Hearing Set in ’89 New Hampshire Arson Case that Killed 4

New Hampshire prosecutors are fighting to use forensic evidence in the trial of a man charged with setting a 1989 fire that killed four people in Keene.

Lawyers for 54-year-old David McLeod are in court Tuesday challenging the validity of evidence prosecutors want to use to show McLeod set the fire that killed four members of a family with whom he had been feuding.

McLeod was arrested in California last summer and charged with murder in the deaths of Carl and Lori Hina, their four-month-old daughter and Carl Hina’s 12-year-old daughter. Fifteen other residents of the apartment building survived the fire.

McLeod was the first person arrested by the New Hampshire cold case unit after its creation in 2009.

Court documents say McLeod bragged about setting the fire.