In the spring of 1991, a rash of suspicious store fires in Los Angeles set fire investigators on the trail of a serial Arsonist. Using ingenious techniques to "read" burn patterns and reconstruct the chain of events at each fire, the team uncovered a crucial clue—a fingerprint on a crude incendiary device. Eight months later, the team closed in on their chief suspect and revealed the shocking truth behind his identity. A classic scientific detective story with a final twist that will keep viewers guessing until the end.
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00:00Tonight on NOVA...
00:01I'm screaming to the other girl, there's a fire.
00:05Mysterious arson fires break out around Los Angeles.
00:10And then you start a race against the clock.
00:12When is the next one going to hit?
00:15Once they started setting these fires, it gave them a sense of power.
00:20And they like it.
00:22High-tech tools give investigators the edge as they hunt for the serial arsonist.
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01:13Fire is one of nature's most entrancing displays.
01:29So extraordinary is the transformation taking place.
01:32More than 5,000 people die in fires every year.
01:51The value of property destroyed is a staggering $11 billion.
01:55And that number would be 10 times greater if lost jobs and revenues were included.
02:01Even more disturbing, many of these fires are not accidents.
02:10Experts believe that one out of every three fires in America is intentionally set,
02:23including the devastating wildland fires that plague the western United States.
02:30The figure is an estimate.
02:33No one can be absolutely sure because arson is so difficult to prove.
02:38It takes a special breed of detective to uncover arson.
02:45He's part fireman and part cop,
02:47with a special understanding of fire science and the criminal mind.
02:53All of these skills were called upon recently to solve a case in California,
02:58which turned out to be one of the most interesting and surprising
03:02in the history of fire investigation.
03:12The story begins in 1991,
03:15with a fire at a fabric store called D&M Yardage,
03:19just south of Los Angeles.
03:26An employee at the store remembers it well,
03:30Evelyn Diaz.
03:32I'm screaming to the other girl,
03:34there's a fire.
03:35So I run around,
03:37I'm going towards the back to get the fire extinguisher,
03:39and I get it,
03:40and I really don't know how to use it.
03:41You read real fast,
03:42and you go and try and put this fire out,
03:45figuring it's going to go out fast because it's so small,
03:47and it just kept burning and burning and burning,
03:51and just the more I'd put the extinguisher on it,
03:54the bigger it would get.
03:55And you could just see this cloud of smoke just coming over our heads,
04:01just like just bellowing out.
04:05A few seconds later that we came out of the stores,
04:07we could hear all the windows bursting open.
04:08D&M Yardage was a family-owned store,
04:18selling inexpensive fabrics to a mostly neighborhood clientele.
04:24Many of its employees had worked there for years.
04:27D&M Yardage was a family-owned store for years.
04:57D&M Yardage was a family-owned store for years.
05:05We're all in a state of shock, crying,
05:08because we couldn't believe what was going on.
05:11Everything we've helped to do was just going before our eyes
05:15and realizing that it could have been worse than what it, you know,
05:19our lives could have been lost.
05:22All by chance to three quarters,
05:23and men to have to take a look at the front.
05:25Firefighters are required to report the cause and origin of every fire they attend.
05:33If the circumstances are suspicious, fire investigators are assigned to the case.
05:40But their job won't be easy, according to veteran fire investigator John Orr.
05:45Typically, arson is more difficult to investigate because the majority of your evidence is destroyed.
05:51Fingerprints, devices used to set the fire and such are consumed by the fire or, worse yet, destroyed by the firefighters in trying to put the fire out or overhauling it after the fire has been extinguished.
06:04So it makes it much more difficult to begin with.
06:07Another facet is an arson investigator typically isn't called to a scene until after the fire is knocked down substantially.
06:14And by the time we roll in, witnesses are gone now.
06:17The fire is out.
06:18There's nothing to look at.
06:19And the arsonist is generally gone as well.
06:25But there are clues to be found in the remains of a fire.
06:30Investigators learn to spot them in fires that they set themselves.
06:35We're going to put the device up there to go up.
06:38They work like an arsonist would, sometimes creating false trails.
06:43Here, firecrackers are planted on a child's mattress.
06:51A simple time delay device made from a cigarette and matches allows an arsonist to be safely away from his crime before any flames are ignited.
07:00Fuels that are used to help start a fire are called accelerants.
07:07Gasoline is the most common, but any number of petroleum products will do the job.
07:14That will hopefully provide a false indicate.
07:17Applying an accelerant to a wall plug will help create the appearance of an electrical fire.
07:22Set one right down there, so when those things go...
07:25Here's one more.
07:26Okay, good.
07:27So when these go, this will go too.
07:29Let's start a fire.
07:35Should be good.
07:36Watch out for those firecracks.
07:38Yeah, they're down underneath, aren't they?
07:40Yeah.
07:40The cigarette in the time delay device burns down and lights the matches, igniting a trail of paper.
08:10Using accelerants is dangerous business.
08:14They easily burn out of control.
