All language subtitles for Very.Scary.People.S03E12.The.Firestarter.Chasing.a.Pyromaniac.Part.2.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

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Welcome to
"Very Scary People."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

During the evening,
in October 1984, Ole's,

a home-goods store
in South Pasadena, California,

erupts in flames.

Shoppers and employees scramble
to escape the raging inferno,

but four people lose
their lives that night,

including a 2 1/2-year-old
and his grandmother.

Although investigators call
the fire an accident,

the truth
is far more sinister.

As the years go by,
and more fires are set,

a pattern emerges.

Investigators realize there is
a serial arsonist on the loose,

and he could be
one of their own.

The hunt is on
to find the Firestarter.

♪♪

Girardot: The night
of October 10, 1984,

was game two
of the World Series,

and Ole's home center, a store
in South Pasadena, California,

was open for business.

Cabral: A handful of people
were in there.

Two of the people that
were shopping at the store

was a grandmother
and her 2 1/2-year-old grandson.

Man: I was working
at the back of the store,

and I heard
somebody yelling,

"Hey, we need to
clear the store."

And I noticed that there was
a column of smoke.

Cabral:
He immediately began to usher
the customers out of the store.

I saw that that pillar of smoke
was a wall of flames.

Cabral:
The smoke became so thick
that he couldn't see anymore.

He began feeling along
the back of the building,

heading towards where he knew
a fire door was.

Man: It just seemed
like forever.

But then, I was like,

"I'm going to push
these doors open,

and I can get out
to freedom."

Cabral:
In less than five minutes,
this fire went from a small fire

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

Man: 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.

♪♪

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

Woman:
My grandbaby.

He would have been 3
in January.

He was with
his other grandmother.

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

Man:
I found out that evening

that two of my co-workers
passed away.

I was very saddened
to hear that.

Cabral: The captain is trying to
direct his rookie firefighters

into this massive fire.

And John Orr shows up.

He was the fire investigator
for the city of Glendale.

Most of the people involved
in fire investigation

in Los Angeles County
knew who John Orr was.

Matassa: His reputation
was almost larger than life.

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 it

until his arrival.

Orr was very, very good
at fire detection.

Why?
That was his life.

It was part of him.

It was all-consuming
for him.

Cabral:
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."

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

that you are missing."

And they ignore it.

Cabral:
Most arsonists do not set fires
in buildings that are occupied,

except for those who intend
to kill those people inside.

Girardot: Other mysterious fires
began erupting in businesses,

frequently in
the Los Angeles area.

And many of these fires
had something in common --

a homemade incendiary device
frequently found at the scene.

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.

The device is obviously
a signature,

but the M.O.
goes beyond that.

The fires that we're looking at
were commercial businesses,

in the middle of the day,
when they're occupied.

We had, most likely,
a serial offender,

an arsonist that had been
starting fires.

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

We went out, and talked to
all of the investigators,

and see if they had
had any fires

that met
that same M.O.

One investigator remembered
that, years earlier,

a similar incendiary device
was found at a fire about

100 miles North of Los Angeles,
in the city of Bakersfield.

And it had a fingerprint
on it.

When they first
found it,

there was no match
for the print,

but investigators decided
to test it again.

And this time,
they got a match.

Matassa: A phone call came in
from the sheriff's lab.

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

It made no sense
that his prints

should be on a device
from Bakersfield.

As unbelievable as it was,
John Orr was our suspect.

The excitement of the fire
and...

Matassa:
He was a top instructor,

a top voice for firefighters
and arson investigators.

He was so well-known
in the state,

and so well-respected.

If we were going to put a case
together on that,

we had to have
an iron-clad case.

As we're starting
to get into our plans,

we learned that he's making
a trip out of town

to a training conference

in the central coast area
of San Luis Obispo.

And the opportunity
that he may start a fire

and we can catch him
in the act

was too critical
for us to pass up.

