019s new lawyer, he offered to examine the underlying data from the fire debris samples \u2014 but he was doubtful it would change much. \u201cIf there really was that much gasoline in the house,\u201d he told Wallace, \u201cthere is nothing I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n But on January 4, 2024, Wallace received an email from Lentini. \u201cMichelle is not guilty,\u201d it read. \u201cThe lab report that says they found gasoline is bullshit. Every part of the state\u2019s case rests on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Today the state<\/span> of Florida is prepared to convict Taylor for killing her son, despite the fact that the only direct evidence of arson has been thoroughly discredited.<\/p>\n More than a year after Lentini raised red flags about the state\u2019s case, writing in an expert report that it is based on \u201cunreliable methodology and incorrect opinions regarding the presence of ignitable liquid residue,\u201d several other leading fire experts have agreed with his conclusions. They include two different lab directors who are also veteran forensic chemists. One of them examined the data from the state lab, while the other retested the carbon strips used to analyze fire debris from the scene. Both recently submitted reports to Taylor\u2019s defense attorney saying there is no evidence of gasoline.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lab\u2019s conclusions have also been contradicted by two forensic chemists with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, who reviewed Lentini\u2019s expert report and agreed in depositions last April that the gasoline findings were unsupported.<\/p>\n The lab has not responded directly to these claims. But in January, the analyst who examined the fire debris evidence in Taylor\u2019s case submitted an amended report backtracking on some of her original findings \u201cdue to the re-evaluation of the data.\u201d Four of the samples she previously said were positive for gasoline were now determined to be negative for any ignitible liquid. A spokesperson for the Fire Marshal\u2019s Office did not respond to a detailed list of comments in time for publication.<\/p>\n Despite the ongoing dismantling of evidence supporting its arson case, prosecutors with the State Attorney\u2019s Office for Florida\u2019s 7th Judicial Circuit have refused to drop the charges against Taylor. They insist she is a habitual liar and a fraud \u2014 a mother so diabolical she was willing to set fire to her house with her children inside to \u201cfurther her lifestyle.\u201d They point to a paper trial that proves her willingness to commit arson \u201cin an attempt to fraudulently collect insurance funds. Her 11-year-old-son \u2026 died as a result.\u201d Yet the investigation carried out on behalf of Taylor\u2019s homeowner\u2019s insurance company did not find evidence of arson either. Fire debris analysis conducted at a private lab in the aftermath of the fire revealed no gasoline or other ignitable liquid.<\/p>\n To Lentini and others who have worked on wrongful convictions, the case against Taylor is a version of an all-too-familiar story. In the absence of reliable forensic evidence, prosecutors put together a circumstantial case that can convince a jury a defendant is capable of murder, even if the science does not add up. In cases where a child has died, which are especially emotionally charged, it does not take much to cast parents<\/a> or caretakers<\/a> in a suspicious light<\/a>. Mothers who escape a fire without their children are often judged harshly for that fact alone \u2014 and those with a checkered past are easier still to demonize, especially when the state can show that they were guilty of fraud. In the case of Angela Garcia<\/a>, a Cleveland woman tried three times for killing her daughters in a fire, prosecutors seized on evidence of financial fraud to win a conviction and life sentence despite the fact that there was no reliable evidence of arson. Her sentencing judge accused her of treating her daughters \u201clike coins in a slot machine.\u201d<\/p>\n Out of 26 cases in which the state fire lab had identified gasoline, more than half did not stand up to scrutiny.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In Taylor\u2019s case, prosecutors have made clear that they plan to tell the story of a bad mother who senselessly sacrificed her only son for material gain. But that theory eclipses a different story, one with frightening implications for anyone who survives a fire in Florida. According to Lentini, Taylor\u2019s case is the sixth time he has personally seen a misdiagnosis of gasoline by chemists at the state fire lab \u2014 and there is reason to believe there are many more. A review of the lab in 2016 by the nation\u2019s leading accrediting body for crime labs found that analysts were using flawed methodology to identify gasoline in fire debris evidence. Out of 26 cases in which the lab had identified gasoline, more than half did not stand up to scrutiny.