08:16Arsonists have been arrested in hospital emergency rooms, victims of their own crime.
08:26The fire will only be allowed to burn for as long as it would take firefighters to arrive.
08:34But even fires that burn unattended rarely destroy everything.
08:40Every fire has a story to tell for those who know how to read the remains.
08:49The class is taught by veteran fire investigator Doug Allen.
08:54Okay, we're going to just do an overview on some surface burn patterns in here.
08:59First off, looking at the floor and moving toward that corner.
09:03Burn patterns can indicate where the fire started.
09:06It's called the point of origin.
09:08We're going over to that chair.
09:10All the charring is on this side of it and toward the couch.
09:14So it's directing us over toward this couch for the origin of the fire.
09:18If you know what to look for, the point of origin can reveal how the fire started in the first place.
09:24Down here on the floor, there's a real, real obvious pattern right here that we'd want to take a look at, maybe smell it.
09:32And there's a strong smell of gasoline from the backside, still in the water, being protected by the water, keeping it from evaporating.
09:42Typical bedroom fire, kids' bedroom, you might enter this one and say, well, something's smoldering in the mattress.
09:50We've got some severe burning down in there.
09:52But the one red flag that should hit you is the burn pattern on the wall, the charring.
09:58It's an inverted V. It's coming in.
10:00That's a sign of a highly accelerated fire.
10:03You know, had that been an accidental fire, it would have been a wide V spreading out, mushrooming at the top.
10:07This one pulls in.
10:09So that tells us we've got a very fast, rapid buildup in that corner.
10:14We have an electrical plug there that may have to be eliminated.
10:17Typically, electrical plug won't cause that kind of a V-padding.
10:21So that, in this particular scenario, that one pattern should raise a red flag that you need to explain.
10:26The burn pattern suggests that an accelerant was used.
10:30But some kind of proof must be found.
10:32Probably within this mattress are some things for evidence.
10:37Most accelerants can be detected in samples sent to a forensic lab for testing.
10:44Petroleum products have a unique chemical composition, which can be broken down and graft.
10:52A sample can be identified by comparing its pattern with those of known accelerants.
10:58An identification helps bring investigators a step closer to the criminal.
11:05Common examples are paint thinner, kerosene, and charcoal lighter.
11:10Even the brand of some accelerants can be determined.
11:14In this case, it's Coleman Camping Fuel.
11:19Determining the fire cause and origin is fun to investigators.
11:23And it's nice to have a lab sample come back saying, yes, this was gasoline set in this area, even though you couldn't smell it.
11:29But the real thrill of it is the pursuit of the suspect himself and identifying him, even when you have very little to go on.
11:39The fire at D&M Yardage in Los Angeles had burned quick and hot, but investigators were unable to find any accelerants at all.
11:53Was it arson?
11:54What made it suspicious was that there were two other store fires nearby on the same day.
12:07One did serious damage to a thrifty drugstore.
12:12No accelerants could be found there either.
12:14The county sheriff decided to contact specially trained agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
12:25ATF is the federal agency most concerned with arson.
12:29Mike Matassa got the call.
12:33He concluded that all three fires were remarkably similar.
12:37The types of businesses they were, how close together they were, and the fact that in all three of them, he had no eyewitnesses.
12:47The fires just sprang out of nowhere, which kind of led to the feeling that there was some sort of a delay device used.
12:55And right there, I mean, it's pretty evident that there's a good chance that you had the same person or persons doing those three fires.
13:03Of the additional suspicious circumstances surrounding that...
13:07Another agent involved in the case was Glenn Lucero, a seasoned investigator from the Los Angeles Fire Department.
13:13...all indicated to them that they might have had two separate fires.
13:16April Carroll was brought in from Firearms to coordinate the team's effort.
13:24Further investigation turned up other, similar fires in and around Los Angeles.
13:30Some of them had occurred months earlier.
13:33On December 10th, the People's Department Store, opened since 1938, was completely destroyed.
13:41On December 30th, two stores within view of each other went up in flames.
13:48And on the day after Christmas, three stores on the same street burned simultaneously.
13:54We knew that we were dealing with something very serious, and then you start a race against the clock because you're fearful if this pattern is a pattern indeed, and it's gone on for such a period of time, then when is the next one going to hit?
14:08And, you know, what is the danger that the next one could have?
14:11So many similar fires suggested arson, but no accelerants had been found at any of them.
14:24This is a D&M yardage fire.
14:26One thing did stand out.
14:28They all shared a unique point of origin.
14:31This is the thrifty store.
14:32The point of origin would have been, again, in the stuffed cushions for lawn furniture.
14:41The fires had all started among cushions and pillows filled with plastic foam stuffing.
14:49Modern plastics and foams are derived from oil and, like gasoline, can accelerate a fire all by themselves.
14:58To understand how materials like plastic can help burn down a building, experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms study a more familiar source of fire.
15:16We will use this example of the candle as our vehicle for trying to understand what makes a fire tick.
15:25James Quintiri is professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland.
