United States v. Veysey

334 F.3d 600 (7th Cir. 2003)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D intentionally burned down his house and collected from the insurance company on the inflated claim. D rebuilt the house. D married a woman named Kemp, increased the insurance on the house, removed the valuable contents and then cut the natural-gas line inside the house, which exploded for a total loss. D grossly exaggerated the value of the property, and a different insurance company paid it. D bought another house. D tried to kill his wife by driving his van with her in it into a river. That failed, so he killed her by poisoning her, and collected $200,000 in the proceeds of insurance policies on her life. D put ads in newspapers, seeking to meet women. He became engaged to Donner but broke his engagement after failing to procure a $ 1 million policy on her life. He met Ms. Beetle in 1996 and the same year he burned down his house once again and once again collecting on the insurance. D married Beetle and insured her life for $500,000. After drugging her, he set fire to the house, but Beetle and their infant son were rescued. D and Beetle divorced. The house was rebuilt, and D persuaded Hilkin to move in with him after she had accumulated some $700,000 in life insurance naming D as the primary beneficiary. D was arrested before his plans to murder her had been realized. During his trial, the government wanted to enter evidence from McClenahan, an actuarial, about the odds of an individual suffering four serious house fires in a 106-month period of time at random is 1 in 1.773 trillion. D moved in limine to bar the testimony under Rules 701,702, 704, and 403. In reaching his conclusion, McClenahan consulted the residential fire rate in the U.S. from 1988-1997. He assumed that each of the four fires at D’s residences was a serious fire that resulted in a loss of more than 20% of the dwelling-house. Then McClenahan used a binomial model based on monthly fire probabilities using recognized statistical software. The evidence was admitted, and D was found guilty. D appealed.