<\/p>\n Yet rather than reconsider its case against Taylor, prosecutors have sought to suppress any reference to the lab\u2019s problematic history when the case goes to trial. \u201cThe State respectfully requests that no party or witness in the case be allowed to comment on the prior loss of accreditation by the State Lab,\u201d Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Dunton wrote in a pretrial motion last spring, arguing that it was \u201cnot relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n With a trial date set for June, Taylor and her attorney were reluctant to speak on the record about the case. But the likeliest scenario is that neither side will have a chance to tell their story to a jury. After long refusing to consider a plea negotiation for a crime she insists she did not commit, Taylor has been forced to confront the risk of going to trial against prosecutors intent on proving their case with or without reliable evidence of arson. In Florida, a first-degree felony murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence. With her next court date set for April 2, a guilty plea to a lesser charge and years in prison may be the best of a bad set of options.<\/p>\n The first 911<\/span> call on the night of the fire consisted mostly of harrowing screams. \u201cMy house is on fire!\u201d cried Taylor\u2019s 18-year-old daughter, Bailey, wailing that her brother was inside.<\/p>\n The fire was at 1041 Lee St., just east of downtown St. Augustine. On a recording of the call, which was placed at 9:42 p.m. on October 23, 2018, the screaming continues while a 911 operator tries to get information. After two minutes, Bailey says she needs to call her dad and hangs up.<\/p>\n The second 911 call came moments later from Heather Anderson, who lived across from the Taylors \u2014 the last two houses on a dead-end street in a residential neighborhood just a few miles from the beach.<\/p>\n Taylor, then 34, had shown up at her door begging for help. There was soot on her face, and she was hysterical. Anderson\u2019s husband raced to the house in search of David. But now the fire was spreading, Anderson said, her voice trembling. She saw the Taylor\u2019s small chihuahua Milo run out of the house. But David was nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n Taylor had fled the house without her phone or keys. Witnesses described her frantically trying to get back inside. A St. Augustine police officer who was first on the scene tried to ask her questions to no avail. \u201cDue to the emotional state of Michelle and Bailey, I was unable to gather any information in regards to how the fire started or why David was not able to get out,\u201d he later wrote in a report.<\/p>\n Firefighters arrived at 9:49 p.m. They found David\u2019s body lying face down and covered in debris. He was unrecognizable.<\/p>\n In Florida, fatal fires are investigated by the state fire marshal\u2019s Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives Investigations, which dispatches personnel around the clock. The bureau also sometimes calls upon the ATF to provide additional resources \u2014 \u201can extra shovel,\u201d as the supervising lieutenant said in a deposition in Taylor\u2019s case. That night, the BFAEI called ATF Special Agent Kristie Calhoun, who drove out to the scene from Jacksonville. She would be in charge of determining the cause of the fire.<\/p>\n The Taylors lived in a modern, one-story home with a stone facade. It had an open floor plan, with the kitchen to the right of the entrance and a hallway leading to four bedrooms on the left. Toward the back was the living room and the area most heavily damaged by the fire, which investigators would label the area of origin. The drywall was gone from the walls, and \u201cthe entire drywall ceiling had fallen to the floor, exposing the wooden roof structure,\u201d Calhoun wrote in her report. What was left of the insulation was all over the ground.<\/p>\n Around 1:20 a.m., Mason Patrou, a rookie detective with the St. Johns County Sheriff\u2019s Office tried to interview Taylor at a local hospital, where she and Bailey were being treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation. \u201cMichelle was very hesitant to speak with us and clearly displeased with our presence,\u201d Patrou later wrote.<\/p>\n Until the fire, the evening had not been out of the ordinary. Taylor, who\u2019d recently lost her job as a custodian for the local school board, had a meal with her husband Dennis and their children at Texas Roadhouse. Upon coming home, Taylor briefly ran out to buy lottery tickets. Dennis got a call from a friend who\u2019d shot a deer and wanted help retrieving it; he left around 8 p.m. Taylor and David went to her room to watch TV. At one point, Taylor said she went outside to look for a homework assignment David said he\u2019d left in the car, then settled back into her bedroom, where they watched back-to-back episodes of the sitcom \u201cMom.