Internet helps clear Columbus County woman

By Deuce Niven
Correspondent
WHITEVILLE -- Terri Hinson Strickland says she never doubted that arson and murder charges filed against her in the 1996
death of her 17-month-old son would be proved false. But she never expected to use her home computer to find experts to
argue her case.

Joshua Hinson died in a Oct. 20, 1996 blaze at his mother's 101 Wall St. home in Tabor City. Firefighters responding to the
early morning call found Joshua dead in his crib, and his sister, Brittany, then 4, on the floor of her room. Brittany recovered
from her injuries.

All charges against Strickland, now 34 and living with her mother in Fair Bluff, were dismissed by Assistant District Attorney Lee Bollinger Friday. Bollinger says he made his decision after an April 1 meeting with three arson experts Strickland found through the Internet.

"After listening to them, talking again to our fire scene investigators, it was our determination that we could not determine that she set the fire," Bollinger said.

Bollinger said there is strong, but not conclusive evidence, that the fire began in 50-year-old wiring above a closet in Joshua's upstairs room in the two-story home.

"That particular Romex cable is what we can not eliminate as a potential cause of the fire," Bollinger said. "When you look at it in close detail, all the physical evidence there at the scene, you really can't say beyond a reasonable doubt that she set the fire, or that the wire was responsible. What you can say is that the cause of this fire is undetermined and that all the experts have nothing more than subjective opinions on how the fire started.

"The more we did, the more we realized that the case boiled down to cause and origin of the fire," he said. "We have
absolutely no case of motive or other circumstances that would tend to show how it started."

Bollinger said the state had "an ethical obligation to dismiss" the charges against Strickland.

Bollinger said his only regret was that the state did not have the resources to get experts with the credentials of those who
supported Strickland. The men who met with Bollinger April 1 came to North Carolina at their own expense, and refused
compensation, Bollinger said.

The arson experts who met with Bollinger included Dr. Gerald Hurst of Texas, a Cambridge educated chemist; Ken Gibson, an expert in fire investigations with some 30 years experience in Texas; and Wyman Sox, a fire investigator from Raleigh hired by Strickland's lawyers, Craig Wright and Bill Woods.

Strickland says it was Hurst and Gibson who made a real difference, as well as an Australian arson expert named Tony Caf.
She found Caf on the Internet.

"The Internet was my starting point," she said. "Tony was willing to come here too, but he wasn't sure if they would accept his credentials from Australia. When they saw the evidence, they believed me. These gentlemen know their jobs. I owe them my life, I really do."

Strickland, who married her long-time boyfriend Rodney Strickland last May 23, said her first priority now is to get her
daughter Brittany back, and to get on with her life.

Brittany was taken from her mother after her arrest, and has been living with family members, most recently a sister in
Charlotte. A hearing today was expected to result in the return of Brittany to her mother's custody.

"As soon as the hearing is over, I'm going to Charlotte to get my little girl," Strickland said. "We'll go on, we'll have our lives.  We're very close. She's suffered, but she's pretty resilient."

"I think to do what I've had to do, to go through the last 18 months and still have my sanity, I have to have something in there.

"But Josh is not here ... my son is gone and no amount of anything can bring him back. My son should not have died, and that's
something I have to deal with."

Before the fire, and before her arrest, Strickland was completing studies toward an associate's degree in criminal justice from Southeastern Community College. She will not go back.

"This was not right, it was not fair what happened to me. It's made me have a whole different outlook on criminal justice."