John Galvan

The Crime

In the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 1986, a fire erupted in a home on West 24th Place in Chicago, Illinois. By the time firefighters brought it under control, 19-year-old Julio Martinez and his 28-year-old brother, Guadalupe, were dead. Two other siblings, 22-year-old Jorge Martinez, and 33-year-old Blanca Martinez, managed to escape. A firefighter, 31-year-old Raudel Casanova, was injured when he fell through the roof while fighting the blaze.

The Investigation

Socorro Flores, who lived behind the house across the alley, told police that she got up around 4 a.m. to make her husband’s lunch. When she looked out her second-floor window, she saw some boys in the alley. She said one boy was holding a towel or cloth, and saw something thrown onto the second floor of the house. She said she heard glass break and saw a small fire.

Blanca Martinez and other neighbors told police that a woman named Lisa Velez previously had threatened to burn down the home to seek revenge because she believed her brother, Mario, had been killed by members of the Latin Kings street gang. And, in fact, Jorge Martinez was a member of the Latin Kings. However, when police interviewed Ms. Velez, she denied setting the fire.

No arrests were made. 

Subsequently, the police re-interviewed Ms. Flores who now said she saw Frank Partida in the alley. 

In early June 1987, more than nine months after the fire, police interviewed Mr. Partida, who said that on the night of the fire, he had bumped into two teenagers and, as they were talking, they saw three other young men walking in the alley. He identified the two young men he was talking with by their nicknames. On June 8, police interviewed one of them, Jose Ramirez, who said two of the three boys in the alley were 19-year-old Michael Almendarez and 18-year-old John Galvan, whose families lived in the neighborhood.

That same day, detectives interviewed Mr. Almendarez, who would later testify that the officers handcuffed him, threatened his life, and repeatedly hit him in the abdomen. The officers took Mr. Almendarez to a rival gang’s territory and threatened to leave him there unless he gave a statement. As a result, Mr. Almendarez gave a statement saying Mr. Galvan and 22-year-old Francisco Nanez admit they set the fire.

Police then arrested Mr. Galvan, who gave a statement implicating Mr. Nanez and Mr. Almendarez’s 20-year-old brother, Arthur Almendarez. In the statement, Mr. Galvan admitted setting the fire was his idea. He said that all three were together when Mr. Nanez threw a bottle filled with gasoline at the building. 

Mr. Galvan would later testify that Detective Victor Switski wrote out the statement, but Mr. Galvan, who was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed about 100 pounds, refused to sign it because it was false. When Mr. Galvan continued to refuse to sign it, Detective Switski kicked him, punched the back of his head, and told Mr. Galvan to “study it;” the only way he could go home was to sign it. Mr. Galvan then signed the statement saying that when the bottle broke and no fire erupted, Mr. Galvan threw a cigarette at the liquid, and it ignited.

Mr. Galvan’s older brother, Isaac, was also questioned for a total of 11 hours but did not make any statement. Isaac later testified that he heard yelling, crying, and noises in the interrogation room where John was being held. Isaac was released without being charged.

Police then arrested Arthur Almendarez and Mr. Nanez. After denying involvement, both ultimately gave statements implicating each other and Mr. Galvan. Arthur later testified that Detective Switski and another detective, James Hanrahan, physically abused him. The abuse included being kicked in the groin and repeatedly struck in the back of the head. Arthur said he was never read his Miranda rights and was denied a request to speak to family members or an attorney. 

Arthur said the detectives told him that Mr. Galvan and Mr. Nanez had made statements that did not implicate him and that if he signed a statement implicating them, he could go home. Arthur’s statement said that he was with Mr. Galvan and Mr. Nanez on the night of the fire and Mr. Galvan said he wanted to burn a house on 24th Place because some guys who lived there had shot at him a couple of weeks before. 

According to Arthur’s statement, the three went to a gas station nearby, where Mr. Galvan held an empty milk container while Mr. Almendarez pumped gasoline into it. Then, they walked down the alley behind the Martinez home. The statement said Mr. Almendarez waited next to a garage about 20 feet from the home while Mr. Galvan and Mr. Nanez walked around the garage. Several minutes later, Mr. Galvan and Mr. Nanez ran out and told Arthur to run.

Mr. Nanez was then arrested. He also signed a statement in which he said he was a reluctant participant, but was present when the three got gasoline. In this statement, Mr. Nanez said Mr. Galvan lit the rag stuffed in the bottle and tossed it at the house before they all fled. Mr. Nanez later said he was drunk when was interrogated, and was without his glasses, which left him unable to see what he was signing. He said the police did not read him his Miranda rights.

On June 8, 1987, Mr. Galvan, Arthur Almendarez, and Mr. Nanez were each charged with first-degree murder and aggravated arson.