15:31Let's take a look at it more closely and maybe tell me what you see.
15:38Heat from the flame is turning the wax into liquid, which is absorbed by the wick.
15:45Remarkably, the wick remains intact even as the candle continues to burn.
15:51Now we want to find out what we mean when we say it burns.
15:55We want to find out what burns, all right?
15:59Let me try this and see what happens.
16:02I'm going to blow this flame out.
16:09What happened there?
16:15You lit it without even touching the wick.
16:17Lit it without even touching the wick.
16:26So that smoke, that white vapor, was burnable.
16:30What do we think that vapor is?
16:33The vapor is gas, made of liquid candle wax that has boiled off the wick.
16:38The vapor is what fuels the flame.
16:44But what makes the fuel burn?
16:51A metal screen can be used to dissect the flame.
16:54It reveals that the fuel moving out from the wick doesn't burn immediately.
17:02First, it must mix with the surrounding air.
17:06When the ratio is optimal, molecules from the air and fuel combine
17:10in a chemical reaction that we call fire.
17:14So we have the air and the fuel separated by this thing we call the flame.
17:24All fire works on this principle.
17:26A candle, a lighter, even a cigarette is designed to control the amount of fuel to be burned.
17:39Without such control, a fire can grow with frightening speed.
17:45This chair is stuffed with plastic foam.
17:49It has the fuel potential of 50,000 candles
17:52and no mechanism to control the release.
17:55The steady heat of a cigarette accidentally dropped between the cushions
17:59can create a disaster.
18:06Initially, the burning cigarette creates a smoldering fire
18:10which breaks down the foam stuffing into vaporous fuel.
18:14When there's enough heat and oxygen, it starts to flame.
18:17More heat produces more fuel, and the fire accelerates rapidly.
18:30Smoke and other products of the fire, including unburnt fuel,
18:34collect beneath the ceiling.
18:35Within three minutes, the temperature at the ceiling reaches 1,000 degrees,
18:43heating the contents of the entire room near the point of ignition.
18:46The carpet and other furnishings start to break down into vaporous fuels.
19:01Then, within seconds, in a process called flashover,
19:05everything in the room erupts into flame.
19:07No life survives flashover.
19:21After all the oxygen in the room is consumed,
19:23a pulsing backdraft sucks in air from the outside,
19:28depletes it in a surge of burning,
19:30then breathes in more.
19:32All this took place in less than four minutes
19:45and started with a smoldering cigarette.
19:54A fire like the one at D&M Yardage
19:57doesn't require the use of an accelerant,
20:00if you know what you're doing.
20:02This arsonist apparently did,
20:05except for one mistake.
20:08A third fire that day in a floral supply store
20:12was quickly extinguished.
20:15At the point of origin,
20:16a valuable piece of evidence was recovered,
20:19an arsonist's time-delay incendiary device.
20:24It was made of a cigarette and matches,
20:27attached with a rubber band.
20:28The device was found folded inside a piece of yellow-lined paper.
20:33We decided and our supervisors agreed by both departments
20:39that we had to expand this.
20:41This was potentially a very serious problem.
20:44It could very well involve a serial arsonist.
20:47So at that point,
20:48we immediately formed the task force.
20:50ATF put a lot of manpower immediately at our disposal to assist.
20:54Bulletins describing the fires were distributed throughout greater Los Angeles
20:59in the hope that other investigators might provide additional leads.
21:03In less than a week,
21:1319 fires were identified with the same M.O., or modus operandi.
21:20As their locations were mapped,
21:23a pattern began to emerge.
21:24Every one of these are right next to a freeway.
21:34And that would give whoever was responsible easy access to start the fire
21:38and easy access to get away.
21:42But what possible motive would anyone have for starting all these fires?
21:46The National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at Quantico, Virginia,
21:54is a law enforcement...
21:55ATF collaborates with the FBI on a study of the motives for arson.
22:00Gus Gehry is an ATF agent with an interest in psychology.
22:05The motives that we identify for arson fall into six categories.
22:09The first motive is vandalism.
22:13These are fires that are generally set by youthful offenders
22:16for no apparent reason.
22:18While many of these fires are not deemed significant,
22:21it should be pointed out that vandalism is identified
22:25as the motive in nearly half of the arson arrests in the United States.
22:30Another motive that we often see is that of excitement.
22:37The excitement motive in fire setting is exemplified
22:41by the Devil's Night fires that plagued the city of Detroit, Michigan
22:44in the 1970s and 80s.
22:46During those years,
22:51inner-city Detroit was full of abandoned buildings.
22:54They became targets for thrill-seekers,
22:56especially around Halloween.
22:57Another motive is revenge.
23:08A 1986 hotel fire in Puerto Rico is a tragic example.
23:13A small nuisance fire that was set during a labor dispute
23:16soon burned out of control.
23:20Ninety-seven people were killed.
23:21These offenders who act out of a sense of revenge
23:27oftentimes act out against society in general.
23:30They feel they have been wronged.
