Debora Green - Post-hearing Events

Post-hearing Events

As the crime involved more than one victim, the prosecutors decided to request the death penalty when the case went to trial. When faced with this possibility, Green's defense team brought in Sean O'Brien, a representative of a Missouri anti-capital-punishment group.

A series of legal maneuverings involving both sides took place in the late winter and early spring of 1996. Defense attorneys requested that cameras be barred from Green's eventual trial, but the request was rejected. Green was judged by court-appointed psychologists to be competent to stand trial and denied a reduction in bail. The presiding judge ruled that she would stand trial once, for all of the charges against her, rather than be tried separately on each.

Her defense team undertook its own investigation, hoping to disprove state witnesses' testimony identifying the fire as arson. They found that accelerant had, indeed, been used to stoke the fire and that a robe belonging to Green had been on the floor of the master bathroom, burned in a manner that indicated it had been worn while one of the unconnected fires was set. According to Ellen Ryan, when confronted with this evidence, Green acknowledged having set the fire that destroyed her home, but denied any clear memory of the event. She continued to claim that Tim Farrar had been the one who poisoned his father. Green agreed to place an Alford plea of "no contest".