Debora Green

Debora Green ( Jones; born February 28, 1951) is an American physician who pleaded no contest to setting a 1995 fire that burned down her family's home and killed two of her children, and to poisoning her husband with ricin with the intention of causing his death.

The case was sensational, and covered heavily by news media, especially in the Kansas–Missouri area, where the crimes occurred.

Though Green has petitioned for a new trial twice in recent years, her requests have not been successful.

Green attended the University of Illinois from the fall of 1969, where she took a major in chemistry.

Though she had intended to pursue chemical engineering as a career, she opted to attend medical school after graduating in 1972, believing the market was flooded with engineers.

She attended the University of Kansas School of Medicine from 1972 to her graduation in 1975.

Green chose emergency medicine as her initial specialty and undertook a residency in the Truman Medical Center Emergency Room after her graduation from medical school.

Throughout her undergraduate and medical school attendance, she dated Duane M. J. Green, an engineer.

The couple married while she was studying at the University of Kansas.

The couple lived together in Independence, Missouri, while Debora finished her residency, but by 1978 they had separated and then divorced.

Debora cited basic incompatibility as the reason for the divorce—"[...W]e had absolutely no common interests", she was later quoted as saying—but the divorce was friendly.

During the period the Greens were separated, Debora met Michael Farrar, a student in his twenties completing his last year of medical school.

Farrar was struck by Green's intelligence and vitality, though he was embarrassed by her habit of explosively losing her temper at minor slights.

In contrast, Green felt that Farrar was a stable, dependable presence.

Green married Michael Farrar in 1979 while practicing as an emergency physician.

The couple were married on May 26, 1979.

When Farrar was accepted for an internal medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati, the couple moved to Ohio.

Green went into practice at Jewish Hospital as an emergency physician, but grew dissatisfied and eventually switched specialties.

She began a second residency in internal medicine, joining Farrar's program.

By the early 1980s, the Farrars were living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

During this time Green developed a number of medical issues, including surgery on an infected wrist, cerebellar migraines, and insomnia.

The Farrars' first child, Timothy Scott, was born on January 20, 1982.

After a six-week maternity leave, Green returned to her fellowship in hematology and oncology at the University of Cincinnati.

The marriage was tumultuous, and Farrar filed for divorce in July 1995.

Between August and September 1995, Farrar repeatedly fell violently ill, and despite numerous hospitalizations his doctors could not pinpoint the source of his illness.

Green's emotional stability deteriorated and she began to drink heavily, even while supervising her children.

On October 24, 1995, the Farrar family home, occupied by Green and the couple's three children — Timothy (age 13), Kate (age 10), and Kelly (age 6) — caught fire.

Debora Green and Kate escaped without harm.

Despite the efforts of firefighters, Timothy and Kelly died in the blaze.

Investigation showed that trails of accelerant in the house led back to Green's bedroom, and that the source of Michael Farrar's intractable illness had been ricin, a poison served to him in his food by Green.

Upon her arrest on November 22, 1995, Green was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, and one count of aggravated arson.

She was held on $3,000,000 bail—the highest ever required by Johnson County, Kansas—and maintained her innocence throughout pre-trial motions and a show cause hearing.

However, when the defense's own investigators verified the strength of forensic evidence against Green, she agreed to an Alford plea to all charges.

On May 30, 1996, she was sentenced to two concurrent forty-year prison sentences.

Green has petitioned for a new trial twice since her conviction.

Her first request, which she eventually withdrew, was based on a claim of having been rendered incompetent for plea bargaining by the psychiatric medications she was taking at the time of her hearings; her second, which was denied by a judge, claimed that the evidence used to convict her of arson had been rendered obsolete by scientific advances.

Green was the second of two daughters of Joan and Bob Jones of Havana, Illinois.

She showed early intellectual promise, and is reported to have taught herself to read and write before she was three years old.

Green participated in a number of school activities at the two high schools she attended and was a National Merit Scholar and co-valedictorian of her high school class.

Those who knew her at the time later described her as "[fitting] right in" and someone who was "going to be successful".