\u201d<\/p>\n It was during the second episode that Taylor said she heard the smoke detectors go off. She opened her bedroom door to find thick, dark smoke. \u201cMichelle said her and David went out of her bedroom, banged on Bailey\u2019s door and they all tried to get out the front door but they couldn\u2019t get the door open,\u201d Patrou wrote. \u201cIt was so black you couldn\u2019t see anything.\u201d They turned down the hallway \u201cwhen David went back for the dog.\u201d She lost sight of him. She and Bailey then ran to the spare bedroom and climbed out of the window.<\/p>\n Taylor said she had no idea how the fire started. But there were a few possibilities. \u201cMichelle stated that there was a candle lit on the coffee table, near the couch,\u201d Patrou wrote. Asked if there was anything flammable nearby, she cited a white runner on the table, adding that the dog ran loose and jumped on the couch. There was also an old electric recliner in the living room inherited from Taylor\u2019s grandmother, which plugged into the wall and constantly malfunctioned. Dennis had recently tried to repair the electrical wires, splicing and reconnecting them using heat shrink wrap and a glue gun.<\/p>\n Finally, Taylor sometimes smoked in the house. Although it was unclear whether Taylor was smoking that night, a fire marshal\u2019s detective would report that a lighter and cigarette butt had been found in the debris.<\/p>\n All of these scenarios were consistent with the area of origin. In the back corner of the living room, the couch and the recliner had been almost entirely consumed by the fire, with only their metal frames remaining.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, suspicions of arson had crept in by the time the sun came up on October 24. A K9 handler had swept the home with his accelerant-detecting dog, a black labrador named Fresca, who alerted in five different places. Fire debris samples were collected in each spot, to be examined at the state fire marshal lab, which would determine whether there was proof of an ignitable liquid.<\/p>\n In early November, three samples came back positive for gasoline.<\/p>\n The Florida State<\/span> Fire Marshal\u2019s office is governed by Florida\u2019s Department of Financial Services, which oversees fraud and fire investigations alike. At the time of the fire, the Chief Financial Officer and fire marshal was Jimmy Patronis, whose most recent annual report<\/a> boasted \u201can arrest rate for the crime of arson well above the national average.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida is only one of two states in the country whose fire marshal has its own lab for fire debris analysis. Although numerous agencies are involved in fire investigation, most forensic evidence is processed at the bureau\u2019s state-of-the-art facility in Havana, just outside Tallahassee.<\/p>\n In mid-November, Calhoun and a team of investigators returned to the scene of the fire. For three days they excavated the site, collecting fire debris for additional testing. Seventeen samples were placed into tightly sealed metal cans and sent to the lab.<\/p>\n Most fire debris analysis works roughly like this: Cans are heated in an oven. The resulting vapors are captured on charcoal strips suspended from the top of each can. The strips are then injected into a machine called a gas chromatograph\/mass spectrometer. The former (GC) separates compounds in a given sample, while the latter (MS) detects the compounds, ultimately producing an electronic signature called a chromatogram. The resulting graph looks like an irregular combination of peaks and valleys, which mark the chemical compounds in the sample. The patterns are compared to graphs of known substances to see if there is a match.<\/p>\n The process is straightforward in theory. But in practice, interpreting the data can be fraught with uncertainty. Modern homes are replete with synthetic materials, which make up everything from shoes to rugs to couch cushions. Many are made from petroleum-based products that share some of the same compounds as ignitable liquids. When these products burn and break down in a process called pyrolysis, the compounds contribute their own peaks to a chromatogram. Because today\u2019s GCMS technology is highly sensitive and capable of picking up trace amounts of material, chromatograms from a fire debris sample are often crowded with detail. One training video by the National Center for Forensic Science<\/a> at the University of Central Florida says \u201cfinding an ignitable liquid residue in fire debris is like searching for Waldo in the \u2018Where\u2019s Waldo\u2019 puzzles.\u201d The difference is that, unlike an ignitable liquid, Waldo is always somewhere to be found.<\/p>\n Gasoline, which is the accelerant most commonly used to commit arson, is a complex mixture that is especially tricky to identify within fire debris. Lab analysts have long abided by specific parameters when examining a sample for gasoline, starting by ensuring there are five specific peaks on a chromatogram, which must appear at certain ratios. But the interpretation is ultimately highly subjective.