All language subtitles for Very.Scary.People.S03E11.The.Firestarter.A.Wall.of.Flames.Part.1.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

♪♪

Man: The average fireman,
that's their job.

For a pyromaniac, it's their
life is consumed by it.

A guy like that has such a mask,
such a facade of normality

that it's almost impossible
to detect something is wrong.

The fact that he seemed
to set all his fires

in crowded places during the day

where people could
potentially die is important.

Much, much more dramatic,
and it's much more stimulating,

much more eroticized
for the pyromaniac.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "Very Scary People."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

On October 10, 1984,

flames swept through
a crowded store in California,

trapping some employees
and shoppers inside.

There was panic and confusion,

and not everyone
escaped in time.

Investigators combed
through the debris

to try to establish the cause.

Was this an accident or arson?

More mysterious fires followed,
and a pattern emerged.

There was an arsonist
on the loose.

Now the hunt was on.

This is Part One of
"The Firestarter."

♪♪

♪♪

Ole's Home Center
in South Pasadena was big

and had pretty much
anything you could think of,

from cheap tools
to Christmas lights.

It was actually in a building

that had once housed a
grocery store and a drug store.

They cut two holes in the wall
between the two stores

and put a couple of
roll-up doors in there

so that people can go
in between,

and those things will drop down
as soon as there's a fire.

The roll-up doors would
stop the fire

from spreading from one side
of the store to the other.

Girardot: On October 10, 1984,

there were dozens of people
in the Ole's hardware store,

among them employees
and shoppers.

Obdam: I was 19 and just started
working full-time.

I could've never imagined
that evening --

it would totally change my life.

♪♪

The store was pretty quiet
that evening

because it was Game 2
of the World Series.

[ Lighter clicks ]

Girardot: Billy and Ada Deal --
they live in the neighborhood,

and they're babysitting
their grandson, Matthew Troidl,

and decide that, "Hey, you know,
it's a nice sort of warm night.

Let's go down to Ole's
and do some shopping."

And of course, little Matthew
isn't really having it,

doesn't want to be in the cart.

And they say, "Oh, don't worry.
We'll get you some ice cream.

We'll take you
to Baskin-Robbins."

Ada and Matthew,
grandmother and grandson,

are perusing aisles
in the paint department.

And Billy is up
in the tools section,

which is in a completely
other part of the store.

[ Lighter clicks ]

♪♪

Obdam: All of a sudden,
I heard somebody yelling,

"Hey, we need
to clear the store.

We need to get out
of the store."

I looked over and noticed that
there was a column of smoke.

♪♪

I went back over to
the hardware department

all the way
in the back of the store

and saw a couple of customers,
told them,

"Hey, we need to leave
the store right now."

♪♪

Girardot: Jim Obdam
encounters Ada and Matthew

in one of the aisles.

Obdam: And there was a lady
with her grandchild

in the very last row
of the department

that was looking
at some merchandise.

And I told her that we needed
to leave the store,

that there was an emergency.

And he asked her to follow him,

and he began walking towards
the closest fire door to them.

♪♪

Obdam: And I told her,

"Take your grandson
out of the cart

because we need to move
quickly out of the store."

As we were walking down
the main aisle,

I looked over to the right and
saw that that pillar of smoke

was not a pillar
of smoke anymore.

It was a wall of flames.

As he walked towards
that fire door,

the fire door
suddenly came down.

I was trapped because two
roll-up doors closed on me,

blocking my way from one side of
the store to the other building.

It traps them in this building
that a raging blaze

is just about to consume.

♪♪

Obdam: And as I see the flames
on one side of me,

all of a sudden, the lights
flickered and turned off,

and everything turned black,
and it was just an orange glow.

Girardot: You had nothing on
your mind but sheer panic.

He's hoping he can save this
grandmother and her grandbaby,

but he also knows
he's got to get out of there.

It went so fast that I don't
even remember

seeing the lady
with her grandchild there.

I lost her.