23:31They've always been wronged by society,
23:33and they never have gotten a fair shake.
23:35And therefore, they set fires at targets that appear to be random.
23:39And it confounds us as we attempt to investigate these.
23:43There is arson for profit.
23:46The owners of this Sacramento home were nearly bankrupt
23:51and hoped to collect $4 million in fire insurance.
23:56Investigators found that accelerants had been used,
23:59evidence which eventually led to a criminal conviction.
24:02Arson is also used by extremists to achieve political objectives.
24:11Recently, abortion clinics,
24:13as well as animal research laboratories, have been attacked.
24:19And sometimes arson is used to hide another crime,
24:23a burglary, even murder.
24:25Among these fire-setters,
24:29there is a small but extremely dangerous subset.
24:35Serial arson accounts for only about 15% of all arson fires,
24:39but they are some of the most destructive.
24:43We had several of them express to us
24:45that once they started setting these fires,
24:49that it gave them a sense of power.
24:51And they liked that sense of power.
24:53It gives them a sense of domination, of control.
24:56And as the one offender talked about
24:58being able to sit on top of the hill
25:00after setting the fires week after week
25:03and seeing the fire trucks in the town in turmoil,
25:09it gave that offender a sense of power.
25:11It said that they'd never had before in their life,
25:13and they liked it.
25:16The FBI has also developed
25:18a psychological profile of a serial arsonist.
25:21It has been used in the training
25:23of a generation of fire investigators.
25:25The standard profile of a serial arsonist
25:31is very similar to serial killers.
25:34They're loners, typically.
25:36They have difficult times in relationships,
25:39spotty work histories,
25:41sometimes have physical disabilities,
25:44skin disorders, alcoholics,
25:46and almost to a T,
25:48every one of these 10 or 12 that I was acquainted with
25:50or arrested fit that profile or that mold.
25:56The ATF investigation in Los Angeles
25:58was beginning to pay off.
26:01The arson team uncovered another series of fires
26:03remarkably like those they were investigating.
26:05But these fires had been set hundreds of miles to the north
26:10four years before.
26:11In Fresno, California,
26:19a fabric store had been totally destroyed,
26:23and several days later in Bakersfield,
26:26there were two more fires.
26:27They were quickly extinguished,
26:29but at one of them,
26:30a craft supply store,
26:32an incendiary device was recovered
26:34by Captain Marvin Casey.
26:37I had found a cigarette match device
26:40there at the Kraft Mart store,
26:41and I thought it was unusual
26:42to have another store going about 45 minutes later.
26:47So I was called to respond over to that store.
26:50And after arriving there,
26:52I found that there was no reason
26:54for that fire to have started either.
26:56There was no accidental causes for it.
27:02The device that Captain Casey recovered
27:04was made of a cigarette with three matches
27:07attached by a rubber band.
27:11It was found along with a piece
27:14of partially burned yellow lined paper.
27:16The materials were examined
27:21and processed for fingerprints.
27:25To make a latent print visible on paper,
27:28it is bathed in the chemical ninhydrin.
27:33After treatment,
27:35any amino acids from sweat
27:36on the fingertips will turn purple.
27:40Of course, there isn't always a print,
27:43but the device from Kraft Mart had one.
27:47The question was,
27:49who did it belong to?
27:53A print without a suspect
27:55used to be worthless.
27:57It was impossible to search for a match
27:59through the millions of impressions on file.
28:02But over the past decade,
28:04California has pioneered the use
28:06of a computerized fingerprint database.
28:08Today, prints of convicted felons
28:14are routinely scanned into the system.
28:18An unknown print can be compared
28:20to the entire database in minutes.
28:22The computer identifies two features
28:30found only in the ridged,
28:31gripping skin of the hands.
28:36A Y-shaped ridge is called a bifurcation,
28:40while an ending ridge is simply where one stops.
28:44Everyone has these features,
28:46but in different places.
28:48The computer records their location,
28:51then searches for a similar constellation.
28:55The machine provides a list of likely candidates.
28:58It takes an expert's visual examination
29:02to make a match.
29:05When I got the paperwork back,
29:07they said they couldn't find a match on it.
29:09So I said, well, you know,
29:11it looks like we're kind of at a dead end here, you know.
29:13Either that or the guy had never been in trouble,
29:16and he didn't have a criminal record
29:17to where his prints wouldn't be on file.
29:22But Captain Casey had found an interesting pattern
29:25to the 1987 fires.
29:27Like the Los Angeles fires,
29:29they all took place near a highway,
29:32but this time it was the same highway.
29:35There was three in the Fresno area,
29:38and then we worked two fires in the Tulare area,
29:42still going down the 99 highway.
29:48And then later that day,
29:51worked two fires in Bakersfield to craft stores.
29:55And the fires ended there,
29:57and you can see the road still continues
29:59on down into Los Angeles.
30:02It looked like the arsonist
30:03had spent time in Fresno,
30:05then traveled south to Los Angeles.
30:09Captain Casey had a disturbing thought.