<\/p>\n In a 2019 podcast<\/a> by Chemical & Engineering News, ATF chemist Michelle Evans said the difficulty of gasoline identification had made her more cautious in her analysis over the years. She told the host she was working on a case where the data was a little too ambiguous. \u201cI think it\u2019s there, but I don\u2019t think I have enough to call it,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe when I was starting out I might have actually identified gasoline. But in looking at the data, I don\u2019t feel comfortable having to testify to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the new samples sent from Taylor\u2019s home to the Florida lab were two different types of vinyl flooring found in the house. A pair of boxes containing the same flooring had been found in the garage, pieces of which were collected as comparison samples. Such samples are key to distinguishing compounds found in synthetic materials from those found in an ignitable liquid. \u201cComparison samples allow the laboratory to evaluate the possible contributions of volatile pyrolysis products to the analysis,\u201d Calhoun wrote in her report.<\/p>\n Comparison samples, in other words, are supposed to be clean of any ignitable liquid. So when the second set of lab results came back, something was clearly wrong. The flooring found boxed up in the garage had come back positive for gasoline. A third comparison sample, described as \u201cunderlayment from hallway closet floor,\u201d also came back positive for gasoline.<\/p>\n Calhoun\u2019s report attributed the false positives on the tiles to \u201csoot staining,\u201d attaching a photo that showed evidence of smoke in the garage. Yet the boxes were barely visible in the picture, let alone the tiles inside. In a deposition, the lab analyst who examined the flooring said she did not recall seeing soot on the comparison samples. Nor did she think that light smoke on the boxes would necessarily contaminate the tiles inside. \u201cI mean I\u2019m not, like, an expert in soot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Lentini would later argue that the results from the comparison samples should have invalidated all of the gasoline findings. The soot explanation did not account for the false positive on the third comparison sample, he wrote in his report. What\u2019s more, \u201cif \u2018soot\u2019 can cause a false reading of gasoline, that can be applied to all of the debris samples.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But Calhoun did not see it this way. In December 2018, she obtained new vinyl tiles matching one of the previous comparison samples and submitted it to the lab. In February 2019, that one came back negative.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By then, the St. Johns County Sheriff\u2019s Office was convinced they had an arson case on their hands. Patrou, the lead detective, saw red flags in the family\u2019s financial records. At the time of the fire, the Taylors had been behind in their mortgage payments. Their bank was threatening foreclosure if they did not pay by early 2019. Despite having enough money in the bank to cover the mortgage, financial records showed that six local churches \u201chad made payments on behalf of the Taylors.\u201d<\/p>\n But even more disturbing were interviews with Dennis\u2019s side of the family, who immediately blamed Taylor. There was bad blood between Taylor and her mother-in-law; the two had almost come to blows on the night of the fire. Patrou wrote that Dennis\u2019s mother told him she believed \u201cMichelle deliberately burned the house down because Michelle didn\u2019t have the money to do what she wanted.\u201d Dennis\u2019s sister agreed.<\/p>\n The investigation into Taylor stretched into 2020, only to be derailed by the Covid pandemic. Calhoun\u2019s final 45-page report was submitted in 2021. It synthesized the findings from the state fire investigators and the St. Johns County Sheriff\u2019s Office, concluding that the fire could not have been an accident.<\/p>\n It had all happened too fast, Calhoun concluded. A timeline from the night of the fire had been put together through surveillance footage taken from the neighborhood\u2019s security cameras. It showed Taylor going out to her car at 9:33 p.m. Only six minutes later, at 9:39 p.m., video showed smoke coming from the back of the house. The first 911 call came three minutes later. There was too little time between Taylor\u2019s last appearance and the signs of the fire captured on the tape. \u201cAn ignition source such as a cigarette or candle scenario would be a slow growing fire,\u201d Calhoun wrote, and if a small fire was already underway before Taylor went to her car, she would have spotted it on her way back to her bedroom.