RALEIGH — After just a few hours deliberation, a jury has found 24-year-old Jermaine Smith not guilty of setting a fire lastyear that caused the deaths of four small children. Smith's attorneyspent much of the trial attacking the changing stories of theprosecution's chief witnesses.
The victims' mother, Angela Wilder, and her daughter, Ebony Wilder, testified that Smith set the fire, butthe defense pointed out that they had told very different stories topolice during investigations just after the fire.
WRAL-TV5'sMark Robertsspokethe the jury foreperson, Charleen Martin, after the verdict was announced.She said that, atfirst, jurors were split between "undecided" and "not guilty".
The prosecution portrayed Smith, who was Angela Wilder's boyfriend, asa wrongly accused man.
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