We needed to get a warrant
from the court to authorize us

to put a tracking device
on his vehicle.

He left on
a Saturday morning.

John gets in his car,

and begins the drive
to central California,

with ATF agents
following him.

And one of the things
they discover

is that he's not easy
to follow.

Matassa: Fortunately,
we had aerial surveillance,

because, once he got out
on the interstate,

he was driving at 90,
100 miles an hour,

using his emergency lights
when someone got in his way.

He's forcing them to drive
at these crazy speeds,

weave in and out
of traffic,

pedal to the metal
the whole way.

Matassa: Usually,
the plane flies in circles,

to try to keep a vehicle
under surveillance.

Well, he was driving so fast
that the aircraft

was actually paralleling him
up the freeway.

Once he arrived at his hotel
in San Luis Obispo,

in the middle of the night
we had a couple of our tactical

people crawl underneath his car,
and attach the tracking device.

Now, it's not like
what you might imagine

that things are today.

This is a round, circular,
magnetic thing.

It was basically a unit
that sent out a radio sound.

And the louder the sound was
meant the closer you were

to the vehicle
you're tracking.

So, in the end,
it helped us stay close by,

but you really had to have
a line-of-sight surveillance.

We watched him every day
during the conference.

The second day, he was being
followed by one of the agents,

and went into
a drug store.

Girardot: He's there
pretty quickly, and leaves.

So, what the heck
did he get?

Matassa: Once he left,
the agent ran in,

and asked the clerk
what he had bought.

And the clerk says,
"Oh, he bought a soft drink

and a pack
of cigarettes."

Girardot:
Well, that's really interesting,
because, of all the people

that are at this
firefighting conference,

the one person who is the most
adamantly against smoking

is John Orr.

And he's just gone into
this drug store,

and bought a pack
of smokes.

A cigarette obviously
was part of each one

of the devices
we recovered,

so, we were really keyed up
that something was going to be

happening on his drive
back to Los Angeles.

And we had the surveillance
teams all geared up

for when
the class ended.

And no more than five minutes
into it,

he pulled into a car wash
in the city of San Luis Obispo.

And one of the agents realized
that the tracking device

had somehow
become dislodged,

and he had noticed
the antenna from it.

When he identified
the tracking device in his car,

we figured, "This is it.
It's up.

How are we going to handle it?
What's our tactic?

Are we gonna
grab him?

I mean, we've got
to do something."

Girardot: But lucky
for investigators,

it didn't seem like he realized
he was being tracked.

He thought he had a bomb
on his car.

So, he gets in the car,
and drives as fast

as he can
to a police range

where they handle
explosive devices.

And while he's doing that,
investigators call ahead.

Matassa: From the airplane,
I radioed down to the agent,

"Don't let him know
it's a tracking device.

Tell him you're not sure
what it is.

You'll analyze it,
and you'll get back to him."

Girardot: John arrives,
runs into the range,

and says,
"Hey, I'm a fireman,

and I think there's a bomb
attached to my car."

Matassa:
A day later, the bomb tech
called John, and told him,

"I took the device apart."

It's a hoax device."

It's somebody
just messing with you."

We hoped that
that story would work.

Within a few weeks,

he's attending another
training conference.

One of our agents is actually
attending the training with him,

and trying to keep an eye
on him.

And he suddenly seems
to disappear from the training

during a break.

And around
that same time,

a trash barrel
right outside the conference

has a small fire erupt.

And within minutes
afterwards,

the agent inside
sees John again.

And we're thinking
to ourselves,

"Does he just know
that we're here,

and he's just
screwing with us?

Or is this just
a coincidence?"

Investigators suspected John Orr
of having set dozens of fires.

And so, they set out
to interview witnesses

at each of
those scenes.

Matassa: In between scrambling
to handle the surveillances,

we're still trying to get
our witnesses interviewed,

and we needed a photo lineup
for John Orr.