It was pitch-black in the store,

and I couldn't see anything,
really,

so at that point in time,
I just prayed and said,

you know,
"Lord, get me out of here."

It was just totally chaos.

And was trying to figure out
where to go from here.

I headed toward the back wall

and felt my way along
the aisle in the dark.

It just seemed incredibly hot.

Girardot: He makes his way
through the smoke

toward the one emergency door
that he knows

that leads out to
the back of the hardware store.

Obdam: As I was working my way
down the back aisle

toward the exit,

it was just -- the intense heat
was just extreme.

He had to shield his head
and body with his arms

from the fire
as it became so intense.

Obdam: I remember putting
my hand on my wrist

and just the skin
peeling off my arm,

and it just seemed like forever

to get to those
emergency exit doors.

So I felt like giving up.

But then here are the doors.

I was like,
"I'm gonna be the last one

out of these doors."

Girardot:
And when he gets outside

and turns around and looks
at where he came from,

the building
is engulfed in flames.

Obdam: I remember seeing smoke
coming out of those doors,

and it was just black.

I knew that there
would be people

that perished in the fire.

Cabral:
In less than five minutes,

this fire went from a small fire

to a fully engulfed
12,000-square-foot building.

Obdam: I had first- and
second-degree burns on my arm

and also on my ears,
on my forehead, and face.

Girardot: Outside the store,
a crowd is gathering,

and among the spectators
is Billy Deal,

and he's asking everybody,
"Have you seen my wife?

Have you seen my grandson?

Do you know
where they might be?"

And these emotions
are playing out

in the parking lot
of this hardware store

that is absolutely engulfed
in this fire.

♪♪

Cabral: The captain is trying to
direct his rookie firefighters

into this massive fire.

Then John Orr shows up.

He was the fire investigator
for the city of Glendale.

The fire-investigative community
all knew John Orr very well,

and he was a well-respected
investigator.

And he seemed to have
a great deal of knowledge

about fire that many
other people didn't have.

And he takes a bunch of pictures
of the firefighters

and the fire.

John was known for telling
all these investigators

that "the bug is always
in the crowd."

So you should video it
so you can figure out

whether somebody's showing up
at a bunch of your fires,

and then you'll know that
that person is the arsonist.

Obdam: I've heard that
there was nobody else

that made it out of the store.

The Ole's Home Center fire
started at 8:04 p.m.

on the night
of October 10, 1984.

First arriving units found
that the fire was fully involved

inside the west side
of the Ole's store.

They saw smoke and fire
beginning to come out of

all of the open doors
and vents in the location,

and within minutes,
it was through the roof.

People are watching --
people who've been evacuated

from the store,
people who worked in the store.

I was very much concerned
for my co-workers.

♪♪

♪♪

Cabral: The investigation of
the Ole's Home Center fire

was led by

the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Arson Homicide Division.

They couldn't figure out
what happened

because they couldn't decide
whether or not

it was an electrical fire.

The fire was what we call
undetermined,

and it really became
a body-recovery effort

fairly early on.

♪♪

In all, there's four people
that died in this Ole's fire.

Working in the store
was Carolyn Kraus.

People remember her leading
people out of the store

when this fire took place.

She was a very sweet young lady.
We got along really well.

Girardot: Jimmy Cetina was
a high-school kid.

Obdam: And he was like
an all-American athlete.

Girardot: He was being scouted
by the Chicago Cubs.

He had a bright future.

Whenever you saw him, he always
had a smile on his face,

never in a bad mood.

Girardot: He led people to
safety and ultimately perished.

Obdam: It was very saddening
to hear that.

Girardot: Among the victims were
Ada Deal and Matthew Troidl.

We were called last night
and told he was trapped in there

and he was dead.

That's all we know.

They were found about 20 feet
from the door.

My grandbaby, he would've
been 3 in January.

He was with his other
grandmother.

They were in the store shopping
with her husband,

his grandfather.

She decided to go back
for one more thing.

She took the baby with her.

And I'm sure she did
everything she could for him.

