Texas DID execute an innocent man, claim investigators: New evidence reveals prosecutors' secret deal with prisoner who said father admitted killing his three daughters in fire

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 

Note discovered in case files suggests inmate who claimed Willingham had confessed was given a reduced sentence in return

Testimony was key evidence after arson analysis was discredited

Newly discovered evidence has suggested that a Texas father executed ten years ago for killing his three daughters in an arson attack may have been innocent. 

Cameron Todd Willingham was sentenced to death in 1992 after being convicted of murder based on arson analysis, that was later discredited, and testimony from a jailhouse informant.

But a note found in the case files suggests that the prosecutor may have concealed a deal with the informant, Johnny Webb, who claimed Willingham had confessed to him.

Before Willingham was executed in 2004, a prosecutor argued that Webb's testimony was enough to prove his guilt, after the arson analysis was found to be sub-standard. 

In recent weeks however, lawyers seeking a posthumous pardon for Willingham claim the inmate who provided testimony did so to gain a reduced sentence, the New York Times reported.

If that had proved to be the case in the lead up to Willingham's execution, it could have been enough to clear him of guilt.

'It's astonishing that 10 years after Todd Willingham was executed we are still uncovering evidence showing what a grave injustice this case represents,' Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, which is working on the case, said

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