<\/p>\n There were at least some scenarios in which an accidental fire might have quickly overtaken the house. A cluster of living room furniture was near two windows and a pair of French doors \u2014 potentially powerful fuel, Calhoun noted. But the gasoline findings rendered other explanations moot. As Calhoun eliminated each accidental cause one by one, she wrote that each was \u201cinconsistent with the presence of gasoline as confirmed by the laboratory analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n In August 2021, Taylor was arrested for felony murder.<\/p>\n Fire investigators once<\/span> described their work as an art more than a science. The process of determining the origin and cause of a fire relied as much on an investigator\u2019s experience and intuition as on the evidence at the scene. When it came to uncovering arson, many fire investigators falsely believed they could figure out what happened based solely on visual indicators<\/a> like \u201cpour patterns\u201d \u2014 places where an ignitable liquid had supposedly been poured, which caused a fire to burn hotter and faster than normal.<\/p>\n Lentini, who began his career as a forensic chemist before moving into fire investigation, had been trained to look for such signs of arson too. But in 1991, he worked on a case in Jacksonville that dramatically transformed the understanding of fire behavior, revealing how quickly an accidental fire could reach \u201cflashover<\/a>\u201d \u2014 a critical concept often summarized as the moment a fire in a room becomes a room on fire. In the right conditions, a smoldering fire can reach flashover in under four minutes.<\/p>\n Today fire investigations follow the scientific method, as set out by the National Fire Protection Association in NFPA 921: Guide for Fire Investigations. But for those sent to prison based on misconceptions about fire behavior, the advances in the field came too late. The most famous wrongful arson conviction<\/a> is that of Cameron Todd Willingham<\/a>, who was accused of setting a fire in Corsicana, Texas, that killed his three children. Despite a race by fire experts to prove that his case was based on junk science, Willingham was executed in 2004.<\/p>\n That same year Texas executed Willingham, a fire broke out in Palatka, Florida, killing a woman named Tscharna Hampton. Her boyfriend, Randy Seal, was accused of dousing her with gasoline and setting her on fire. As in the Willingham case, fire investigators relied on discredited arson indicators. And as with Willingham, the state announced it would seek the death penalty.<\/p>\n \u201cI looked at it and I thought, \u2018This is not gasoline.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Like Taylor, Seal was prosecuted in the 7th Judicial Circuit of Florida. Lentini was hired as an expert for the defense. A lab analyst had identified gasoline in numerous samples. But when Lentini received the data, it was way off. \u201cI looked at it and I thought, \u2018This is not gasoline,\u2019\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lentini examined the carbon strips used to analyze the fire debris. He found no signs of gasoline. At the trial, he used a PowerPoint presentation to break down the science in the most accessible terms for the jury. \u201cYou go down to the gas station, you buy some gasoline, you evaporate it, you run it through your machines, you get a pattern,\u201d he explained. In order to identify gasoline in a sample, \u201cyou\u2019ve got to be able to match that pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the early days, the methodology was more or less: \u2018The sample displays sufficient similarities to the standard for me to conclude that they are the same,\u2019\u201d Lentini went on. But this was entirely too subjective. Rules for identifying ignitable liquids in fire debris were developed by the American Society for Testing and Materials, which laid out criteria for gasoline, starting with a group of five compounds, whose peaks on a chromatogram had to appear in specific proportion to one another. \u201cThis is not a suggestion. This is not a guide. This says if you want to call it gasoline, you\u2019ve got to have this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Florida state lab purported to abide by this rule, known as ASTM E1618, the gasoline results showed otherwise. Not only were the ratios wrong, Lentini testified, but three of the necessary compounds were not present at all. In a deposition, a different expert later described the lab analyst\u2019s approach as \u201cpeak pick.\u201d If you zoom in close enough, the expert explained, virtually any chromatogram from a fire debris sample will contain patterns resembling gasoline. \u201cIt\u2019s just, Let\u2019s blow it up and let\u2019s see what components show up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With no real rebuttal to the chemistry, the prosecutor goaded Lentini on cross-examination, daring him to smell the blue jeans worn by Hampton when she died. \u201cYou\u2019re not willing to do it, are you?