We went out to
the very first witness

at one of the stores
that had a large fire.

And when we showed
the photo spread,

she immediately picked
John Orr's photo out.

She says, "Oh, he's been in here
several times."

And I said, "Well, when was
the last time?"

And she said,
"The morning of the fire,

probably 15 minutes
before the fire."

It was a remarkable start
to being able

to get solid
witness identification.

We're getting
our arrest-and-search warrants
in order

when I got a call
from his supervisor.

He pulled out a letter,
and he says,

"I found my secretary
typing this,

this morning,
for John Orr."

When I read this letter,

I couldn't believe
what I was reading.

"My novel is fiction, but it's
based on a real arsonist

who has again hit
the L.A. area this year,

doing over $12 million
in damage.

It is my feeling
that the arsonist

could be
a firefighter."

He was, in fact,
trying to solicit a publisher

to read his manuscript.

The first thing I did
when I got the manuscript

was hole myself up
in an office,

and read it
in its entirety.

And I found it
to be very scary.

Matassa:
It, frankly, floored me,
and everybody that read it.

The manuscript was called
"Points of Origin,"

and it's basically
the story of a firefighter

who is a serial arsonist,
setting fires in commercial

buildings throughout
the state of California.

In some ways, it was more like
a diary than a fiction.

He was using different names
for businesses,

but in reality,
describing the exact fires

that we were investigating him
for being responsible for.

Cabral: We were able to say,
"Okay, this is that fire.

Everything in this book
likely really happened."

The Ole's fire is depicted
in the book as "Cal's fire,"

is what he calls
the location.

He specifically references
the grandmother

and her 2 1/2-year-old grandson
who died,

and then, makes one comment
that he had no way of knowing,

unless he came in contact
with her,

and that was that
she had taken him

for mint chip ice cream
at the Baskin-Robbins.

When we went out, and spoke
to the surviving grandfather,

we asked him,
"Did you go to Baskin-Robbins?"

And what he actually
told us was,

"No. What we had done is,
we had told the 2 1/2-year-old

that,
if he behaved himself

while we were shopping
in the store,

we would take him
to Baskin-Robbins afterwards."

And his favorite ice cream
was mint chip ice cream,

which was the exact
ice cream

that John Orr
referenced in the manuscript.

Girardot: The killer overheard
that conversation,

and that conversation
showed up

in the text
of the fictional work.

♪♪

I was at a class
that John had put together.

I didn't know that he was
the focus of investigation.

And a short time
afterwards,

I was dispatched to a fire
at the Warner Bros. lot.

Located within the city
of Burbank is Warner Studios.

I would say having a fire
at the Warner Bros. lot

is a rarity.

I met up with
the head of security.

I looked at
the fire scene.

The fire
was already out.

I looked at some of
the burn patterns in the floor.

The fire was starting to look
more and more

like it was
an arson fire.

So, being that I had finished
the class that day,

I called John.

And I say, "Hey, John,
we had this fire

over here at
the Warner lot.

I'd like you to come over,
and take a look at it."

He asked me how to get
into the lot,

so I told them
that I would be at the gate

waiting for him
on his arrival.

I waited there,
at the gate.

And it seemed like I had been
waiting there for quite a while.

I got on the radio --

"John, hey, I'm over here
at the gate

waiting for you
to come in.

Where are you?"

He said, "Oh, I'm already
at the scene."

And I'm wondering,
"He said he didn't know

how to get into
the lot."

Never reached out to Steve,
told him he found his way there.

Just left Steve
out there.

Patterson: I found out from
the head of security, later on,

that John had been on the lot
a number of times.

His wife worked
at the studios.

And he would come there,

and have lunch with her
on occasion.

And we know that, just before
the Warner fire ignited,

John Orr's vehicle was parked
just outside the gate.

We decided we had to move
on the case, and make an arrest.

Cabral: One day, John Orr
left the office,

did a drive around the town,
in just this circle,

and went right back
to the office.

