Murder charge in 1998 burn case faces hurdles
Legal experts: Hard to prove cancer was caused by attack.
CONROE — Now that prosecutors have persuaded a judge that a Texas man accused of setting an 8-year-old boy on fire as a teenager can be tried as an adult for murder, securing a conviction in a case in which the victim died 13 years after the attack could prove difficult, legal experts say.
Don Willburn Collins was 13 when Robert Middleton was attacked in 1998 on his eighth birthday, near the younger boy’s home in Splendora, about 35 miles northeast of Houston. Middleton was burned across 99 percent of his body and endured years of physical therapy before he died in 2011 from skin cancer blamed on his burns.
Collins was always a suspect but never indicted as prosecutors in Montgomery County said they didn’t have enough evidence. The case was reopened after Middleton gave a videotaped deposition shortly before his death in which he accused Collins for the first time of sexually assaulting him two weeks before the attack. Prosecutors charged the now 28-yearold Collins with murder last year, but they needed to move the case from juvenile to adult court to take him to trial.
After a three-day hearing this week, state District Judge Kathleen Hamilton ruled Thursday that prosecutors could do just that.
Houston criminal defense attorney Grant Scheiner, who is not involved in the case, noted that prosecutors lack direct evidence against Collins. He also said that confessions Collins reportedly made to others could come under heavy scrutiny at trial.
But the biggest hurdle for prosecutors will be linking Middleton’s death in 2011 from cancer to the attack in 1998, he said.
“I think (prosecutors) are going to face an uphill battle here,” Scheiner said.
Anthony Sabino, a law professor at St. John’s University in New York, said he wonders whether the judge’s decision to transfer the case to adult court will hold up on appeal.
Collins’ attorney, E. Tay Bond, had argued that the case should not be transferred to adult court because in 1998, a juvenile had to be at least 14 years old for a capital felony offense case to be transferred to adult court in Texas. The law was changed in 1999 to lower that age to 10.
But prosecutors argued that the murder didn’t take place until 2011, well after the law was changed.
Collins can’t appeal Hamilton’s ruling until after he goes through a trial.
Sabino said he thinks there are constitutional concerns about trying Collins as an adult.
“There is a long-standing legal precedent that laws are not applied retroactively,” Sabino said.
Montgomery County Attorney J.D. Lambright said he was pleased with the ruling but acknowledged that the judge’s decision was “step one in a lengthy process.” The prosecution will now be turned over to the county district attorney’s office, which will work to indict Collins. Lambright’s office is responsible for matters involving juveniles.
Several witnesses testified at this week’s hearing that Collins had confessed to them or others that he was responsible for the attack on Middleton. Part of Middleton’s taped deposition also was shown. A detective did testify that 13 pieces of evidence in the case had been mistakenly destroyed.
Bond, Collins’ attorney, questioned the reliability of Middleton’s statements, as well as secondhand statements made by other witnesses.
Collins, will remain jailed in lieu of $1 million bail. He also faces a charge of failing to register as a sex offender in neighboring San Jacinto County.