85 Facts About Debora Green

Debora Green 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Debora 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.

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

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

Debora 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.

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

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

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

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

Debora Green again returned to her studies after maternity leave, and by 1985 had completed her fellowship.

Debora Green went into private practice in hematology and oncology while Farrar finished the last year of his cardiology fellowship.

Debora Green was reportedly a good mother who wanted the best for her children and encouraged them in their activities of choice.

Farrar later alleged that Debora Green had been self-medicating with sedatives and narcotics to treat pain from infections and injuries periodically throughout their marriage.

Debora Green recounted several episodes to author Ann Rule in which he had confronted Green with issues regarding her demeanor, handwriting, and speech patterns that indicated drug intoxication, and said that Green had agreed to stop using the medications each time he confronted her.

Debora Green later said that neither one had expressed their love to each other, even at the early stages of marriage.

The couple put extra effort into avoiding the issues that had caused strife before their separation: Despite being an indifferent cook and housekeeper, Debora Green tried to focus on cooking and keeping the new house cleaner, while Farrar vowed to curtail his work hours so that he could spend more time with the family.

Debora Green responded hysterically and told the children that their father was leaving them.

Debora Green was especially upset that a broken home might later disqualify the children from debutante events such as the Belles of the American Royal.

Debora Green was concerned that Green, who had never been a heavy drinker of alcohol, was suddenly consuming large quantities of it while supervising the children.

Debora Green had disappeared from the home by the time Farrar arrived there, and though he eventually discovered that she had been hiding in the basement while he searched for her, she claimed at the time to have been wandering the town, hoping to be hit by a car.

Debora Green stood next to her daughter, and was reported to have been "very calm, very cool".

Farrar had taken Tim and Kelly to the hockey game, while Debora Green took Kate to ballet lessons.

Debora Green told police that she had one or two drinks after dinner and went to her bedroom, leaving it only to speak to Tim in the kitchen some time between ten and eleven in the evening, shortly before he went to bed.

Debora Green told police that she and Farrar were in the process of divorce, though she did not know how far along they were, and that although the children were very upset at the prospect, she herself was not and was looking forward to being able to rebuild her life.

Debora Green was awakened some time after midnight by the sound of the home's built-in fire alarm system.

Debora Green initially assumed that the sound was a false alarm caused by her dogs triggering the burglar alarm, but when she tried to shut off the alarm at the control panel in her bedroom and it continued sounding, she opened her bedroom door and found smoke in the hallway.

Debora Green exited the house using a deck that connected to her first-floor bedroom.

Debora Green called to Kate to jump, and Kate landed safely on the ground in front of Debora Green.

Detectives noted that during her interview Debora Green did not appear to be or have been crying, and her manner was "talkative, even cheerful".

Debora Green repeatedly referred to Tim and Kelly Farrar in the past tense, and referred to all of her children by their ages rather than their names.

Debora Green initially reacted with sadness that quickly changed to anger.

Debora Green shouted at detectives, claiming that firefighters had not done enough to save the children.

Debora Green repeatedly asked Ryan whether her children had died, chanted rhythmically about their deaths, and seemed unable to care for herself.

Debora 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.

Debora Green told police about the deterioration of his marriage and health over the past six months.

Debora Green initially assumed it was a residual effect of the traveler's diarrhea many people on the Peru trip had contracted while there.

That night shortly after eating a dinner that Debora Green had served him, Farrar again suffered vomiting and diarrhea and had to be hospitalized.

When Farrar's girlfriend, Margaret Hacker, told him she suspected Debora Green was poisoning him, he initially wrote off the idea as ridiculous.

Debora Green removed all three items from her purse and hid them.

Debora Green's drinking was especially heavy that day, and as her behavior grew stranger, Farrar contacted the police for assistance in placing Debora Green into psychiatric care.

The physician who attended her there found Debora Green to be smelling strongly of alcohol, but not visibly drunk.

Debora Green was found hours later, apparently having decided to walk home from the hospital, and brought back to the hospital.

Debora Green returned home after four days in the hospital.

Farrar, who had researched castor beans in the interim and came to the conclusion that Debora Green had poisoned his food with the ricin that could be derived from the beans, moved out immediately upon Debora Green's return home.

Debora Green had spent the afternoon with Margaret Hacker and then picked up Tim and Kelly for Tim's hockey game.

Farrar was convinced that Debora Green was continuing to drink heavily while she should have been caring for the children, and he told Debora Green that he knew she had poisoned him and that Social Services might be called to protect the children if she failed to get her life in order.