It was the next day
that I found out that the lady

and her grandchild
passed away in the fire.

♪♪

Cabral: All of the victims
who died in this fire

died from smoke inhalation,

and that is typically
what happens in a fire.

People very rarely burn
to death in fires.

Most of the time, it's the smoke
that kills them

because they're not breathing
enough oxygen.

Then the fire envelops them.

♪♪

John Orr knew very well

the sister of one of the victims
in the fire,

and a couple of days
after the fire,

he specifically told her
that he was angry

that they had not determined
this was an arson fire.

Girardot: And he tells her,
"This is an arson fire,

and I'm bound and determined
to get to the bottom of

why this fire happened
and who set it."

Point of origin
is where the fire started.

It was gonna tell you
the possible cause of the fire.

It could be an accidental fire
due to an electrical short.

It could be careless smoking.

It could be
any number of things.

♪♪

And, in fact, John Orr
went to the area of origin

and expressed his own opinions
as to why this fire

was arson and different
from what they said.

Girardot: One of the things
that John was really good at

was reading a fire,

and he knew that arson fires
start from the ground up

and electrical fires
always burn from the top down.

Patterson:
I had great respect for John.

I was impressed
with his knowledge.

Man: There would be
a number of fire scenes

where the investigators
might be struggling

to try to find out
where the fire started,

and he had a knack
of showing up on scene

and being able to relatively
quickly identify

the point of origin of the fire,
where other investigators

had been stumped by
until his arrival.

My dad was a hero, solving
those fires and figuring out

where they started
and that they were arson.

He was on the news quite often.

There's a lot of
witness statements

and a lot of possible suspects
that were in the area

at the time of the fire.

Matassa: To anybody that worked
fire investigation at the time,

his reputation
was almost larger than life.

Girardot: Orr tells them,
"There's something happening

here that you are missing,"
and they ignore it.

Cabral: Once they began to drive
heavy equipment into the scene,

you have now compromised
your scene investigation,

because you certainly
can't figure out what substance

was used to start a fire

if you're driving heavy
equipment inside a location

before you finish
your investigation.

If the sheriff would only have
listened to what he said,

they would've realized there was
something far more sinister

going on that night.

♪♪

♪♪

Girardot: The loss of life in
a popular retail store

made headlines
in Southern California.

Reporter:
Four people died in this fire,

including a grandmother
and her 2-year-old grandson.

The other two were employees
of Ole's Home Center.

Cabral: The investigators,
because they didn't determine

that it was an arson fire,

didn't conduct
any further investigations.

If they had done so, they may
have realized that two fires

on that very same night

may have been connected
to the Ole's Home Center fire.

The first one was
about 15 minutes away

from the Ole's
South Pasadena location.

Girardot: John Orr was sent
to investigate it.

Girardot: The third fire
that night

was in another grocery store,
also in the potato chip rack.

Cabral: John Orr participated
in all three of

those investigations
during that night.

Girardot: Investigators
quickly determined

the two potato chip fires
were arson fires.

But because the fires
were in grocery stores,

investigators thought there was
no way they could be linked

to this giant blaze
that happened at Ole's

and very quickly dismissed
any thought

that there was some linkage
between these three fires.

♪♪

If anybody had connected
these three fires,

they would have realized that
there was something far more

serious happening that night

and that there was an
arsonist on the loose,

and he wasn't gonna be satisfied

until his arson
did some real damage

and he got some credit for it.

Cabral: The only report
that reflects that connection

is a report that John Orr wrote.

He said that was the same person
that started all these fires.

Man: If you look at the pattern
among pyromaniacs,

they often do it
in a spree-like fashion,

sometimes several fires
in one day

because it's so
stimulating for them.

There's an inner drive to do it.

They want to recapture
that feeling again.

Girardot: By setting fires
in a spree-like fashion,

the arsonist can also cause
the greatest amount of damage.

♪♪

Cabral: There was a fire set in
another Ole's Home Center store

in the city of Pasadena.

That fire didn't really ignite.