They realized
shortly thereafter that,

along the route
he had taken,

there had been a fire started
in some brush,

just off to the side
of the road.

So, it was, frankly,
concerning to us

that he's going to start a fire,
and someone's going to get hurt.

We decided we have to move
on the case, and make an arrest.

I was with a boyfriend
of mine.

And we went to
his parents' house.

And they said, "Hey, Lori,
you've got your dad on the TV.

You got to come
check this out."

And the first thing I saw
was my dad in handcuffs.

Reporter: The city's
top arson investigator

is himself
charged with arson.

And then, they were describing
that he was being

arrested for arson.

And of course, I really thought
it was a mistake.

"There's no way
he could do that."

Orr spoke to "Inside Edition"
about the moment of his arrest.

It was a total surprise.

I'd come out of my house,
on my way to work,

like I do every day of the week,
five days a week,

and was starting
to get into my car.

and suddenly, surrounded
by about 18 to 20

federal And local
investigators.

Matassa: In his briefcase,
and in his car,

we found cigarettes,
matches, rubber bands --

the materials for
the incendiary device.

At one point,
I told him,

"We've even recovered a device
from one of the scenes,

and we lifted
your fingerprint off it."

You would expect an innocent
person to say, "No, you didn't.

You couldn't possibly get
my fingerprint off it."

He says, "Well, how many prints
did you get?"

Why would you even ask
that question,

unless you were trying
to find out

what evidence we had
against him?

He wasn't very talkative
about the obvious situation

that he was under
house arrest.

We asked a few
little questions.

Now, looking back,
I wish I would have asked

a million more questions
at that moment.

My dad was my hero,
my sister's hero,

and we looked at him
as the world's hero.

He just was really doing
no wrong in our eyes.

Patterson:
At first, I'm thinking,
"There's no possible way

John would have been involved
in setting fires."

To me, it just was out of
the realm of my thinking.

Schlesinger: His colleagues
in the fire department --

they all thought
he was really a good guy.

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

that it's almost impossible
to detect something is wrong

unless you know
what he did.

Nobody considered him
to be a pyromaniac,

or deviant
in any particular way.

I found out later on John
was there videotaping the fires

prior to the arrival
of the fire department.

He had a video of
the first-in fire companies

arriving on scene.

Matassa:
How was he there before the
first responders got there,

unless he was responsible
for the fire?

We found a number of videos --
buildings, homes --

where he was taking videos
before a fire occurred,

and then, taking video
after the fire occurred.

One of the videos showed a
beautiful mansion on a hillside,

and then, the next clip
is the building on fire,

and the brush burning
up the hillside to the house.

Patterson: My goal was
to find out, "How did John Orr

become the fire monster
that he was?"

Welcome back to
"Very Scary People."

John Orr was setting fires
all over the state of California

for the better part
of a decade.

But after years
of evading the law,

investigators finally have their
elusive arsonist behind bars.

Orr is diagnosed
as a pyromaniac,

an impulse control
disorder,

the irresistible urge
to light fires.

What is it
about setting fires

that is so alluring
to pyromaniacs?

Why would someone
risk everything --

career, family,
freedom --

in order to wreak havoc
and destruction,

or even kill,
with the flick of a flame?

Schlesinger:
Pyromania is a compulsion
and a drive to set a fire.

The best way
to understand pyromania

is that it's an abnormal
sexual-arousal pattern,

where setting
the fire itself

is sexually arousing
for the individual.

The power, and the sense
of control and dominance

that the pyromaniac
achieves

by watching the fire
consume everything,

it's that type of activity
which is so arousing.

It's stimulating
to be so powerful

to be able to annihilate
an entire section of town.

But an individual doesn't
wake up one day, and say,

"I think I'll go out
and set a bunch of fires.

That sounds like
a good idea."

No.

It begins years earlier,
in the offender's mind.

