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Ex-girlfriend still says man didn't set fire that killed his sons

She didn't think Daniel Dougherty started the fire that killed his two young sons. She thought it was caused by an electric fan near the front door.

She didn't think Daniel Dougherty started the fire that killed his two young sons. She thought it was caused by an electric fan near the front door.

That's what Kathleen Schuler told investigators soon after a 1985 blaze destroyed the Oxford Circle rowhouse where she lived with Dougherty, her son, and his boys.

The police sought to set her straight: It was arson, and they believed that Dougherty did it.

Schuler couldn't accept that.

Even later, after she and Dougherty broke up, she went back to police to tell them that she and Dougherty were smokers, and so was a babysitter and other visitors. She hadn't emptied the ashtrays on the day of the fire.

On Wednesday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, Schuler, now Kathleen McGovern, was summoned by prosecutors seeking to convict Dougherty of murder in his second trial, and became the first witness to suggest what is a central claim of Dougherty's defense - that the blaze might not be arson.

Dougherty, 56, has insisted from the start that he awoke to a house ablaze, ran outside, then tried desperately to rescue 3-year-old John and 4-year-old Daniel Jr. He's counting on advances in fire science to free him.

Sixteen years ago in 2000, Dougherty was convicted and sentenced to death for setting the fire at the Carver Street rowhouse. He was granted a new trial in 2014 after an appellate court ruled that his lawyer's failures had so skewed the original proceeding that "no reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence took place."

His death sentence was vacated in 2012, becoming a life sentence.

The retrial holds national implications as an example of cases in which evolving fire science has freed some inmates and brought the guilt of others into question.

Prosecutors insist that the original guilty verdict was correct.

Under questioning Wednesday by Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy, Schuler said she believed that the fan was at fault because of what Dougherty told her: that when he awoke on the couch, the curtains near the fan were on fire.

Conroy probed the issue of a smoldering cigarette. Schuler agreed that she smelled no burning, no smoke, coming from the living-room sofa or love seat before she left the house that night.

She had confronted Dougherty at the Ashburner Inn, where he sat at the bar instead of attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She told him she was leaving him and walked out, she said.

At the time of the fire, Dougherty was separated from the boys' mother, Kathleen Dippel.

Dippel testified Wednesday, as she had 16 years ago, that she and Dougherty had a troubled relationship. He was a mean drunk, she said, and she was addicted to drugs. When she confronted him about his drinking, he hit her, she testified.

She and Dougherty sparred the night of the fire, she said. He wanted her to come and get the boys early for her regular Saturday visitation.

He drove her to the Carver Street home - Schuler had already left - but Dippel said she felt uneasy. She said she feared that if she went upstairs to get the boys, Dougherty would try to force himself on her.

He refused to fetch them himself, she testified. So she left, forced to walk because he would not give her a ride.

Soon afterward, she decided to go back to the house, accompanied by her boyfriend. She wanted him to talk to Dougherty.

When they arrived at the rowhouse, "it was all burnt," she said.

Dippel sobbed as she described being told that her children were dead. That caused the court to recess temporarily.

On Wednesday, it was apparent that the passage of time was impacting the trial, with memories faded and witnesses dead or unavailable.

Retired Assistant Fire Marshal John Quinn, whose arson finding helped send Dougherty to death row, is too ill to testify. His previous testimony will be read into the record.

On Wednesday, testimony from a Philadelphia homicide detective, now deceased, was read to the jury. He interviewed Dougherty hours after the fire.

Dougherty denied setting the blaze. He thought the likely cause was a faulty electrical outlet into which the fan and a stereo were plugged.

Dougherty, then 25, wasn't charged until 14 years later, in 1999. His estranged second wife, Adrienne Sussman, then battling him for custody of their son, Stephen, called police and told them he had confessed to her.

She didn't testify at his original trial, and has since died.

jgammage@phillynews.com

215-854-4906@JeffGammage