Girardot: And investigators
go out and they look at it,

and they even find the device.

It was a device put in their
polyurethane foam

that someone discovered
while it was still smoking.

Matassa: And that device was a
cigarette that had three matches

attached to it by a rubber band,

and it was placed inside
a piece of folded,

yellow-lined notepad paper.

The concept of that device would
be once a cigarette was ignited,

you would have a timeframe
before it would burn down enough

to light the matches,

and the matches would, in turn,
light the yellow-lined paper.

And you'd need
that amount of flame

before you'd be successful
in igniting it.

Girardot: To John, it was clear
that the same arsonist

who set the fire at Ole's
in South Pasadena

and killed four people was
telling investigators that,

"Hey, you missed me.

I'm gonna do it again
so that you see it's an arson."

Orr was very, very good
at fire detection.

Why?
That was his life.

It was part of him.

It was all-consuming for him.

Of course, his words
fell on deaf ears.

In the two years that followed,

there would be more than 6,500
fires in Southern California,

causing more than
$20 million in damage.

And nobody can say exactly
how many of these fires

were accidental or arson.

♪♪

Man: I was working at the
Bakersfield Fire Department

as a fire investigator,
and we had a call come in.

It was a Craft-Mart store

out in the southwest part
of Bakersfield.

I traveled out there
in my cruiser

and was met at the front door
by an Engine Company captain

that took me back
to a dry floral arrangement

where the fire had started.

When I looked over in the bin,

I saw what I knew
to be a incendiary device.

It was three matches laying
close to a cigarette butt

that had been severely burned

and some
rubber-band-looking material.

Yellow-lined paper was laying
in close proximity to it.

I carefully picked it up
with a pair of tweezers

and put it into an evidence bag.

I had the manager bring me
all of the yellow-lined paper

that he had in the store,

and I compared it
with the yellow-lined paper

that I had obtained
from the bin,

and none of it compared.

So that made me believe
that the paper

had to come from the outside.

I was quite surprised
whenever I found

that someone
had intentionally done this

due to the time of day.

The store was busy.

You had employees in there,
had customers in there.

I felt like this was someone
that was very bold.

This person knew that he could
walk in there and do it

without being detected.

I had the opportunity
to interview the manager

and other employees
at the Craft-Mart store

to see if they'd seen
anybody suspicious or anything,

and they hadn't really seen
anybody or paid any attention

to anyone that was in the store.

I was still conducting
my interviews

when I received
another call of a fire,

and I thought,
"Wow, this is a little unusual.

I'm having two large

department stores
with fires in them.

What could possibly
be going on here?"

At the second fire,
there was one lady

that was working
that had seen a guy come in.

He was a real handsome cowboy,

and she was watching him as he
walked around in the store,

and he had something
in his hands,

and apparently she had taken
her eye off him for a while.

Shortly after the cowboy left
the store, a fire broke out.

♪♪

Casey: I got the call from
the two investigators

that had been to the

California Conference
of Arson Investigators

up in Fresno.

Girardot: The firefighters,
they talk about their work

hunting arsonists

or how they are investigating
different crimes.

On the last days
of the conference,

there's a series of fires
that take place.

Casey: All located
along Highway 99,

with Fresno being the first one,

and that's where
the conference was.

Then you have Tulare,
then we had Bakersfield,

and then they seemed to stop.

So now I'm thinking,
"This could very well be

a person that attended
the conference."

Just a gut instinct I had that a
fireman was setting these fires.

Girardot: There's a fireman
that attended that conference

in Fresno who's lighting fires
on his way home

to Bakersfield or Los Angeles.

♪♪

Casey: One of the fire
investigators that was there,

he called me and says,
"Hey, I'm gonna tell you

something that's gonna knock
your socks off."

Welcome back to
"Very Scary People."

After a series of
mysterious fires

break out near an
arson investigators' convention,

investigator Marvin Casey
has a hunch.

He thinks someone in
the firefighting community

who attended the conference
set the fires.