Kovach: As far as I know,
my dad always wanted to be

either a policeman
or a fireman.

I've never heard
any story

that he's ever wanted
to be anything else.

My mom and dad
met in high school,

and my dad entered the military
shortly after graduating.

And so, my mom and dad
got married at that point.

When my dad got out of
the Air Force,

they went back
to Los Angeles.

He went through
most of the process,

until he got to
the psychological evaluation.

He was in
the training,

and he just wasn't
physically fit enough.

For him, it must've
been devastating,

because he wanted in
so bad.

It just seems like it was
a desperation for him

to go into that field.

He saw an ad somewhere that
the Glendale fire department

was going to be hiring.

His personality, and sense
of control, and needing control

was why he was really good
at his job.

He rose through
the ranks,

and then, he went on
to Fire Captain.

I would often see him
on the news talking about fires,

and talking about saving people,
animals, and of course

being proud that he was
one of those firefighters.

And I'd go to school, and tell
all my friends that, you know,

"Did you see the news
last night?

My dad was on there."

We have some
very good leads,

and some of the evidence
matches up with this individual,

and ties him
into the fires.

Kovach: He did like
the limelight.

Schlesinger: Orr is somebody
who wanted to be authority.

He definitely wanted to have
a position with it.

He had a tremendous need
to be dominant, in control.

And these are all some of
the motivating characteristics

that you commonly find
in serial offenders.

Girardot: But as his career
was thriving, it turned out

John Orr wasn't all that happy
at home.

One day, my mom came home
from shopping,

and my dad had left
a "Dear John" letter

saying that
he was leaving.

She went out
looking for him.

She did actually see him
driving around, at that moment,

and he had two women
in his car.

From what I know now, my dad
was never faithful to anybody.

I've known of him
cheating on every person

he's ever been with.

Everything that I did,
as far as investigating John,

was based on
the manuscript.

If all these fires
are true,

what did he do
in his personal life?

He describes how the arsonist
tied up his girlfriend.

Was he tying up
his girlfriends?

Was he doing all
the same activity

that he'd described
in the book?

So, I found out who
one of his girlfriends was.

She said he would rip
her clothing off,

and he would tie her up
to the bed.

He had sex with her
that way.

It was basically
a mock rape.

Schlesinger: It doesn't
surprise me at all

that there's deviant sexual
behavior in his background.

I also interviewed
one of his wives,

and she told me
that he had actually

put a pillow over her face
one time.

He held a gun to the pillow,
and then, he told her,

"I'm gonna blow
your [bleep] head off."

Girardot:
In July of 1992, the first
of John Orr's trials began.

For the next six years,
he would be in and out of court,

suspected of arson
and attempted arson

in dozens of fires.

We brought John Orr to trial
in Fresno for the fires in 1987.

Cabral: The ATF put together
the fact that John Orr

was coming from
Southern California,

attending the California
Conference

of Arson Investigators,

and setting fires coming
and going from the conference.

And they charged him
in the federal courts

with these five fires.

Kovach: During one phone call
with him from jail,

I remember him saying
that it was a fireman

that was lighting these fires,
and that he knew who it was,

but that he couldn't say it
over the phone

because the phones were recorded
by the jails.

I just automatically thought
that he would get out

of these charges,
and everything would be fine.

Orr is responsible for
the arson fires of retail stores

which resulted
in substantial damages.

The jury convicted him
of three of the fires,

and acquitted him of two.

And the court sentenced him
to 30 years in federal prison.

The day before trial
in Los Angeles,

he decided to plead "guilty"
to three counts.

So, they agreed to a plea
that he would not serve

any additional time

for the convictions
in Los Angeles.

Cabral: We also charged him
with the fire in the community

called "College Hills"
of Glendale.

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

And they also charged him
with the crime

for which he would face
the death penalty --

capital murder,

for the Ole's home center fire
in South Pasadena.