\u201d he asked. Lentini replied with obvious irritation. \u201cThey smell like burnt cloth,\u201d he said. More importantly, \u201cthey don\u2019t look like gasoline when analyzed with the gas chromatograph.\u201d The prosecutor replied that jurors could use their \u201ccommon sense\u201d to conclude that the clothing smelled like gasoline.<\/p>\n Seal was found guilty but avoided the death penalty. A judge sentenced him to life in prison.<\/p>\n The Seal case was the first time Lentini saw the state lab analysts find what he has wryly called \u201cFlorida gasoline.\u201d It would not be the last.<\/p>\n One year after<\/span> Seal was convicted, a fire broke out inside an apartment complex outside Fort Lauderdale. Eleven-month-old Jada Reynolds was found in her crib, dead from smoke inhalation. Her mother, Sasheena Reynolds, had escaped the fire while carrying her 2-year-old son. Witnesses described her panic. \u201cShe kept saying, \u2018My baby is inside the fire!,\u2019\u201d a neighbor told a reporter.<\/p>\n At first there was an outpouring of support. Hundreds of people went to the baby\u2019s funeral and neighbors raised money for the family. Reynolds\u2019s electricity had been cut off at the time of the fire; she relied on scented candles to illuminate the home, which were believed to have caused the blaze.<\/p>\n But everything changed when the fire marshal lab found evidence of gasoline. Reynolds was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Investigators said they\u2019d suspected the fire was no accident given \u201chow quickly the fire spread and burned.\u201d<\/p>\n Lentini was hired by Reynolds\u2019s defense attorney. The lab results echoed what he had seen in Seal\u2019s case. Rather than face trial, Reynolds agreed to a plea deal and was released<\/a> from jail in 2013. By then, Lentini had seen false gasoline findings in two other cases.<\/p>\n \u201cI suspect that erroneous identifications of gasoline happen on a routine basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In 2015, Lentini sat down to write a letter to the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors\/Laboratory Accreditation Board. \u201cAfter several weeks of careful consideration, I have concluded that it is my professional obligation to bring to your attention a serious issue,\u201d he wrote. He warned that the lab had \u201ca continuing laboratory policy of identifying gasoline where none exists, based on a subjective and highly speculative thought process.\u201d Although the lab claimed to follow ASTM E1618 in theory, in practice it deviated completely from the standard. \u201cI suspect that erroneous identifications of gasoline happen on a routine basis.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no federal agency that regulates forensic labs. Accreditation bodies like ASCLD\/LAB, which has since been renamed<\/a>, are private entities whose leadership is closely tied to professional forensic associations and which charge labs to receive accreditation. Although labs must demonstrate certain protocols and best practices to remain in good standing, there is little oversight of the work itself. Indeed, at the time Lentini filed his complaint, the lab\u2019s accreditation had just been renewed.<\/p>\n In January 2016, a team from ASCLD\/LAB traveled to Havana, Florida, to visit the lab. It interviewed lab analysts as well as its director, Carl Chasteen. Two months later, reviewers reported their findings. \u201cThe interpretation methodology being employed by the laboratory is an undocumented, unvalidated protocol that is not generally accepted in the scientific community,\u201d they wrote. The numbers were alarming. \u201cOf twenty-six(26) randomly selected cases in which gasoline or gasoline mixtures were reported, there were fourteen in which the interpretation of the data by the analyst resulted in an unsupported conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n The lab lost its accreditation as a result of the review. Chasteen appealed the results, writing in a 50-page letter that the review appeared \u201cto repudiate all of our work over the years, our professional reputations, and our personal character.\u201d A new panel of reviewers upheld the decision to revoke the lab\u2019s accreditation.<\/p>\n Lentini considered the lab\u2019s suspension a victory. But it was short-lived. After agreeing to a \u201ccorrective action plan,\u201d Chasteen won back its accreditation. He also successfully sought accreditation from a second<\/a> organization. By 2017, the lab had gone from being mired in scandal to boasting<\/a> that it was the only public lab in the country dual-accredited by both organizations.<\/p>\n The saga had a critical impact in at least one case, however. The Florida Innocence Project filed a post-conviction appeal in Seal\u2019s case based on the discoveries about the lab. New experts analyzed the evidence and concluded that the findings of gasoline had been wrong. In 2023, prosecutors offered Seal a plea deal and he accepted.