Debora Green made headlines when she killed two of her three children in a deliberately set house fire in 1995 and also poisoned her husband. She became the subject of the Ann Rule book "Bitter Harvest." She was born in Havana, Illinois on the last day of February 1951, the daughter of Bob and Joan Jones. Debora was a bright child and could read and write by the age of 3. By high school, she was a National Merit Scholar and co-valedictorian; those who knew her said she seemed destined to go far in life. After graduating in 1969, she enrolled in the University of Illinois and majored in chemistry. Debora hoped for a career in chemical engineering but decided the market for that profession was oversaturated and she would do better pursing a medical career instead.So Debora then enrolled at Kansas School of Medicine with an emphasis on emergency medicine and graduated in 1975. She started a residency at the Truman Medical Center Emergency Room. During this time she had been dating engineer Duane Green and they got married while she was attending classes at UoK. They resided in Independence, Missouri, best known as President Harry Truman's home town, but their marriage fell apart by 1978 and they separated. Debora claimed her and Duane had no hard feelings towards one another, they simply had incompatible beliefs and interests.Debora then met Michael Farrar, a student at medical school and a few years younger than her. Farrar was attracted to Debora's intelligence and energy, although he was also put off by her hair trigger temper. They got married May 26, 1979 and moved to Ohio where Farrar was accepted for an internal medical residence at University of Cincinnati. Initially Debora worked as an emergency physician at a local hospital but did not enjoy it much and decided to switch specialties. She began a second residency in internal medicine, joining her husband's program.
Debora and Michael became parents when their son Timothy was born on January 20, 1982. A daughter, Kate, arrived in 1984. After Debora completed her fellowship, she began private practice in hematology and oncology while Michael finished the final year of his cardiology fellowship. Both joined established medical practices in the Kansas City area. Debora began her own practice which did well until 1988 when she became pregnant for a third time and gave birth to her daughter Kelly at the end of the year. Debora was a conscientious mother who encouraged her children in their life's ambitions and enrolled them at the private Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City. Her medical practice faltered after coming back from Kelly's birth and she had chronic pain issues which forced her to retire in 1992 and work part time out of her home doing medical peer reviews and Medicaid processing. Doctors and nurses who worked with Debora during this time said she was insensitive to her patients and fanatically obsessed with her husband.Michael Farrar claimed his wife had become addicted to painkillers to treat chronic issues with infections and injuries; he had a couple of rows with her over this and she promised to stop taking the drugs.The Farrar children were all active in extracurricular activities; Timmy played sports, Kate became a ballerina and by the 5th grade was already dancing with the Missouri State Ballet. As Michael was preoccupied with his medical practice much of the time, Debora mostly raised the kids and was always taking them to their various activities. Other parents had mixed opinions of her. Some felt she was a tiger mom who drove her kids to achieve, others agreed with that assessment in a more perjorative sense, that is to say she'd become the stereotypical bullying Little League parent who lived vicariously through their children's accomplishments and yelled at them when they weren't good enough.
Michael and Debora's marriage was something less than a romance and more often than not felt like a business contract. He claimed the two had never talked of love since they got married. Debora had a hot temper and was quick to anger when things didn't go her way; she had no compunction about having a tantrum in public. Michael spent long hours at work to get away from her outbursts and what he claimed were her below average skills as a homemaker. When they argued, Debora would lecture the kids, especially Timmy, about how their father was at fault. She managed to sway them into believing her side of the argument and turn them against their father, so that Timmy and Michael sometimes had physical confrontations.At the start of 1994, Michael announced that he wanted a divorce. Debora believed he was cheating on her but claimed the request had come entirely out of the blue. In any case she responded angrily, by yelling and throwing things. Michael moved out of the house with the two sharing informal custody of the children. After a few months of separation, they tried to reconcile and became convinced that a larger house would improve their quality of life. In May, they were prepared to make an offer on a spacious six bedroom home in Prairie Village but then backed out, which Michael claimed was due to concerns about their marriage and their ability to pay for the property.Not long afterwards, their Kansas City home caught fire while the family was away for the weekend. The house was not severely damaged and the fire was traced to a shorted electrical cord. Their homeowner's insurance paid for the repair costs but the Farrars decided to just unload the place and Debora and the kids moved into the apartment Michael had been staying in while they were separated as the sale of the Prairie Village property was being re-negotiated.