30:12He knew a number of men
30:19who had made that very trip on the same day.
30:25They were colleagues on their way home
30:27from a conference of arson investigators.
30:36Could it be?
30:37Could it be somebody that had attended the conference
30:39and they were just traveling through this,
30:41set the fires up there
30:42during the middle of the conference?
30:43And did they set the fires in Tulare
30:45after the conference was over that day at noontime?
30:48And then set the two at two o'clock here in Bakersfield?
30:51It's a possibility, you know?
30:53He developed a list of everyone
30:55who had attended the conference
30:56from Southern California.
30:58It happens occasionally where firemen do go bad.
31:12It's happened primarily in volunteer organizations
31:15where their controls over who they hire
31:18or use as a volunteer isn't quite as tight.
31:20There are a lot of people that just like to be around
31:29the fire station, the fire activity,
31:31and the excitement of it.
31:33They will set the fire
31:38and then actually become the hero.
31:41They'll be the one that reports the fire
31:43and will actually go in
31:45and try and evacuate the building.
31:55They're the only ones
31:56that knew that fire was started,
31:58how it was started, and by them.
32:00And they're getting an inadvertent yet warped attention
32:03by being there and experiencing this.
32:06Two years later,
32:13Captain Casey was alerted
32:15to another series of store fires,
32:17also in Central California.
32:22Now, action news at 11.
32:24A three-alarm fire in downtown San Luis Obispo
32:26sends fire trucks and almost four dozen firefighters
32:29right into the middle of Farmer's Market tonight.
32:32Good evening.
32:32At 11 o'clock, fire investigators tell Action News tonight
32:35that the blaze is suspicious in its origin.
32:38Again, there was an arson conference taking place,
32:42this time just south of San Francisco.
32:45Before the conference started,
32:47there was a fire at a Woolworth's in Salinas.
32:50The day the conference ended,
32:52eight more fires erupted in and around San Luis Obispo,
32:56all in retail stores, all near Highway 101,
33:00the main route from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
33:05Captain Casey went back to his list.
33:10He marked the names of those who had attended both conferences
33:13and who had returned by car to Los Angeles alone.
33:19And then I just kept a list of ten names.
33:22It soon developed down to ten.
33:24What I felt,
33:25they had attended the conference in 89,
33:28they attended the conference in Fresno in 87.
33:31Fire departments usually keep their employees' prints on file.
33:37This one.
33:38Print cards from the ten suspects were collected for comparison
33:42with the latent print from Kraft Mart.
33:44The ridge isn't there, so that can't be it.
33:47They represented some very well-known fire investigators in our industry.
33:52You never know about a person, you know.
33:55People have basically three different lives that I feel like that they live.
33:59They have their social life at work where people know them,
34:02and then they have their home life, that's their private life,
34:04that just their family knows them,
34:05and then we all have our secret life that nobody gets into.
34:09And I think sometimes people just let their secret lives go wild on them sometimes,
34:15and they can't control it.
34:16And I believe that's what happened in this case.
34:24The person was out of their surroundings.
34:27They were in places that they could associate with other people,
34:33like at fire scenes and fire investigation symposiums and conferences.
34:39And he could just become a Superman.
34:40He could do what he wanted to do.
34:41In a few days, word came back from the lab.
34:58The print found on the device did not match any of the new list of suspects.
35:05Two years later, was the same arsonist burning Los Angeles?
35:11Every day, more reports poured into the investigating team.
35:23It was very crazy.
35:25It was something huge that we had to try to narrow.
35:27In the first couple weeks, that's what we did.
35:29We re-interviewed witnesses from previous fires,
35:33re-examined evidence,
35:35re-submitted fingerprints that had been located on previous fires.
35:41When the team learned about the print Captain Casey had recovered,
35:45they requested a copy.
35:48Prints are constantly being added to the computerized database,
35:51so a new search was run.
35:54This time, the prints of local law enforcement officers were on file.
35:58We were notified that the county sheriff's latent print section
36:07had contacted our office and made a positive identification
36:11on the print from the Bakersfield incendiary device.
36:15So Glenn and I went over there,
36:16and we talked to the original fingerprint technician
36:19that did this for us, Mr. Hobbs,
36:22and he pointed out to us who, indeed, the fingerprint came back to,
36:26and he was even familiar with who this individual was.
36:29At that time, they told us that it was a positive identification
36:32to a man named John Orr.
36:36The room went deathly quiet at that time.
36:39We were stunned.
36:41The reason being is John Orr was a well-known,
36:47widely respected arson investigator
36:50from the Glendale Fire Department,
36:52which is a city just adjacent to the city of Los Angeles.
36:57We felt that, well, if his fingerprint got on that incendiary device,
37:02it must have been for another reason
37:04other than the fact that he could have been responsible
37:06for placing it there and igniting it.
37:08We knew that there had been a conference of arson investigators
37:12north of Bakersfield in Fresno
37:14and that he would have traveled that route coming back that day.
37:17So it was likely that he could have stopped
37:20and, you know, had some sort of involvement.
