A former Naperville resident, imprisoned almost two decades for the arson murder of his mother-in-law, has been granted a court hearing to dispute the fire investigation evidence that helped to secure his conviction.
William Amor will return in June to the DuPage County courthouse where he was convicted of murder and arson in the death of Marianne Miceli, who died in a Sept. 10, 1995, fire at the Naperville condominium she shared with her daughter and Amor.
Attorneys for Amor say he is innocent and advances in arson investigation techniques and science undermine the conclusions investigators reached in the mid-1990s, including that Amor started the fire using a cigarette and a vodka-soaked newspaper.
"It is simple: Fire investigation techniques used today, which disprove the finding of incendiary and arson in this case, were not available at the time of Mr. Amor's trial," his attorneys contended in court filings. "Moreover, the techniques that were used at trial in 1995 are no longer generally accepted."
But a federal arson investigator, in a January report commissioned by DuPage County prosecutors, concluded the fire was set but thought it unlikely Amor did it. The ATF agent suggested investigators question Amor's ex-wife to get a more thorough picture of what happened on the night of the fire.
Amor, who turns 60 this month, is serving a 45-year prison sentence at the Taylorville Correctional Center. He is scheduled to be paroled in March 2018, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.
Miceli, 40, who was partially disabled from a childhood accident, reported the fire and told authorities she was trapped in her condo. By the time firefighters arrived, she was dead.
Amor and his wife, Tina Miceli, 18, also lived at the condo at 218 E. Bailey Road. The couple left to go to a drive-in movie about 20 minutes before the fire was reported.
Police questioned Amor several times after the fire, and he confessed three weeks later. At trial, his attorneys argued that abusive, coercive questioning by Naperville police, who during one session served Amor with divorce papers filed by his wife, resulted in a false confession.
A jury, though, found him guilty in 1997. Amor filed an ultimately unsuccessful postconviction petition in the early 2000s, and his case was dormant until the Illinois Innocence Project took it on in 2014. Innocence Project attorneys convinced a judge that errors in the original fire investigation were significant enough that Amor should be granted a new hearing on that evidence.
The fire investigators in the 1990s initially deemed the cause of the fire to be undetermined but switched it to "incendiary" after Amor's confession that he dropped a lit cigarette on a vodka-soaked newspaper before leaving for the movies, Amor's attorneys argued. Conclusions about the fire's starting point have also been undermined by modern investigative advances, they said.
"Evidence relied on by the state at trial has been flatly contradicted by modern science," Amor's attorneys wrote.
DuPage County prosecutors declined to comment on Amor's case, but they contended in court filings that despite scientific evolution in fire investigation, original testimony about the origin of the fire and its cause remains viable.
Prosecutors commissioned a re-examination of the evidence by an ATF-certified fire investigator, who concluded that someone started the fire, but it was likely not Amor. His wife, Tina, had gone back inside the apartment to retrieve her cigarettes as Amor waited in the parking lot before the couple went to the drive-in, the investigator, ATF Senior Special Agent John Golder, noted.
If Amor had started the fire, his wife would have smelled the smoke when she returned to the apartment, the investigator said. Tina Miceli had also told investigators in 1995 that she had spilled lighter fluid in the room where the fire started, Golder reported.
"In evaluating all of the available evidence, including the original statements of both Mr. and Mrs. Amor, and accounting for their truthfulness, it is my opinion that further interviews should be conducted with Mrs. Amor and that investigators should follow up their investigative efforts in her possible involvement in the ignition of the fire," Golder wrote.
The agent, who interviewed William Amor in prison, said his conclusion did not preclude Amor from being an accomplice or participant in the fire.
Attempts by the Tribune to reach Tina Miceli for comment were unsuccessful. State's Attorney Robert Berlin declined to comment. The case is due back in court Wednesday for a status hearing. The evidentiary hearing is scheduled for June 14.
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
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