With the revelation by LouisianaVoice that 10 employees of the State Fire Marshal’s (SFM) office applied for waivers from Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) investigator training, backed up by dubious claims of investigative experience, new and serious questions have arisen into the investigation of a 2012 fire in Crowley that killed a mother and her 11-month-old daughter.
Twenty-two-year-old Marie McDonald and her 11-month-old daughter Bayleigh Holland, died in a fire that swept through their rent house at 2:30 a.m. on June 12, 2012 only four hours after McDonald’s ex-boyfriend had exited the house, according to Theresa Richard, McDonald’s mother, who owned the house.
“The boyfriend had threatened her at her work earlier,” Richard said. “All her co-workers heard him.”
The fire marshal’s investigation was a cruel joke, she said. “The entire investigation lasted about an hour. Keith Reed and Brant Thompson came to the scene and stayed about an hour before coming to our house to tell us the cause of the fire was undetermined.”
She said Reed had an arson-detection dog in his truck but never removed him from his truck. “I told them about the threats and they were just more or less indifferent about it,” Richard said.
Both Thompson and Reed were among 10 fire marshal employees to file for the POST Homicide Investigator Training Waiver last December 13, just two weeks before the January 1, 2017, deadline after which time “only peace officers who successfully complete the homicide investigator training program or receive a waiver of compliance based on prior training or experience as a homicide investigator shall be assigned to lead investigations in homicide cases.”
On his application, Thompson, who had been with the fire SFM for only seven months at the time of the fatal Crowley fire, indicated he had been a lead homicide investigator for 20 years and had investigated more than 100 homicides as either a lead investigator or a supervisor.
His previous experience the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control and the attorney general’s office before that would seem to cast serious doubts on his investigatory claims.
Reed, on his waiver application, indicated he had served as a lead homicide investigator for eight years and that he had been lead investigator on four homicides. Presumably, the investigation of the Crowley fire, conducted at a time when he had been with SFM for only three years, accounted for two of those investigations.
But an audio recording of radio exchanges between the Crowley police dispatcher and Reed would seem to indicate that Reed was reluctant to respond to the fire in the first place, complaining instead that his supervisor would not answer his phone.
“When the fire marshal’s office did respond, I saw only Reed,” Richard said. “I was told that Thompson was there but I never saw him. Reed came and looked around for about an hour. He collected no evidence whatsoever. He never turned over a single board.
The police radio recordings indicate that a vehicle similar to the one driven at the time by the sister of McDonald’s former boyfriend was observed driving back and forth in the area of 1008 East 8th street, McDonald’s address. The actual report of the fire begins at the 6:20 point of the police recording.
You can listen to the police radio conversation HERE.
So, what it appears here is that two employees of the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal who had only four years’ experience between them and one of whom was never actually seen, conducted a one-hour investigation of a double-fatality fire following a reported threat to one of the victims.
And given the request for a waiver of investigator training by both employees who, judging from the apparent urgency in obtaining the waivers, were lacking in both experience and training to conduct homicide investigations, their “investigation” is of dubious merit at best.
Yet, there they were.
One of them, at least.
For an hour, anyway.
As the arson-detection dog remained in the truck, never setting foot on the ground.
Making a determination that the fire was of an undetermined origin.
This is not an isolated event. Most fires were handled this way. “Undetermined” was the usual conclusion. But I promise you if you were to pull Butch’s Sunday e-mail to the office, it would tell a different story. Arson cases were always written about, in detail. Evidentiary details that should have been kept confidential during the course of the investigation were included.
Most of them were botched investigations by untrained investigators? WTF? How does this even happen?
I’ll explain.
Butch needs to keep his job but his office is spending way too much money in overtime and pay. LSP says “butch we need you to cut your budget and give us the rest.”
Butch says “I’ll BS the public into making fire inspectors and fire investigators ONE person. That way, we can send ONE person into each parish and they’ll handle every inspection, complaint, and investigation into it. I just need to shove it down the throats of the poor people I supervise.”
So he walks his stupid fat self to the annual meeting and tells these lifelong Firemen and fire inspectors that they’ll now be carrying guns and pepper spray and wear bulletproof vests because their lives will now be in danger as they’re pulled from 9-5 jobs to 24/7 on calls, dealing with felons and 103M’s all hours of the night. And if they don’t agree, I’ll just make their lives HELL until they quit. So they’re forced to go through police academies and sit through a few hours of fire investigation courses and BAM! They’re qualified and certified through the state to handle complex fire investigations involving large structures, commercial buildings, multiple fatalities, and insurance fraud.
These inspectors are now woken up all hours of the night to go investigate a fire scene and end up with the same conclusion of “I have no idea what I’m looking at and I’ll just write a BS report saying it’s undetermined and I’ll go back to bed.”
Meanwhile, those inspectors are promoted to supervisors. Now, we have inspectors who have no idea what’s going on reporting to supervisors who have no idea what’s going on. Reports are being approved. Overtime is being approved. Fire investigations are being classified as undetermined. Case loads go up. Case convictions go down. Butch Browning sleeps with his guys wives and treats them like crap. And the world goes on.
How dare you BUTCH BROWNING AND BRANT THOMPSON.
YOU SPIT IN THE FACE OF THIS FAMILY.
YOU BOTH ARE A DISGRACE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT, FIRE SERVICES, AND PUBLIC SERVICE AS A WHOLE.
YOU BOTH ARE A DISGRACE TO THE BADGE, THE UNIFORM, AND THE STATE OF LOUISIANA.
YOU ARE SICKENING. THIS IS TRULY DISTURBING. WOW!
I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE EMBARRASSED AND ASHAMED TO WORK FOR THIS AGENCY AND THE STATE FIRE MARSHAL’S OFFICE.