37:22He was very well-known in the business.
37:24If he would have wanted to stop and say,
37:27what can I do, he would have been welcomed, I'm sure,
37:29by Captain Casey and everyone else.
37:31In fact, we specifically asked,
37:32did any other investigators from outside departments
37:35that were cruising through the area after the conference
37:37come by and discuss this case with you or look at the evidence?
37:41And the answer was emphatically, no, they did not.
37:44It was clear at that point that there was no reason
37:47for his print to legitimately be on that piece of paper.
37:52But John Orr's print had been examined
37:55when his name turned up on Captain Casey's list of suspects.
37:58Why hadn't a match been found then?
38:04A latent print is laid down accidentally
38:07and generally lacks the detail and clarity of an inked print.
38:12There's some risk that a match will not be recognized.
38:15Nancy Masters knows the territory well.
38:18She's been a latent print analyst for 26 years.
38:20I'm going to look at my latent first
38:24and find that bifurcation that opens to the left and down.
38:29In the inked impression, I found the bifurcation
38:33that opens to the left and down.
38:36And now I'm interested in finding some more of these characteristics.
38:40I feel very comfortable when I can find
38:44in excess of, say, seven or eight characteristics
38:49in which I do have a match
38:51and I don't see any characteristics in there that do not match.
38:55And that is just as important.
38:58There should never be a characteristic in one of the prints
39:00that is not in the other print.
39:04Experts found 13 characteristics that match John Orr's print
39:08and no discrepancies.
39:10Eventually, the analyst who earlier had failed to find a match
39:14acknowledged his mistake.
39:21So who was John Orr?
39:26He was born and raised in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles.
39:32This is heading towards the hills in Glendale here.
39:35It's really a pretty little town.
39:40John Orr lived on this street
39:43in a house owned by his fourth wife.
39:49He was the youngest of three sons,
39:52raised by parents who never got along very well.
39:56He was always drawn to fire or police work.
40:00After high school, he joined the Air Force
40:02and was trained in fire suppression.
40:04Later, he tried unsuccessfully for a job
40:07with the Los Angeles Police Department.
40:11During his 17 years at the Glendale Fire Department,
40:14he was considered something of a rebel.
40:16He liked to wear a beard,
40:19which was against regulations,
40:21and his impulsive driving took its toll on department vehicles.
40:26But as a fire investigator, he got high marks.
40:30Glendale had an unusual problem with wildland fires,
40:33and he demonstrated an uncanny ability
40:35to find their cause and origin.
40:38He would often arrive at a site already well-worked
40:41by his colleagues and uncover an incendiary device.
40:47He organized local seminars and lectures
40:49on fire investigation
40:51and went on to achieve national recognition
40:54with a series of articles in the American Fire Journal.
40:59I found it very uncomfortable
41:01knowing that you were going after one of your own.
41:05The other fire investigators that I've come in contact with
41:08over the past 25 years
41:10have always been very professional,
41:13very dedicated people,
41:14and the thought that maybe one of them
41:16might be associated with any of these fire scenes
41:19was very disconcerting to me.
41:22It was very depressing the day,
41:24especially the first day we kind of developed him as a suspect,
41:27and then the more we corroborated it
41:28and started to find even more and more of the facts,
41:32it became...
41:34It was somebody that we maybe wanted to get even more
41:36than the routine suspect
41:38because it was just so, you know, disloyal
41:41to take the public's respect
41:45and the others he worked with
41:46and turn it around and become the opposite.
41:50It was devastating.
41:55Orr was now the prime suspect
41:57in a lengthy list of fires with the same M.O.
42:00But the fingerprint from Bakersfield
42:02tied him to only one of them.
42:05A surveillance was set up
42:06with the hope of catching him in the act.
42:13Now he's back in the number two lane
42:14and he's traveling approximately 70 miles an hour,
42:17still eastbound on the 210.
42:19When investigators learned
42:21that Orr would be attending an arson training course,
42:25plans were made to follow him around the clock.
42:28Ken Croak drove one of the 10 cars
42:30involved in the surveillance.
42:33As soon as he got onto the freeway,
42:35he ranged between 90 and 100 miles an hour
42:37the whole time he was driving,
42:39which poses a great problem
42:41because as he's tearing down the freeway,
42:43everyone else is doing 65, 70.
42:46If you see a tale of 10 cars
42:48doing 100 miles an hour,
42:49it's kind of obvious what's going on.
42:52John would pick off a surveillance
42:54quicker than a normal person
42:56because I'm sure during his investigations
42:59he's conducted surveillances.
43:01And if you've been trained to do surveillance,
43:03it's very easy to what we call burn a surveillance.
43:07For today's exercise,
43:08the target is a red Thunderbird.
43:11Croak has visual contact.
43:13In her surveillance,
43:14this is known as the point position.
43:18If I was on point,
43:19I would try to keep a few cars between us,
43:22try to keep the same rate of speed.
43:24At the same time,
43:25constantly talking into the radio,
43:27updating the surveillance team.