Deborah and Michael tried to work out some of the problems that dogged their marriage; she made efforts to improve her cooking and housekeeping skills while Michael tried to spend more time at home and less at the office. But neither kept it up very long and as the year came to an end they were at each other's throats once again. Not wanting another spat with his wife and with the family planning a summer vacation to South America, Michael decided not to bring up the idea of a divorce again for a while.The South America trip in June 1995, sponsored by the Pembroke High School, saw Michael met Margaret Hacker, whose children also attended the school. Hacker, an RN married to an anesthesiologist, was also in a marriage she wanted out of and the two quickly became friends, and then lovers once they returned to the US from the trip. Michael then informed Debora he wanted a divorce and she lost her temper and screamed to the kids that their father was leaving them. She was especially upset that a broken home might disqualify the children from participating in debutante events such as the Belles of the American Royal when they were older.Michael was nonetheless reluctant to move out of the family home. Debora had never been a drinker before but now she was getting routinely sloshed in front of the kids. She still kept up her normal routine of driving them to their various after school activities but most evenings she would become blackout drunk and freely use coarse language in their presence. At least once, the kids called Michael up out of concern when they found Debora passed out and unresponsive. He drove there only to not find his wife anywhere. She turned out to be hiding in the basement, but claimed she'd been wandering around town hoping to be struck by a car.
In the early morning hours of October 24, Farrar got a phone call at his apartment from a neighbor who yelled that the Prairie Village house was on fire. He immediately drove there. Around midnight, a 911 call was received from the house indicating trouble was happening, although the caller hung up without elaborating. A patrol officer responded to the call and drove up to the house to find a fire in progress. Fire trucks arrived and found Debora and 10 year old Kate outside and safe, both dressed in their pajamas. Kate exclaimed that her siblings, Kelly and Timmy, were still inside. Debora looked calm and totally unworried. Two firefighters attempted to enter the house but it had become structurally unsound due to the severity of the blaze and they had to retreat.By the time the fire was extinguished, there was little left of the house, just the garage and some front stonework. It had burned down unusually fast; October 24, 1995 was a windy night in Kansas City which would have helped spread the flames but given the rapid progression of the fire, it seemed a little too suspicious to be a mere accident and so arson investigators were called in. Timmy and Kelly's bodies were retrieved the next morning. Kelly was found dead in her bed, probably succumbed to smoke inhalation. Timmy was found on the ground floor near the kitchen. It was estimated that he died in or close to his bedroom probably due to heat and smoke inhalation, and his body fell through the burned flooring to where it was discovered.
Shortly after this, Michael, Debora, and Kate were all taken to police headquarters for questioning as detectives began combing through the rubble of the house. Debora was separated from the other two and questioned first. She said October 24 had been a normal day for the family. The kids went to school, did their chores, and went to their extracurricular activities; Kate her ballet lessons and Timmy a hockey match. At around 9:00 PM, Michael dropped Timmy and Kelly back off at the house. Debora said she had a drink or two after dinner and went off to bed, briefly speaking with Timmy before his bedtime. The girls were already asleep and each had one of the two family dogs with them. Debora said she went to sleep at about 11:30. She had spoken to Michael a little before that. The kids were upset about the idea of them getting divorced but she was eager to begin a new life.A little after midnight, Debora continued, the fire alarm system in the house went off. She thought it was a false alarm caused by the dogs triggering the burglar alarm and she tried to turn it off via the control panel in her bedroom but as it wouldn't shut off, she went out into the hallway and noticed smoke. Debora went outside via a deck that connected to her bedroom. There she heard Timmy on the intercom system asking for help. She replied that he ought to stay put until the fire department arrived. She then went to a neighbor's house and asked if she could call 911. When she went back to the house, Kate had climbed out her second floor bedroom window and landed on the roof of the garage. She called on Kate to jump, which she did, landing on the grass below.