You know, there's four people
that died in this Ole's fire.

Among them were Ada Deal
and her grandson,

Matthew Troidl.

We charged him with
four counts of murder.

I've spent
the last five years

prosecuting exclusively
arson cases,

and it's sad to see
one of the fire service involved

or even charged with anything
as serious as this.

Orr spoke on camera,
to "Inside Edition,"

about his deep preparation
for trial.

I spend at least eight hours
a day working on my case.

And my attorney visits me
several times a week.

And it's just as busy now
as I used to be.

It's the biggest investigation
I've ever been involved in.

Most of our focus on motive
was power,

for making
the fire department

go to where he wants them to go
by setting fires.

We established that he had
a signature pattern

of committing crimes that a jury
could look at it, and say,

"If you did this one, probably,
beyond a reasonable doubt,

you did this other fire."

Reporter: The prosecutor
summed up his murder case

by telling the jury that
an unpublished fictional novel

by a Glendale fire captain
detailed this fire

because he was the arsonist
who set it.

Kovach: I was watching TV,
and they were saying

that my dad
wrote this book.

And I had no idea that my dad
had ever written a book.

Why wouldn't he mention that
to me?

That's when I started
to realize

that there were parts of him
that I didn't know.

Once I read
even the first chapter,

it scared me,

because everything
that he was describing

was things that I remember
from my childhood.

If this book
wasn't fiction,

what else about what
they're saying is true?

I think that he believed
he could beat it.

John was cocky, and dismissive
of the state's case.

"I know better than you.
I know better than the state.

I know better
than the prosecutors."

Kovach: He was definitely trying
to keep up an image

to the family,
and to me.

And I kind of even think that
he even knew that,

if he was convicted,

he would need us
to testify for him

to not get
the death penalty.

The co-prosecutors say
they expect to finish

late tomorrow
or early Wednesday.

Then, the Defense
takes over,

with the case going to the jury
late this week.

Cabral: The Defense --
the crux of their argument

was he had already admitted
all the fires he did,

and he didn't do these.

That was really it.

McCann:
They can suspect him of every
fire that's ever committed,

and that's what
they're doing.

Typically, in arson cases,
they don't have much evidence,

so they can suspect them of any
fire that's ever been started.

There is no such thing as a
slam-dunk case, as a prosecutor.

No matter how good
you think your case is,

no matter how strong
you think the evidence is,

you never really know
what 12 members of the community

are going to do
when they get that evidence.

So, it was nerve-racking.

And the jury was out
for almost three weeks.

Woman: We, the jury,
find the defendant,

John Leonard Orr,

guilty of the crime
of first-degree murder.

The jury came back
with a "guilty" verdict

as to all of
the homicides.

Woman:
We, the jury, find the defendant
guilty of the crime of arson.

And convicted him
of all of the College Hills

houses that burned.

He was, however,
acquitted of the fire

on the Warner Bros. lot.

I was devastated.

I realized that
I would never really see him

in the free world again.

It was just gone, in one day,
in one minute.

After the verdict
came in,

the penalty phase
was going to start,

and we would
be testifying.

Girardot:
In a death-penalty case,

one of the things
a defendant often does

is show a jury
why his life is worth saving.

John didn't have
a lot of saving graces,

but he did have Lori,
his daughter.

So, I just go into
"I need to save my dad" mode.

I had to walk up
to the stand.

And I did spot my dad
off to the side,

and you know,
we made eye contact.

And at that point,
I expected him to smile,

or say "I love you,"
or "thank you," maybe, or --

but he just stared at me
like I was a stranger.

When I was on the stand,
they put a picture of my son,

who was 1 or 2
at the time.

If they spare his life,

would I still have
a relationship with him,

and would I let my kids
have one with him?

I did say, "Yes.
I absolutely would.

He's my dad.
I love him."

All the things you would expect
a child to say,

and all the things
that I regret saying now.