43:28We're passing such a mile marker.
43:31We're traveling at 65 miles an hour
43:33in the number,
43:34this would be the number six lane.
43:35See, something like this,
43:43you'd say he's braking,
43:44he's slowing down,
43:45he's now down to 55 miles an hour.
43:47I would pass him in a situation like this
43:49and let another member come up to him.
43:52And the unit in the best position
43:53will call out and say,
43:54okay, I've got him.
43:55And they'll continue on with the narration.
43:57I would exit somewhere up ahead here
43:59and wait for them to pass by.
44:01And you'll hear it.
44:01You don't have to ask.
44:03The point person will say,
44:04okay, we're passing this exit, that exit.
44:06And as soon as they pass your exit,
44:07you join back in
44:08and get set to take the point
44:10whenever you can.
44:14Orr was tailed to San Luis Obispo
44:16where he stopped at a convenience store.
44:19He was known as a committed non-smoker,
44:21but nevertheless purchased
44:23two packs of cigarettes.
44:25Because he was so difficult to keep up with,
44:29a tracking transmitter was attached
44:31to the underside of his car.
44:36The surveillance team watched and waited.
44:39The last day of the course
44:46and the day that we had determined,
44:48based on M.O.,
44:49there might be some activity.
44:52John discovered the device on his vehicle.
44:54One of the wires had come loose
44:55and was hanging down below the bumper.
44:58And he noticed it when he'd made a stop.
45:00And it was a circus from there.
45:03Something was going on here
45:04that I really didn't know exactly what.
45:06And I didn't put two and two together
45:08until I got back into town
45:09and was rereading my notes for my book
45:11and remembering that there was a fire
45:13in that very same town
45:14several years before
45:15that I had witnessed.
45:18And the only thing I could possibly think of
45:21was that the local cops felt
45:23that maybe somebody attending that conference
45:25and that Fresno conference
45:26that happened in 1987
45:28had developed some suspects.
45:31And lo and behold, I must be one.
45:34I passed my business card off
45:35to the local police agency
45:36at the time I found the tracking device
45:38and asked them,
45:39hey, you got something to talk about?
45:41Come talk to me.
45:43And then something unexpected happened
45:46that cast a strange new light on the case.
45:49A letter by John Orr to a literary agent
45:52came into the hands of investigators.
45:55It described a novel that he had written
45:57about a serial arsonist.
45:59It's interesting.
46:03There's one paragraph in particular
46:05that reads,
46:08my novel, Points of Origin,
46:10is a fact-based work
46:11that follows the pattern
46:12of an actual arsonist
46:14that has been setting serial fires
46:15in California
46:16over the past eight years.
46:18He has not been identified
46:20or apprehended
46:21and probably will not be
46:23in the near future.
46:25As in the real case,
46:26the arsonist in my novel
46:27is a firefighter.
46:30And he's the only one
46:31that knew that
46:32because we didn't at that point.
46:35I just drew from my experience
46:37my research
46:37and took a little literary license
46:39when I wrote
46:39to this literary agent
46:41in theorizing
46:42that all these fires
46:43might have been related
46:44to the same individual
46:45and it may have been
46:46a firefighter.
46:49When investigators obtained
46:50a copy of the text,
46:52it offered a tantalizing glimpse
46:54into the author's mind.
46:57Well, his description
46:58of the feelings
46:59and emotions
47:00that went into his character
47:02and then taking that
47:03in my own mind
47:03and thinking,
47:04so this is how,
47:05this is how John
47:06must be feeling.
47:07And that was
47:08an interesting light
47:09to shed on it
47:10because that's all
47:11we were looking for
47:12is why is John doing this?
47:14How could he do this?
47:18John Orr
47:18had also shot
47:19these home videos.
47:21Some were of fires
47:22he was suspected
47:23of starting.
47:32In the novel,
47:33the firefighter-turned-arsonist
47:35was named Aaron.
47:38Orr wrote,
47:40Aaron occasionally
47:42walked into the area
47:43where his fire was burning,
47:45but only well after
47:46it was discovered
47:47and there were
47:48other people watching.
47:49He was a loner
47:53and insecure.
47:55His fires
47:55gave him
47:56the much-needed attention
47:57that he craved.
48:02He was,
48:03after all,
48:03the only one
48:04who knew
48:04how the fire started.
48:05the thick black smoke
48:15stained the clear blue sky
48:16much as an oil spill
48:18attacks a clear blue sea.
48:21To Aaron,
48:22the smoke was beautiful,
48:23causing his heart rate
48:25to quicken
48:25and his breathing
48:26to come in shallow gasps.
48:28In my opinion,
48:32it wasn't very well written.
48:33It wasn't a very
48:33interesting story
48:34and I think
48:35if I were actually
48:36reading a novel,
48:37I would have put it down.
48:38But because of being
48:39so in-depth
48:40into this investigation,
48:41it was fascinating reading
48:42because there was
48:43just so many similarities.