Debora Green was allowed supervised access during this period, while Farrar's visits were not required to be supervised.

Debora Green stated that on the night in question she had woken up to find the fire already burning.

Debora Green then crawled out of her bedroom window to escape the fire.

Kate reported to police that when she called to her mother after escaping onto the garage roof, Debora Green had been "terribly upset" and called to Kate to jump into her arms.

Debora Green denied that she had ever seen matches in the house and expressed surprise that Tim had not escaped by the same route she had, which was via a bedroom window onto the roof.

Detectives recalled that Debora Green had denied ever having been in close proximity to flames; she had reported leaving the house after seeing smoke and not coming into contact with the fire either on the deck outside her bedroom or in the process of coaxing Kate off the garage roof.

Neighbors of the family reported that when Debora Green had come to their door to ask them to call for help, her hair had been wet.

Debora Green was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, and one count of aggravated arson.

Debora Green was initially held in a Missouri jail, then extradited to Johnson County Adult Detention Center in Kansas, on $3,000,000 bond, the highest bail ever asked for in Johnson County.

Witnesses called by the State supported Farrar's and the prosecutors' earlier claims that police had been called to the home a month before the fire, that Debora Green's behavior had been cause for concern at the time, and that Farrar had turned in to police at that time seed packets containing castor beans.

Debora Green was judged by court-appointed psychologists to be competent to stand trial and denied a reduction in bail.

Debora Green continued to claim that Tim Farrar had been the one who poisoned his father.

Debora Green agreed to place an Alford plea of "no contest".

In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, the no contest plea called for Debora Green to accept a prison sentence of a minimum of forty years without the possibility of parole.

Debora Green denied being under the influence of any drug that would affect her judgment in making her plea or her ability to understand the proceedings in which she was participating.

Debora Green was formally sentenced on May 30,1996, following testimony by the psychologist who had adjudged her competency.

Debora Green read another statement to the court and was formally sentenced to two concurrent forty-year prison sentences, minus the one hundred and ninety-one days she had already served.

Debora Green is serving her sentence at the Topeka Correctional Facility.

Debora Green theorized that Margaret Hacker had set fire to the family's house, and reiterated her claim from the show-cause hearing that Tim had been the one to poison his father.

Debora Green wrote to author Ann Rule in 1996 asserting that, due to alcohol abuse, she had not had the mental capacity to start a fire.

In 2000, represented by a new legal team, Debora Green filed a request for a new trial on the basis of having been rendered incompetent by the psychiatric medications she was taking at the time of her hearings.

Debora Green alleged that her original attorneys had failed to represent her adequately, instead focusing on avoiding a trial and the death penalty.

Debora Green withdrew the request when prosecutors determined that they would seek the death penalty if a new trial was awarded.

Debora Green's attorneys claimed that new scientific techniques invalidated the evidence that the fire had been caused by arson.

Debora Green characterized Green as cognitively competent and capable of controlling her emotion at a basic level, but noted that Green appeared to be lacking in emotion beyond the level of basic competence.

Debora Green was prone to monosyllabic answers during her interview with Hutchinson, and described herself as "tuning out" to avoid excessive emotion.

Evaluations at the Clinic showed Debora Green to be minimally able to cope with the world, and her treating physician reported that Debora Green had been found to have the emotional capabilities of "a very young child", pursuant to unspecified "life experiences" she had undergone as a preadolescent.

Hutchinson's opinion was that Debora Green's intelligence had generally allowed her to compensate for her limited emotional ability in day-to-day life, but that the external stressors of her impending divorce and the interpersonal conflict between Michael and Tim Farrar had overwhelmed her ability to compensate.

Rule recalls in her book on the case that Debora Green's letters denied any unhappy childhood memories.

Debora Green claimed that though her behavior in the summer and fall of 1995 had been neglectful, she had neither the desire nor the wherewithal to set fire to her house or harm her children or her husband.

Rule's theory was that in destroying Farrar, Debora Green would have been able to preserve her own ego, in that Farrar would not have been able to leave her for another woman.

Psychiatrist Michael H Stone, using Rule's book as a source of information about Green, identifies Green as showing characteristics of psychopathy, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder.

Debora Green was portrayed by Stephanie March in the 2021 Lifetime movie A House on Fire.

The paper noted that Debora Green had refused to provide any detail on the manner in which she extracted and administered the ricin she used against her husband.