He has one critical
piece of evidence --

a scrap of
yellow-lined note paper

that was part of
the incendiary device.

He thinks this could be key
to identifying the fire starter.

Marvin Casey sends it out
to a lab, they dust it,

and they find out that,
"Hey, there's a fingerprint

on this piece of paper."

Well, this is great.

I mean, they've got
a fingerprint

that they can link to a device

that started an arson fire
in Bakersfield.

Casey:
They ran their print through
the National Crime Index.

It's an index that they put
everybody's fingerprints in,

everybody that's ever
done anything wrong.

It's nationwide.

The guy didn't have
a criminal record.

There was no hit on it
to make a match.

♪♪

Girardot: Marvin Casey
was disappointed,

but he didn't give up.

Casey: I obtained a roster from
the conference in Fresno,

which was attended with about
250 fire investigators,

insurance agents,
and people like that.

I got my California map
and I traced it down

and put indicators showing
where the fires had started.

They had to be traveling alone

because arson's really
a secretive crime.

I narrowed it down
to 55 individuals

that was traveling down
Highway 99 from the convention

to the Southern California area.

Girardot: What Marvin does is
he offers the ATF

the names of 55 firefighters

and a fingerprint and says,
"If you put this all together,

you're probably gonna find
a serial arsonist."

Casey: And they looked at
the roster and said, "55 men.

I really don't think
we can work that many."

I was disappointed, but I still
couldn't get it out of my head.

I continued to work the theory,

and finally, the fire marshal
that I was working for said,

"You know, put this
on the back-burner.

You know, you've beat
this horse to death."

Girardot: For the next
two years, fires continued

to pop up all over California,

but none were connected
to the 1987 fire spree.

♪♪

It turns out there's
a conference

taking place in Pacific Grove,

where a group of firefighters
get together.

Casey: It's just off the coast
of the San Francisco area.

All fire investigators
get together

and they're discussing
the fires in California

and how we were going to
approach it in the future.

One of the fire investigators
that was there,

he called me and says, "Hey,
you know, I'm gonna tell you

something that's gonna
knock your socks off."

There was other fires that had
occurred during that convention,

like someone had just left
the convention

and was going back
to Southern California,

traveling down 101 and setting
the fires in different towns.

This is very eerily similar
to what happened

just two years earlier.

This, to me, seemed
like it was the same M.O.

that had happened in '87.

These fires were during
business hours

when people were
in the store shopping.

After I'd received information

that there had been fires
going down Highway 101,

I pulled my map back out
that I had used in '87

that I had identified
as a person traveling down 99.

I knew that it had to be someone
from Southern California

because that's the way
the map was indicating.

Girardot: So he asks organizers
for a list of names.

Who attended this conference?

And he gets that list
and compares it to the one

that he had two years earlier.

Casey: Then I put the two
together and compared them,

and I came up, then,
with 10 names.

10 people had attended
both conferences.

Girardot: And on these 10 names
is the name of a firefighter

who's probably responsible
for some of

these fairly significant arsons.

♪♪

Casey: Then I re-contacted ATF,

and I said, "Listen,
I've got it down to 10 names.

Can we work with 10 names?"

They said,
"Yes, I believe we can."

So I sent the 10 names
up to them,

and they were to compare
the fingerprint.

They run the names
and the fingerprint,

and there's no match
to any of these firefighters

and that fingerprint.

Casey: I was starting
to think, you know,

"Well, maybe this will
never be solved."

I'd taken a lot of guff
from all these guys.

They just didn't want to believe
that it was one of our own

that was setting fires.

I was probably the only one that
suspected it, that believed it.

The arsonist would remain
on the loose,

and he had no intention
of stopping.

♪♪

[ Helicopter blades whirring ]

Girardot: June, 1990,
was an unusual fire season,

that fires had begun in spots
all over California,

and it stretched the resources

of local fire departments
pretty thin.

Cabral: We had
Santa Ana winds blowing.

High winds blowing out
of the hills

are what moves most
of our fires in California.