Detectives noticed the oddness of Debora's demeanor as she spoke. She did not appear at all distressed at the loss of her home and two of her children and she repeatedly addressed Timmy and Kelly in the past tense in addition to referring to all of them by their ages rather than their names ("My 13 year old", "My 6 year old", etc). She was inconsistent about her timing of events from last night and couldn't seem to remember when exactly she went to bed.When a detective arrived at the police station to announce that Timmy and Kelly's bodies had been found, Debora looked momentarily saddened but quickly became angered and yelled that the firefighters didn't do enough to save them. She also yelled at the police and detectives, claiming they were totally incompetent, witheld the knowledge of her children's deaths, and that she wanted to see her husband and the remains of the house. Though Green stressed to police that she wanted to be the one to "tell my husband our babies are dead," her request was not granted.Police let her go when their questioning was completed. She had no place to go and Michael wouldn't let her stay in his apartment, but offered her money for a hotel room. Her divorce lawyer Ellen Ryan found her in the hotel the next day, visibly distraught. She repeatedly asked Ryan whether her children had died, chanted rhythmically about their deaths, and seemed unable to care for herself. Green was transported to a local hospital for treatment but remained emotionally unstable, suffering from insomnia and appearing to Ryan to be unable to take care of day-to-day life, even after her release from the hospital.
The police started talking to Michael around daybreak on the 25th. He was promptly told about the death of his two children. Michael began by discussing how his marriage and health had gone downhill over the past six months. He suffered a high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea in August which he assumed was a bug he picked up in South America. He recovered for a few days and then relapsed. On August 18, he checked into a hospital suffering from fever and extreme dehydration. While hospitalized, he developed sepsis. Medical testing diagnosed streptococcus viridans, which likely leaked through damaged digestive tissue due to Farrar's diarrhea, as the source of the sepsis although doctors could not figure out the root cause of the gastrointestinal illness. Michael managed to recover and was discharged on August 25.That evening, after eating dinner with Debora, he came down with vomiting and diarrhea once again and had to go back to the hospital. On September 4, he developed the same conditions again. Still believing he must have contracted something on his vacation trip, doctors narrowed down the cause of the illness to a handful of things--typhoid fever, tropical sprue, or gluten-sensitive enteropathy, although none of these matched his exact symptoms. Furthermore, Michael noticed that each time he got out of the hospital he became sick almost immediately. He thought either the stress in his personal life or the transition from hospital food was affecting him. When Margaret Hacker went so far as to suggest Debora was intentionally poisoning him, he dismissed the idea as ridiculous.
During this time, Debora continued to drink heavily and talk about suicide or wishing death on Margaret Hacker. Near the end of September, Michael searched through the house and his wife's belongings. In her purse he found a packet of castor bean seeds, a copy of a supposedly-anonymous letter that had been sent to Farrar urging him to not divorce Green, and empty vials of potassium chloride. He removed all three items from her purse and hid them. Debora had never shown any prior interest in gardening, so Michael asked her what she was going to do with the castor beans. She said she was going to plant them but Michael told her that was bullshit, so she broke down and admitted she was going to eat them to commit suicide. Debora had been heavily drinking that day and Michael grew increasingly worried, so he called police and asked for help getting her mental health care.When police arrived at the house, they said Michael and the kids were "shaken" and Debora's behavior as erratic. She was cooperative with them but said she wasn't suicidal and yelled a string of expletives at her husband. Michael showed them the castor seeds and other items he found, and they had her taken to an emergency room. The attending doctors said Debora smelled of alcohol, but was not visibly intoxicated. She was a little disheveled but otherwise seemed stable. When Michael showed up at the hospital, Debora became agitated, spit at him, called him expletives, and swore that she'd never let him have the kids on her life. Though Green, with some persuasion by the doctor, initially agreed to a voluntary commitment, she shortly thereafter left the ER without informing anyone. She was found hours later, apparently having decided to walk home from the hospital, and brought back to the hospital. There, she agreed again to a voluntary commitment to the Menninger Clinic in Topeka.
She was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and bipolar disorder and put on a string of antidepressants and antipsychotics. After four days she was released. Michael, figuring Debora was intentionally poisoning him with the castor beans, moved out as soon as she returned. Michael gave his own account of October 24 and said that Debora was heavily drunk and he told her he knew she tried to poison him, and that he would call social services to protect the children if she didn't turn things around. He was watching TV in his apartment when he got a phone call informing him of the fire. Michael said he believed Debora intentionally set fire to the house to collect insurance money as she had been very worried about her finances with the impending divorce, but there had been no indication that she wanted to harm the kids. He promptly filed for divorce and to get custody of Kate.Detectives next talked to 10 year old Kate. She said she woke up on the night of October 24 to find the fire in progress. She saw smoke, went out into the hallway, called to Timmy, then closed the door and placed the hang up 911 call. Then she climbed out the bedroom window. Debora was outside and called on her to jump and she would catch her. She leapt from the garage roof to the ground. Debora missed her but she landed on the soft grass and was unharmed. When Michael showed up he was angry with her mother and the latter had been crying and fretting over the other two kids. Kate mentioned that she and her siblings liked Debora and considered her a good mother and she was upset with her father for leaving her. She admitted that Debora had been drinking heavily, but she never remembered seeing any kitchen matches in the house. She was also surprised that her brother had not escaped out the window like she did.