<\/p>\n Before his release<\/a> in 2024, Seal sent Lentini a handwritten note from prison. \u201cI knew you were always right,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe lab was junk, still is. Thank you for what you did for me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Last spring I<\/span> traveled to St. Augustine and drove to the site of the fire. The neighborhood is surrounded by longleaf pines, with modest homes set back from the road on green lots dotted by palm trees. Google Maps had captured the house after the fire, with boarded-up windows and piles of debris on blue tarps on the driveway. But when I arrived at 1041 Lee St., there was nothing but a concrete driveway leading to a gray slab.<\/p>\n Wallace told me that Taylor once described the house as her \u201cdream home.\u201d The family moved there in 2012 from a more rural area, mainly out of necessity. According to Dennis and Bailey, there was a man in the area who was a known pedophile; he had once tried to lure David into his car. \u201cThe cops said they couldn\u2019t do anything about it,\u201d Bailey told me. So they decided to move. \u201cMy mom and dad said it was to protect us.\u201d<\/p>\n It took them six months to find a place they could afford, according to Dennis. The house on Lee Street was a foreclosure sale, which needed a lot of work. They painted and redid the floors and installed planters, a picnic table, and a bird bath outside. Because her daughter Natalie loved butterflies, Taylor took butterfly lawn ornaments she\u2019d found at Dollar Tree and used them to decorate the entrance to the house.<\/p>\n I met Wallace at a Hampton Inn off I-95. She brought a small stack of papers: police reports and testimonials about Taylor from family and friends, which she had collected for an upcoming bond hearing. They described Taylor as loving and generous to friends and strangers alike. \u201cMy mother never got to grieve properly,\u201d Bailey wrote. \u201cShe would never hurt anybody, please just let her come home.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallace said Lentini had breathed new life into Taylor\u2019s defense. But she was also frustrated \u2014 she could not understand how prosecutors could stick to their case. She\u2019d recently learned that, back in January, Calhoun had forwarded Lentini\u2019s report to two different forensic chemists at the ATF, both of whom had sat down for depositions. One of them took issue with Lentini\u2019s claim that the state lab \u201croutinely identifies gasoline where it does not exist.\u201d But he did not disagree with Lentini\u2019s conclusions about the chromatography data. \u201cThe patterns that I\u2019m seeing in the data do not appear to be gasoline to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The other analyst was Michelle Evans, who gave the 2019 podcast interview in which she said she\u2019d become more cautious in her gasoline findings over time. She concurred that the data did not show the patterns required to identify gasoline. \u201cThis strongly supports there not being gasoline there.\u201d<\/p>\n Not long after my trip to St. Augustine, Taylor was released on bond after nearly three years in jail and reunited with her family. As her joy and relief began to fade, so did her hope that prosecutors would ever drop her charges. The fear of a life sentence has given way to anguished uncertainty about whether to plead guilty after all. More than six years after the fire, Wallace said, \u201cshe just wants it to be over.\u201d<\/p>\n On March 3, which would have been David\u2019s 18th birthday, Taylor and her family met at the cemetery where he is buried alongside his sister Natalie, under a large oak tree dripping with Spanish moss. They ate cake and wrote messages on Mylar balloons, which they released into the air.<\/p>\n Wallace shared some photos via text.\u00a0In one, Taylor stands smiling with Bailey, her sole remaining child, over brilliant yellow flowers.<\/p>\n The group at the cemetery included Taylor\u2019s mother, four sisters, and her nieces and nephews, some of whom she helped raise. In phone calls, friends and relatives told me the state\u2019s case never made any sense to them. Taylor wasn\u2019t seeking a lavish lifestyle. Her whole life revolved around her home and her children.\u00a0\u201cWherever they went they took their kids,\u201d her mother told me. \u201cShe loved the ground her kids walked on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
\n Photo: Florida Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives Investigations<\/span>
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\n Photos: Florida Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives Investigations<\/span>
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\n Photos: Florida Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives Investigations<\/span>
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