The Trials

In May 1989, Mr. Galvan went to trial alone in Cook County Circuit Court. His attempt to suppress his statement had been denied. At the suppression hearing, Michael Almendarez testified that his statement was false.

The prosecution contended that Mr. Galvan lit a Molotov cocktail with a cigarette to get revenge on the Martinez brothers. Jose Ramirez testified that he saw Mr. Galvan and someone he knew as “Michael” in the alley behind the Martinez home.

Detective Mark Scheithauer from the Chicago Police Bomb and Arson section testified that he saw significant burning and deep charring on the first-floor porch, as well as areas of burn-through in front of the back doorway. He testified that this burn-through indicated “something was laying on the surface of the floor that involved the wood to a greater degree than the surrounding areas causing it to burn down and through the floor.” 

Detective Scheithauer also testified that he found “crazed” glass from the windows which was caused by a very hot fire or a rapid buildup of intense heat. He also identified areas of brick that were clean and testified these were the result of intense heat. Detective Scheithauer said the fire was ignited on the first-floor porch in front of the doorway going into the first-floor apartment with a liquid accelerant. He said there was no evidence of accelerants at the scene because the fire had consumed it all.

Detective Switski said after he confronted Mr. Galvan with what Michael Almendarez had said, Mr. Galvan “sort of hung his head” and said he would confess. According to Detective Switski, Mr. Galvan said that he, Arthur and Mr. Nanez got the gasoline, and then he made the Molotov cocktail. He said Mr. Nanez threw it against the back of the house, spilling the gasoline, but it did not ignite. Mr. Galvan said he walked up to the house and threw a lit cigarette onto the soaked wood, igniting the blaze. 

The defense called family members who testified that Mr. Galvan was home by 3 a.m. — at least an hour before the fire — and slept until the morning. 

Mr. Galvan testified and denied involvement in the fire. He testified that he was coerced to sign the statement because Detective Switski kept hitting him in the back of the head. 

In rebuttal, Detective Switski denied physically abusing Galvan. 

On May 30, 1989, the jury convicted Mr. Galvan of first-degree murder and aggravated arson. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In January 1990, Arthur Almendarez and Mr. Nanez went to trial together in Cook County Circuit Court before separate juries. The prosecution presented their statements as well as the arson testimony of Detective Scheithauer. Detectives Switski and Hanrahan denied abusing anyone. On Jan. 29, 1990, the separate juries convicted Mr. Almendarez and Mr. Nanez of first-degree murder and aggravated arson. Both were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

All three men’s convictions were upheld on appeal.

The Exoneration

In 2007, Mr. Galvan was 21 years into his sentence when he saw something on television in prison that he thought might help his case — an episode of MythBusters. The episode, “Hollywood on Trial,” which had originally aired in 2005, showed the hosts try to ignite a pool of gasoline with a lit cigarette, but were unable to do so, despite such scenes being depicted on television shows and in films. After several attempts, the team determined it was highly unlikely that dropping a cigarette into gasoline could cause a fire. Mr. Galvan immediately reached out to his attorney, Tara Thompson.

Several years of filings of post-conviction petitions ensued, but the petitions were dismissed. 

In 2012, the First District Illinois Appellate Court reinstated the petitions and ordered a hearing.

By that time, Ms. Thompson and fellow attorney Joshua Tepfer, both of whom were at the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School, were deeply involved in the case. The Exoneration Project would later come to represent Mr. Almendarez as well.

At the hearing, Dr. Russell Ogle, fire expert, testified there was no evidence as to what started the fire, and there was nothing about the scene that would support that the fire was deliberately set.

Dr. Ogle said it was undisputed in modern science that a burning cigarette cannot ignite a flammable vapor. He also said a burning cigarette cannot ignite wood that has been soaked in gasoline. Dr. Ogle said Detective Scheithauer reached his opinions on the cause and origin of the fire by relying on his interpretation of fire patterns, but that analysis of fire patterns as a method for analyzing a fire had been repudiated by modern fire science. Although old fire science tied the specific scene patterns that Detective Scheithauer observed to liquid accelerants, modern fire science had shown that none of these phenomena have anything to do with burn patterns, Dr. Ogle testified. 

Mr. Galvan, Michael, and Arthur Almendarez all testified that they were physically abused. The defense presented testimony from other individuals who said they had been similarly abused by Detective Switski and other detectives in other unrelated cases. 

Despite this testimony, the petitions were denied. In 2019 and in 2020, in separate rulings, the First District Illinois Appellate Court reinstated the petitions and ruled Mr. Galvan and Mr. Almendarez should receive new suppression hearings and, “if necessary, a new trial.”

On July 13, 2022, the charges against Mr. Almendarez, Mr. Galvan, and Mr. Nanez were dismissed and they were released. The three men each had spent more than 35 years in custody since their arrest.