Texas man admits setting 1986 fire, killing 2 stepsons

DALLAS — A Texas man admitted Tuesday to setting a backyard fire that killed his two young stepsons a quartercentury ago, bringing a surprising end to a long fight over whether faulty fire science had wrongfully imprisoned him.

Ed Graf pleaded guilty to two counts of murder while a jury in Waco was deliberating during his retrial. He took a plea deal that carries a 60-year prison sentence but counts his 28 years in custody as time served, making him immediately eligible to apply for parole.

Authorities have spent years studying arson murder cases in Texas.

The State Fire Marshal’s Office is working with the Innocence Project to review problematic cases and has flagged several as being based on faulty conclusions.

Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas, said he didn’t see Graf’s case as a setback.

Prosecutors accused Graf of locking his stepsons, ages 8 and 9, in a backyard shed in Hewitt, Texas, in 1986 and setting it on fire. They said he wanted to collect on life-insurance policies.

But a panel convened by the State Fire Marshal’s Office concluded that the two investigators who testified against Graf in 1988 were wrong. The panel said those experts misinterpreted photos of burn patterns and other evidence to say that the fire was set intentionally. The panel did not issue an opinion on whether Graf was guilty.

Texas’ highest criminal court agreed with the panel and granted Graf a new trial.

Graf’s ex-wife, Clare Bradburn, had long insisted that she believed her exhusband was guilty.