48:44And every time
48:45I would turn the page,
48:46you know,
48:47it just,
48:47it was incredible
48:48to be reading
48:50what I was investigating
48:51having been written
48:51by the suspect.
48:55Aaron got a sudden rush
48:57from the increase in flames
48:58and wanted to get nearer.
49:04It was unlikely
49:05that he would ever
49:05become a suspect.
49:07His time delay devices
49:08gave him from a couple
49:09of minutes
49:10to almost an hour
49:11before the fire
49:11actually started.
49:14When the fire did start,
49:16Aaron was always
49:16some distance away from it.
49:23Evidence had, however,
49:25been left behind
49:26on at least two occasions.
49:29Remnants of the devices
49:30were found
49:31in two stores
49:32he had attempted to burn.
49:44It didn't really occur
49:45to me that it could mean anything.
49:47I just said,
49:47oh, this is kind of interesting,
49:48let me read it.
49:49And then I started reading it.
49:51I'm like, oh, wow, strange.
49:52One of the paragraphs
49:54had our store name on it.
49:56And then I had to read it
49:57over and over again
49:58to make sure that was us.
49:59And I just got a strange feeling
50:02that that was the guy after all.
50:09It was a very quiet,
50:10kind of a solemn day
50:11when we made the arrest.
50:12It was very overcast
50:13and kind of drizzly
50:14and sort of fit the mood,
50:16I think,
50:16of everybody involved.
50:17On December 4th, 1991,
50:22John Orr was arrested
50:23and charged with arson.
50:25ATF agents
50:26searched his home and office.
50:30A briefcase was found
50:32in his car.
50:34Among its contents
50:36were binoculars,
50:37a pack of cigarettes,
50:39two packs of matches,
50:40two lighters,
50:41and a bag of rubber bands.
50:43During questioning,
50:45he said they were materials
50:46for a class he was teaching.
50:48He admitted nothing.
50:51If I had one thing
50:52to do over again,
50:53it's the preparation
50:54and the actual interview.
50:56Because I think that John,
50:58in a way,
50:59did want to talk about it
51:00and was looking to get caught
51:02and was ready to confess
51:04or talk about it.
51:06I hope that someday
51:07he will talk about it
51:08so that we can learn from it.
51:09Good morning, Mr. Orr.
51:10How are you?
51:13The John Orr
51:14we saw at the seminars,
51:15the John Orr we saw
51:16when we assisted
51:18in investigations
51:19was really a facade
51:21of a person
51:22that was a lot more troubled
51:24and had a lot darker side
51:27to them on the inside.
51:29Can you say anything
51:30about the charges?
51:32City court.
51:34And every now and then,
51:36through interviews
51:36of different people,
51:37friends, associates,
51:38we had a little glimpse
51:41into that side.
51:43He was much more
51:44of a loner
51:44than I was aware of.
51:47There were very few people
51:49that I came in contact with
51:50that knew the real John Orr.
51:52and I think that was consistent
51:55with our psychological profiles
51:59of a serial arsonist.
52:04John Orr was charged
52:06with eight counts of arson
52:07in Los Angeles
52:08and five counts
52:09in Central California.
52:11He maintained
52:12that he was innocent.
52:15He had claimed,
52:16I guess,
52:17that it was not his print.
52:18If his print got there,
52:19then it was kind of
52:20a conspiracy
52:21that I had
52:22with the federal government
52:23trying to build up
52:24my resume.
52:25And I thought,
52:26how ridiculous, you know?
52:27What do I want
52:27to build up my resume for?
52:28I'm just going to work
52:29for the Bakersfield Fire Department
52:30as a fire investigator.
52:31Where am I going to go?
52:35John Orr was found guilty
52:37on three counts of arson
52:38in Central California
52:39and sentenced
52:40to 30 years in prison.
52:43At a second trial
52:44in Los Angeles,
52:46he admitted guilt
52:47as part of a plea bargain.
52:49Despite his guilty plea,
52:51Orr continues to act
52:52as though he is innocent.
52:55The entire truth
52:55isn't out yet.
52:57There's more to the story.
53:01The story isn't over.
53:08Early in 1995,
53:09John Orr was arraigned
53:10on 26 new charges,
53:13including four counts
53:14of murder,
53:15resulting from deaths
53:16in a 1984 arson fire.
53:18Orr was also charged
53:25with the 1990
53:26College Hills Fire,
53:28which damaged
53:29or destroyed 64 homes
53:31in his own community
53:32of Glendale, California.
53:34Educators and home viewers
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54:05contact você
54:14ortit a par Jae-in
54:15or test a woman
54:16that you would know
54:17if you don't want
54:17because it is not
54:18for the Lord.
54:18A Quantity
54:19is not
54:19as a Suzanne
54:20and Trooper
54:20and 너va
54:20and your
54:22and your
54:24and your
54:24and your
54:25at the moment
54:26of joy.
54:26And during that time,
54:27the work of all
54:28and your
54:29and your
54:30and your
54:30and your
54:31and your
54:32and your