LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (Court TV) — A Georgia father is standing trial on a list of charges after prosecutors say he is responsible for the death of his young daughter, who died in a fire set by her teenage brother.
William McCue appears in court on the first day of his trial. (Court TV)
William McCue, 51, has pleaded not guilty to felony murder, aggravated assault, cruelty to children, false imprisonment, rape, aggravated child molestation and incest.
On April 17, 2022, William McCue was working at Waffle House with his eldest daughter, age 17, when a fire broke out at his home. His wife, Carina, was able to escape with her 12 and 8-year-old sons. Left inside the house was 10-year-old Zowey McCue, who died of smoke inhalation.
When first responders went into the McCue home, they immediately noticed some strange features of the house: There was a lock on the kitchen refrigerator, buckets of human waste in the house, and Zowey’s bedroom was actually a bathroom. Her bed was made of a piece of plywood placed over the bathtub.
In her opening statement on Tuesday, prosecutor Wanda Vance conceded to the jury that the defendant was not the person who sparked the match and started the fire on April 17. That person was identified as McCue’s 15-year-old son. After setting the fire, the teenager walked 6 miles through the night until he arrived at a church and asked for help.
The 15-year-old was initially charged with murder, but first responders immediately recognized that something was off with the child. For one, he did not know how to use a toilet or a Ziploc bag.
The teen told first responders that he had set the fire because he needed to escape from the house and described being subjected to harsh punishments at the hands of his parents. The punishments he described included beatings, being forced to stand on milk crates or cinderblocks for hours or even days, and the use of a shock collar. Inside the house, there was no plumbing and the children were forced to use buckets as bathrooms, he said. The children were also reportedly tasked with emptying the buckets once or twice a week.
“We’re not here because this family is poor,” Vance told the jury. “This isn’t like, oh, they can’t fix their plumbing and then we’re going to prosecute somebody. The reason the plumbing wasn’t fixed in the house, the reason the children didn’t have enough to eat, is not because the defendant couldn’t afford to feed his kids and fix the plumbing. You’re going to see pictures that on the inside of the house, there was a real nice big screen TV in the master bedroom.” Vance said the house also had a telescope, two treadmills and a 6-foot privacy fence.
The children were isolated from society, Vance told the jury, and homeschooled but not educated. When filling out forms, the 15-year-old was apparently unable to spell his name correctly, and he spelled his name differently on each attempt.
William McCue’s attorney, Thomas Clegg, urged the jury not to rush to judgment in the case. “Did the kids have to go ahead and empty some portable toilets because the septic system wasn’t working? They probably did. Could the kids have been better educated? They probably could. Could the kids have gotten more variety in their meals? They probably could,” he said. “But the bottom line is that’s not why we’re really here.”
William McCue’s wife and the mother of the children, Carina McCue, is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution in the case. Carina McCue pleaded guilty to each of the charges she faced, including three counts of murder and false imprisonment, and is awaiting sentencing.
“I would suggest to you that [Carina’s] attitude in that regard is motivated, one, by her desire to cut her losses,” Clegg said. “She’s scared to death that she’s going to get 90 years in prison. And two, by a virtue or desire to save her own skin.”
