True Crime-Paranormal-Conspiracy Theories Stories Part V #Wattys2023

Debora Green Part II

Kate Farrar's account

Kate Farrar was interviewed by investigators on October 26. She stated that on the night in question she had woken up to find the fire already burning. Seeing smoke seeping into her room, she opened the bedroom door and called to her brother, then closed the door and placed the hang-up 9-1-1 call that alerted police. She then crawled out of her bedroom window to escape the fire.

Kate reported to police that when she called to her mother after escaping onto the garage roof, Green had been "terribly upset" and called to Kate to jump into her arms. Though Green missed catching her daughter when she did jump, Kate was not hurt. When the two ran into Farrar minutes later, Kate said that Farrar had been accusatory toward Green and Green had been crying and worried about her missing children.

According to Kate, Farrar had moved out of the family home and spurned Green's desire for an amicable separation. Kate stressed that she loved and respected her mother and that all of the children had had good relationships with her, but that she was angry at her father for upsetting her mother by leaving. Pressed, she acknowledged that her mother had begun to drink large quantities of alcohol. She denied that she had ever seen matches in the house and expressed surprise that Tim had not escaped by the same route she had, which was via a bedroom window onto the roof.

Investigation

Fire investigation

The Eastern Kansas Multi-Agency Task Force was called to conduct an arson investigation on the Prairie Village house on October 24. Staffed by fire investigators and search teams from throughout the area, they focused on determining the origin and cause of the fire, searching through debris for usable evidence and interviewing witnesses. A dog trained to detect the scent of fire accelerants was brought in to assist in searching the house.

The investigators ruled out common causes of accidental fires, including electrical panels and furnaces. They determined that the basement level of the home, which contained the furnaces, had not been a point of origin, though two small orphan fires unconnected to the main burning had occurred in that area. Pour patterns were found on the ground and second floors, indicating that a flammable liquid had been poured there and covered many areas of the ground floor, blocked off the stairway from the second floor to the ground floor, and covered much of the hallway on the second floor. The pour patterns stopped at the door of the house's master bedroom, but had soaked into carpeting in the hallway leading to the children's bedrooms. Investigators could not determine the precise liquid used as an accelerant, though they proved that a can of gasoline the family kept in a shed had not been used. The amount of accelerant used was identified as between 3 and 10 US gallons (11 and 38 L). Concluding that the fire was a result of arson, the investigators on October 26 called in a second area task force, this one focused on homicide investigation. On October 27, the district attorney for Johnson County was informed that the investigation was now criminal.

Police investigations

Arson case

In seeking to find who had set fire to the Farrar–Green home, investigators looked first for physical evidence of fire-setting upon those who had been in the house. They suspected that because of the use of accelerant, the fire may have flashed over at the point of ignition and singed or burned the setter. Accordingly, they tested clothing worn by both Farrar and Green that night and took samples of the hair of both. Neither Green's nor Farrar's clothing showed evidence of having been in contact with accelerant; Farrar's hair showed no singeing, but Green's—which had been cut twice between the time of the fire and the time the police took hair samples from her—showed "significant singeing". Detectives recalled that Green had denied ever having been in close proximity to flames; she had reported leaving the house after seeing smoke and not coming into contact with the fire either on the deck outside her bedroom or in the process of coaxing Kate off the garage roof. Neighbors of the family reported that when Green had come to their door to ask them to call for help, her hair had been wet. Though their suspicions pointed to Debora Green, investigators continued to receive tips attributing the fire to any number of people and the investigation continued with no public statement about suspects.