Meanwhile, arson investigators pored over the ruins of the Farrars' house. They determined that the home heating and electrical systems had not been at fault. There were pour patterns on the ground and second floor, indicating they'd been doused with a flammable liquid, and a large quantity of it (somewhere between 3 and 10 gallons) had been used although what specific liquid it was could not be determined. A can of lawn mower gasoline in an outside shed had not been used. With the cause of the fire being determined as arson, they called in the homicide unit.The clothes Debora wore that evening had no accelerant on them but hair samples taken from her had singeing although she claimed she left the house immediately and had never been in contact with the fire. The neighbors whose phone she used to call 911 said her hair had been wet.The castor bean seeds which Debora had on her had been bought at an Earl May hardware store and Debora's address book had contact information for the place. Detectives began calling around to different Earl Mays asking if anyone had sold castor bean seeds lately; September would be an unusual time to be purchasing gardening supplies but one clerk at a Missouri store said he spoke on the phone to a woman who requested the seeds. The store did not have them in stock at this time of year so she asked if they might order a couple packets which she said were needed for a school project. His description of the seller matched Debora Green and he picked her out of a police lineup.
Michael underwent surgery in November and gave blood samples to the Johnson County crime lab to be tested for ricin antibodies. On November 22, Debora was arrested just after dropping off Kate at dance practice and charged with two counts of attempted first degree murder and one count of arson. She was held on $3 million bail. A pretrial hearing in January saw her attorneys claim she didn't start the fire and it was her son Timmy, who had once gotten in trouble with police for throwing Molotov cocktails into a vacant lot. They also claimed he had poisoned Michael and the lack of emotion Debora displayed at the fire could have just been caused by the medications she was on.Michael had to undergo surgery for a brain abscess caused by the ricin poisoning and his testimony was videotaped beforehand in case he didn't make it. However he did survive the operation. Questioned about his marriage, he admitted some of the problems were his fault and he had a terrible relationship with his son that sometimes became physically violent.Arson investigators testified as to their findings about how the Farrars' house had been intentionally doused with a flammable liquid and detectives played the tapes of her statements to them including her urging Tim to stay in the burning house and her odd way of talking about her children.
The defense maintained that Tim set the fire out of anger at his father, that he was something of a pyromaniac, and he knew how to make homemade bombs. A neighbor recalled him setting fire to grass in her yard and a former nanny claimed Tim talked of wanting to kill his father and set fire to the house, and that he'd been caught with fire-starting implements. She admitted on cross examination that she hadn't babysat him in three years and she never reported his fascination with fire to his parents or police.On April 13, 1996, the defense team learned that Debora had agreed to plead guilty and avoid a trial. On the 17th, she pled guilty to two counts of murder, one count of arson, and two counts of attempted murder in exchange for no death penalty. She would receive 40 years in prison with no possibility of parole. Debora admitted the state had ample evidence that she started the fire and although she had not been in her right mind at that time, she would not contest the state's findings out of compassion for her remaining family, especially her daughter. She was formally sentenced on May 30. Psychologist Dr. Marilyn Hutchinson called her "immature" and unable to control her temper. She received two concurrent 40 year sentences with the 109 days she'd already served subtracted. Her earliest release date will be November 21, 2035, when she is 84 years old.She has continued to insist she could not remember anything substantial about October 24, 1995 and that her mind was in a haze from anti-psychotic meds she was on. She was interviewed by Ann Rule for her book on the case, "Bitter Harvest", and said she didn't think she could set the fire due to her chronic alcoholism. She claimed later on when she stopped taking Prozac that her mind was clearer.
>>17275968>>17275972>>17275978>>17275982Feminist bitch can't get what she wants, don't suck husband's dick but prefer to be a nagging whore. Pathetic.
>>17275978Jesus, was 70s fashion ever horrible.
that's rare. usually the stereotype bullying Little League parent is the dad, the mom being that is not as common.
>>17275968gross
Fuck the Midwest, man.
bump
thanks, crimebro