Girardot: You have dry tinder,
hot conditions,

and then winds that can
sometimes get up into the 50s.

The perfect playground
for an arsonist,

because you add a match
and now you've got havoc.

[ Bell dinging ]

On June 27th,
I went to my doctors,

and when I was coming back,
right on the hillside,

the weeds -- they were so dry,
it gave me a creepy feeling.

I don't know why that feeling
came to me.

I thought if somebody
put a match to that weed,

it would just burn.

We live in a two-story
family home in College Hills.

Girardot: College Hills is a
residential area of Glendale

nestled in the foothill region
of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Yesayan: I drove up to my home,
and it was so hot.

As I went to take my shower
to cool off,

at that time,
I heard the sirens.

[ Sirens wailing ]

And I said, "Oh,
there must be a fire."

When I looked out of the window,
I saw a very thick smoke,

and I realized the fire
is in our street right below.

That fire advanced up that hill
pretty darn quick.

Girardot:
There's a house burning
and another house burning,

and there's smoke in the air,
and you can feel the flames.

Cabral: The fire was so intense
and the winds were so strong.

It jumped an eight-lane freeway.

Officer: We need everybody
to start evacuating now.

Yesayan: My husband --
he came to our street.

It was blocked.

Right in front of his eyes,
a house exploded into pieces.

And fortunately at that time,
he saw a woman, an officer,

and asked, "Go to my house
and tell my wife just get out,

get out of the house."

Right now,
when I'm thinking back,

it makes me very emotional.

So, after this woman told us,

"Just get out,
get out of the house,"

I pulled the car
from the garage.

I drove down the street.
I remember smoke.

It was thick smoke.

And the whole street was covered
with criss-crossed fire hoses.

We went to the shopping center,

and we just watched
the fires on the hills,

and seeing the houses,

that they were exploding
like firecrackers.

It was just surreal.

♪♪

At around 7:30, 8:00,
they put the fire out.

The fire destroyed or damaged
approximately 67 homes

in this College Hills community.

It was very emotional that I saw
that our house was saved.

Cabral:
It was the largest fire in
the city of Glendale's history.

To this day, I can't believe
that no one died

in the College Hills fire.

It amazes me that
all those people

were able to get out of there.

It was a miracle.

♪♪

Girardot: But the circumstances
surrounding this fire

seemed suspicious.

John Orr is the
Glendale Fire Captain,

and in this case, this fire --
the College Hills fire --

is now happening in his city.

[ Siren wailing ]

John's adamant
that this fire is arson.

He walks out into
the middle of the field

and picks up a lighter.

He tells the other
investigators that,

"Well, here, we found
the cause of this fire,

and it happened right here.

It's this lighter."

He was uncanny about his ability

to find these
incendiary devices.

We have some very good leads.

John had great relationships
with reporters,

and he recognized
that the local media

would be a pretty good way

to advance his investigation
by saying,

"Listen, this is an arson fire.

We're looking for
a serial arsonist."

Some of the evidence matches up
with this individual

and ties him into the fires.

We don't have an identity
on him.

Girardot: There was
all kinds of witnesses

to the College Hills fire.

In one case, a woman
describes having a man

come to her door and say,

"Hey, did you know there's
a fire in your backyard?"

And of course, this is before
she can smell anything

or see anything.

And again, within seconds,
he's gone,

and suddenly the fire's going.

One of the witnesses
sees a white Chevy Blazer

right at the point of origin.

In the investigation
of this fire,

John was put in charge
of a tip line,

and so as the active
investigator,

all the tips on this fire,

anybody that saw anything
that had to do with it,

had to call this tip line,
and John vetted all the tips.

Matassa: We had a very
brazen arsonist.

He knew exactly where to start
it to get the desired results

that they're looking for,
which would be a large fire.

♪♪

In late 1990 and going into '91,
there's an epidemic of fires

that are happening
in retail stores all over L.A.

In each of these fires,

there's a device
that's very similar.

