Man gets life for 1992 blaze that killed two children

PAW PAW, Mich. (WOOD) — A man who was given a new trial in the 1992 arson deaths of two children and was again found guilty is heading back to prison after a judge Monday sentenced him to life behind bars.

A jury in February found 50-year-old Clint Alan Dunning guilty in the deaths of his former girlfriend’s two children in a Bangor-area apartment.

The former girlfriend, Krysta Marlo McFadden, was sentenced two weeks ago to18 to 21 years in prison for second-degree murder. She entered pleas earlier this year.

McFadden, 53, was mother of the two children who died in the November 1992 apartment fire in Van Buren County.

Authorities said McFadden locked her two young children — Amber, 5, and Robert, 3 — in a closet before the fire was intentionally set.

Robert’s body was found in the apartment after the fire. Amber was rescued from the burning building but died Dec. 1,1992, from her injuries.

At the time of the pair’s arrests in 2016 , a witness told police that McFadden admitted that she locked her children in a closet, knocked over a candle and then left, according to court records.

The couple were first convicted in the deaths during jury trials in 2017 and sentenced to life in prison . But the convictions were overturned in 2023 based on ineffective counsel and failure to disclose evidence.

Van Buren County Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Brickley, who presided over both trials, sentenced Dunning to a mandatory life term.

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