Jury Gets Unusual Murder Case in Drug Lab Fire

In the first case of its kind, jury deliberations began Monday in the trial of a mother accused of murdering three of her children because they perished in an inferno allegedly sparked when she was cooking methamphetamine.

If she is convicted, both sides agree that the case is destined for appellate review because it tests a new legal theory, promoted by the judge at this trial, that the manufacture of methamphetamine is an inherently dangerous felony and that deaths resulting from it can be prosecuted as second-degree murder.

Kathey Lynn James, 40, is accused of processing the drug the day after Christmas last year in her small mobile home in the rural town of Aguanga, east of Temecula. The mobile home erupted in flames, and three of her children died in the blaze: Dion, 3 1/2; Jackson, 2 1/2, and Megan, 1 1/2.

A fourth child, who was 7, escaped the fire uninjured by jumping through a window. Two men inside the home and James were burned but also escaped.

The fire was so hot that much of the structure melted to the foundation, and investigators found no specific evidence that a methamphetamine lab was in operation.

James, who testified in her own defense, admitted that she had manufactured methamphetamine about 300 times over the past 10 years, and characterized herself as something of an expert at it. When the fire erupted, she testified, she was not in the kitchen. She suggested that it started from a propane gas leak.

Two men--Michael Talbert and Harry Jenson--pleaded guilty to manufacturing methamphetamine in connection with the incident.

The surviving child testified that his mother frequently made “white medicine” in the kitchen, and testified--as did the two men--that she was doing it Dec. 26 when the fire started.

Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. John Davis theorized to the jury that highly flammable chemicals wafted to a source of ignition--perhaps the oven’s pilot light--and exploded.

Existing case law does not call for a person to be charged with second-degree murder when someone is killed in connection with the manufacture of methamphetamine. But the Riverside County district attorney’s office pressed for it.

Given the supportive ruling by Judge W. Charles Morgan, defense attorney Frank Peasley conceded in his closing arguments Monday that if the jury finds that James was indeed making the drug that day, his client would then be found guilty of second-degree murder.

But he argued that the testimony of the two men and the boy was sometimes contrary and could not be trusted and that James was not making the drug that day.

Peasley said his client would never qualify as “mother of the year” but said, “She’s never had a fire, never had an explosion. She took all the precautions she could.”

At most, he argued, James might be guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

But Davis countered that James had no other reasonable explanation for the blaze, and referred to her son’s statement to investigators: “Mom was in the kitchen. She wasn’t cooking no food. She was cooking something on the stove and put white medicine in it.”

The law now allows people convicted of such serious felonies as robbery, rape and kidnapping also to be charged with first-degree murder if someone dies in the commission of the crime.

The law also allows second-degree murder prosecution if death occurs in the commission of less serious crimes, such as arson on a vehicle.