Matassa: And that device was
a relatively simple design

but very effective --
a cigarette that had

three matches attached to it
by a rubber band,

and it was placed inside
a piece of folded

yellow-lined notepad paper.

On March 27th of 1991,

I learned that the
L.A. Sheriff's arson unit

had responded
to a large commercial fire

in the South Bay area
of Los Angeles.

Later that same day, I got a
briefing from the investigators

that responded to the scene,

and by that time, they learned
that it wasn't just one fire.

There had actually been
three fires in the same area,

and in each one of those fires,

it started in pillows
or foam products.

Clearly, the conclusion was
that we had a serial offender

who had started those fires,

and we decided that it would
be prudent to form a task force.

And our goal was
to start visiting

all of the local
smaller jurisdictions

in the greater Los Angeles area

and see if they had had any
fires that met that same M.O.

Within days, we were able
to identify

close to 30 fires in Los Angeles

over a four-month period
from December through March.

The device is obviously
a signature,

but the M.O. goes beyond that.

We noticed that the fires
were fairly close to freeway

on- and off-ramp access,

which would allow
the perpetrator easy egress

from the fire scenes.

Cabral: The fires were all set
in either hardware stores

or fashion-type stores --

stores that would have
polyurethane foam in them,

and that is really
the connection

between these fabric stores
and hardware stores.

Matassa: The fact that
these fires were

being started
in the middle of the day,

in businesses
when there's customers,

it was obvious to us
that there was a large chance

of loss of life

if we didn't solve
this case soon.

Girardot: So now that the
task force is established,

the lead investigators
need to meet

with arson investigators
in Los Angeles.

Matassa: The treasurer of the
association, John Orr,

was well-known to myself
and others as the

arson investigator for
the city of Glendale.

And we hoped that maybe he had
some information to share.

After the meeting ended,
our investigator got approached

in a parking lot by a
California state fire marshal,

and he says,
"I have to talk to you.

I didn't want to say anything
in the open meeting."

"We think a fireman
might be responsible,

and we should be careful
about what we say

in front of this group."

Matassa: And he said, "We had
the exact same scenario in 1987

in Fresno, the city of Tulare,
and Bakersfield.

And they had, in fact,
recovered a yellow-lined paper,

cigarette, and match device
from one of those fires.

It seems to be an exact match
with the device you recovered.

You need to talk to Marv Casey,

the arson investigator
for the city of Bakersfield."

I get a call from
the Los Angeles guys,

and they want to come up
and take a look

at the yellow-lined paper
that had a fingerprint.

Matassa: It was run against
every fingerprint stored

for any possible reason
in the state system.

So it was not only people
that were arrested for crimes,

but also anyone that had
their fingerprints

taken for any purpose,

whether it be a law-enforcement
officer or a fire service.

About three days after,

a phone call came in
from the sheriff's lab.

He says, "You got John Orr's
fingerprints on it."

Casey: First thing they did was
call me and tell me, you know,

"You tell John Orr to quit
touching that evidence."

I said, "He was nowhere around
when I investigated that fire.

What are you talking about?"

Matassa: It made no sense
that his prints

should be on a device
from Bakersfield.

I knew John personally.

I've worked cases with him,

worked on investigations
with him.

I've taken arson-scene
investigation training with him.

He's trusted as one of us.

I thought it could be somebody
just messing with the fire guys

that were up there
for the conference.

They're trying to tantalize
or torture or torment

the fire investigators,
say, "Catch me if you can."

Matassa: How could it be
one of our own?

The arsonist would remain
on the loose,

and he had
no intention of stopping.

In the meantime, suspicious
fires continue to pop up

all over Southern
and central California.

Matassa: Eventually, the fire's
gonna grow enough

that someone's not
going to be able to escape.

We could not allow
that to happen.

Will investigators be able
to catch the elusive arsonist

before he strikes again?

Could the person starting
these fires

really be one of their own?

An arson expert?

A firefighter?

Someone sworn to save lives?

The shocking conclusion in
Part Two of "The Firestarter."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.

Goodnight.