CAN AN INVESTIGATOR REALLY BE THIS RUDE AND SUGGEST WE NOT EVEN INVESTIGATE THIS? HOW DARE WE AS AN AGENCY. HOW DARE WE AS PUBLIC SERVANTS.
DESPICABLE!
IF THIS ARTICLE/INVESTIGATION DOESN’T SCREAM THAT CHANGE IS DESPERATELY NEEDED IN THIS AGENCY AND THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, THEN NOTHING WILL!
WE CAN’T HAVE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, THE STATE POLICE, OR THE LEGISLATIVE AUDITORS INVESTIGATE THIS — THEY’RE ALL TIED TO FRANCIS THOMPSON. WE NEED THE FEDERAL AGENTS IN HERE. THIS IS PURE CORRUPTION – LYING ON GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS IS A CRIME!
THE F.B.I. NEEDS TO KICK DOWN THE DOORS OF 8181 INDEPENDENCE BOULEVARD AND HANDCUFF THEM ALL.
BUTCH BROWNING PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS — SHOULD WE “GET BACK TO WORK”?
GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR REAR ENDS!
Again shows lack of concern for the citizens of Louisiana, it’s all about them.
Don’t forget Lance Carruth! Browning, Thompson and Carruth all need to go! Do a little research on him! I’m sure there are skeletons.
Lance Carruth needs to have every single email, text, and phone call pulled on a public records request!
He is just as bad, if not worse than Brant Thompson in his lack of experience and abusiveness/harassment of line employees.
Let’s see every email he has ever sent! You’d be shocked and surprised all of this goes on in a state agency “protected by civil service.”
Let’s see the qualifications and certifications and experience of “chief” Carruth.
It’s time for those of us who supported Edwards to admit we were sold a bill of goods. Any governor who would bury his head in the sand and ignore all that has transpired in the articles on the Fire Marshall’s Office has no honor. It’s that simple. I appreciate all of this being exposed because, not to be a smart alec, but when there is this much smoke, there’s a bonfire going on. I am also disappointed to see no other coverage of these alarming work conditions other than here.
I am a retired CFEI and have first hand knowledge about this investigation. Based on the information contained within the article, it is easy to condemn the investigator but there is much more to the story and some of the information is just not accurate. This investigation was not completed in the short time frame as it’s being reported. Interviews were conducted over a period of weeks with some of the necessary data being obtained possibly more than a month after the fire. It is being alleged there was relatively no fire scene investigation and no evidence was collected. This too is inaccurate. I can assure you the scene was examined and fire debris was collected and submitted to the LSP Crime lab for analysis. It’s being alleged the investigator was reluctant to respond and was more interested in talking about his supervisor not answering his phone based on the recordings provided. If you listen to the recording, it is not his supervisor he is talking about. It is the contact person on scene for the fire department that the investigator was unable to immediately get through to. SFM investigators are dispatched through a central reporting system who likely has little if any details about the fire. In the case of a fatal fire, it is imperative the investigator speak directly to authorities on the scene to determine what additional resources may be needed (detective, coroner, etc.). While to a lay person, it my sound like the investigator was being reluctant to respond by asking about the Crowley Police Department detectives response status, it is clear to anyone experienced in fatal fire investigations, he wanted a detective to respond in case it was determined there was foul play during the fire scene investigation. At least twice in the article and again by “former deputy” there is reference to an undetermined origin and cause for the fire. Not only is this a common determination in the field of fire investigations nationwide but nationally recognized written guides for fire investigators recommend that determination when a theory cannot be scientically proven and supported with evidence. In this case, there was insufficient evidence to support an intentionally set fire and insufficient evidence to support a homicide had occurred.
At the time of the fire, there was no central reporting system. The calls would come from the fire department. That has since changed. “Undetermined” is a common determination but it should not be used for almost every fire. And granted the reason it is used is lack of training, lack of tools, lack of time, lack of support, and lack of desire. Not everyone is cut out to do that job, it is a tough field. Butch has turned every deputy into an Arson Investigator even though they do not possess the abilities.
If the fire occurred outside the 8 to 4 time frame Reed would bitch about going, as for removing his K-9 from the truck there is a lot of reasons for that …Flipside is correct a fire should be determined as undetermined if no defined cause per 921 is found, but only after a complete investigation including “digging out” the entire structure. (One SFM investigator left a victims leg in a house fire in Goldonna and was found by an insurance investigator digging the scene out two day later.) I have seen one fire investigator spend 17 hours on a fatal fire sifting ever bit of debris for a suspected weapon. But that was before the “cross training experiment”No one at the SFM above should be conducting fatal fire investigations except Hyman, Johnson and maybe Edwards.
No to Heinen and Edwards.
I don’t understand why no other media outlet has picked up on the story.
I wonder if Keith Reed is sitting in his State unit somewhere around Lafayette reading this article.. which is all he ever does. The State’s most LAZY employee. He cannot teach anything, much less conduct a fire investigation! He should go down with Brant, Butch, and Carruth!
per policy every fatal fire a deputy works is considered a “homicide” until the cause of the fire can be determined ….so the numbers are more likely how many fatal fire scenes have they been on and how many as the primary investigator …misleading to say the least as most fatal fires are not suspect.
By the way where is our investigative reporter in NOLA he must pick and choose who he reports on. He was quick to jump on the Braxton train but he won’t do a story on this corrupt organization is he afraid of Mr. Browning or Senator Thompson ( Brant’ daddy ). It looks like an online petition may be in order. On the other hand I voted for John Bel Edwards but if he doesn’t can these two people (Browning and Thompson) myself and my entire family from north Louisiana to south Louisiana will vote for someone else and we will campaign for someone else. It’s ridiculous that we cannot get something done with this. Wake up people lives are at stake here. Hey Gov. where is your so called honor code