Girardot: John Orr had been
convicted of murder

for setting the 1984 fire
at Ole's Home Center

in South Pasadena
that killed four people.

And now, he was facing
the death penalty.

Largely as a result
of Lori's testimony,

John got a life sentence
instead of death.

Kovach:
I remember thinking, "Okay, now
I won't have to watch him die.

And I did enough,

and I won't have to carry
that guilt around forever."

I felt that justice
was served.

He was never going to get
out of prison,

and he'll never come out,
and hurt anybody else.

Kovach: But he's still gone
for the rest of my life.

I can't celebrate birthdays
with him.

He'll never walk me down
the aisle.

The list just goes on and on,
when you lose a parent.

Over the years, I really just
gathered as much information

as I could to come, to my own
conclusions about my dad.

My family was worried about
turning me against my dad

when I was believing
he was innocent,

so they didn't tell me these
things that they knew about.

One of those things
was my mom, who --

when she was married to my dad,
he was leaving for work,

and she was
looking out the window.

And he had put down
the visor of the car,

and cigarettes
fell onto his lap.

My dad's always been
an adamant non-smoker.

At first,
he tried to deny it,

but she kind of kept at him
a little bit.

Finally, he admitted that
he did have cigarettes,

and that he was lighting
small brush fires.

For me, that information
was like the nail in the coffin.

He's guilty.

It's as simple as that.

Patterson: John was 5 or 6
when he set his first fire.

That was documented
through some friend of his

that was interviewed.

Cabral: They were averaging 70,
80 fires a year

for the 10 years
leading up to John's arrest.

The year after his arrest,
they had two fires in the area.

We determined that the fires had
went down in Glendale, Burbank,

Pasadena by about 75%.

The drop in fires tells me
we arrested the right person.

These people build up
all kinds of defense mechanisms

in their own mind.

They know exactly
what they did.

But for them to give you the
satisfaction of admitting that,

and telling them that --
that almost never happens.

If we had not been able
to identify John Orr,

and arrest him, there certainly
would have been more fires.

Kovach:
Looking back now, my dad's
manipulated me my entire life.

You know, I didn't know it
at the time,

but he's a master
manipulator,

and he was doing that
from day one.

After I came to the conclusion
that he was guilty,

I wrote him
a letter saying,

"I really think that you did
these horrible things,

and I need you to convince me
that you didn't."

Like, "This is
your last chance."

That just wasn't enough for me,
so I cut off the relationship.

I'm not at all
surprised that,

notwithstanding the plea from
his daughter to tell the truth,

that he doesn't do it.

It's very, very typical.

You could go into
the state prison,

and nobody's 100% guilty.

Patterson:
Some people have called John Orr
the most prolific arsonist

in the history
of the United States.

I do not believe that John Orr
was convicted

of all the fires
he was responsible for.

We didn't even charge
all the fires

that I know
he was responsible for.

I believe he has set
in excess of 2,000 fires.

Schlesinger:
I think John Orr is someone
who led a double life.

On one hand, he was a very
skilled fire investigator

who was really
on top of his game.

And on the other hand, he led
a secret life of setting fires,

abnormal sexual behavior
with his wives and partners.

Matassa: The fact that a man
who is in a career

to save people from
the tragedy of a fire

is the one putting them
in that tragedy of fire

is probably the largest betrayal
that someone can commit.

Kovach:
He betrayed his family.

He betrayed the fire industry,
all of his co-workers,

everyone that had ever
been involved with him.

Everything was a betrayal.

To this day, John Orr continues
to proclaim his innocence,

despite his
two convictions.

We spoke with him by phone
from Mule Creek State Prison

in California.

He insists that his case
was mishandled by his attorneys.

He has appealed his convictions
multiple times,

even filing for a writ
of habeas corpus,

a motion for freedom
that is very rarely granted.

And there is no other path
to freedom for John Orr

if it is rejected.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.
Good night.