Richey: Forlorn figure with his life in a few plastic bags …or a 'vengeful, hateful' ex-con?

He strolled from the car, stuck his nose in the air and ambled for the front door.

He had just savoured his first taste of freedom, on a drive through the countryside with lawyer, Ken Parsigian, passing red barns, farmland and streams. In his cell, he had had no window on the world for two decades.

On the porch, he spotted some kittens huddled together. He stooped to scoop one into his arms then stood silently, stroking it and holding it to his chest as it cuddled into the man who spent 21 years as a convicted murderer and arsonist.

"This is what I've missed," he said, expressionless.

Hours earlier, he had stood equally emotionless in a courtroom 40 miles away as the aunt of Cynthia Collins, the two-year-old he was accused of killing by setting fire to her home, told him he would "burn in hell".

But while the family's raw heartbreak prompted sobs among several members of the public in the courtroom, it had a different effect on Richey, 43.

"It annoyed me," he said, seeming dazed as he lingered on his brother's doorstep.

"It was a lie. It wasn't the truth, they obviously weren't interested in hearing the truth. I mean, it was a shame what happened to little Cynthia, but I had nothing to do with it."

AS HE spoke, friends unloaded Richey's belongings from the boot of a car – 21 years of his life stuffed in a few plastic bags. A gust of wind ripped one of them open, spilling out neat lists of telephone numbers of the many people on the outside who he would ring to help him while away the time. Among those numbers was mine. He would periodically call from Death Row. When he rang, he knew he often came across as his own worst advocate. He didn't do the crime, he would always insist – but I would ask back, what were you doing when flames consumed her mother's apartment? "I was f***ing drunk," he would say, claiming he spent the night passed out in some bushes.

So how could he be sure he did not start the fire that killed the toddler? "I wouldn't kill a kid," he would say, never able to articulate a more thorough response. Neither was there ever much sympathy for the Collins family. "You must feel sorry for them," I prompted on several occasions. "Those f***ing idiots?" he told me. "I was their scapegoat."

Some will put it down simply to the inarticulate speech of a man who was just 22 when he was arrested, and who has idled behind bars ever since. "He was fun-loving, immature, irresponsible," recalls his American father Jim, 69, with whom Kenny went to live in Ohio at the age of 18. "But he didn't start that fire."

The night before Richey's arrest in 1986, Mr Richey asked him: "Did you start that fire?"

"He said, 'I didn't start that fire' and I believe him. Kenny has never spoken about it since."

Others, though, will forever see Richey as a tainted man, despite his conviction for murder and arson having been overturned.

"The thing that was most troubling to me was that a lot of the focus was misdirected away from the family of the victim. Cynthia Collins was the victim in this case," Gary Lammers, the Putnam County prosecutor, told the Toledo Blade newspaper.

"Mr Richey bears some responsibility for what happened here. The fact that he spent 21 years in prison ... I don't think that makes him a victim."

THE plea deal struck on Monday – which still holds him responsible for Cynthia's death in that he had reneged on a promise to babysit her on the night she died – is not what he spent 21 years fighting for, Richey admits.

For now, he will concentrate on getting his life back in order. When his lawyer took him for a steak lunch following his release, he telephoned his father in Washington state. "Guess where I am?" he told him gleefully. "In a restaurant, with a linen tablecloth, eating with a metal knife and fork and a china plate."

While he has been cleared of murder and arson, Richey has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child, because he did not babysit Cynthia as agreed, resulting in her being alone when fire broke out.

He pleaded no contest, meaning he neither admits to, nor disputes, the prosecution's charges. That allows the courts to treat him as guilty.

Mr Lammers told the paper that after an appeals court overturned Richey's conviction on a legal technicality last year, he had hoped to retry him on the same charges. But 21 years on, forensic evidence and witness testimonies were faded.

Meanwhile, the head of the police force that guarded Richey during his final weeks in the US branded him "a risk to the people of Edinburgh".

Sheriff James Beutler said: "The media in the UK make Richey out to be innocent. He is not innocent. He is a vengeful, hateful man. He's not a risk to re-offend back in Scotland – he will definitely re-offend."

AGONY AS FOG DELAYS FLIGHT

KENNY Richey faced another setback to his emotional homecoming when his flight back to the UK was caught up in heavy fog last night.

His connecting flight from Chicago was delayed, meaning he will be reunited with mother Eileen at Edinburgh Airport tomorrow – a day later than expected. His return had already been held up after he suffered a heart scare.

It is likely Richey will be heading for a six-figure windfall when he gets back, as documentary makers clamour to tell his story.

His income could even soar beyond 1 million if Hollywood takes an interest, according to one media expert. Mark Borkowski, who has represented celebrity clients from Michael Jackson to Mikhail Gorbachev, told The Scotsman that Richey's experience – which saw him come within an hour of execution – would be lapped up by American film and TV audiences.