Yeager recalled that when he’d suggested canvassing the neighborhood for possible-suspect leads, the defendant had told him that he’d turned that job over to the police department, which Yeager had found very strange. And after Yeager had taken it upon himself to do some canvassing, he’d learned that the police had not done anything, the suggestion being that John Orr had just stonewalled the whole thing.
All of the testimony was directed toward the hypothesis that the defendant had done almost nothing to investigate the greatest fire disaster that his city had ever experienced, and didn’t seem to want his partner working on it either.
When Giannini took the witness, his questions were designed to show that John Orr’s duties might have been extensive, if not apparent to Yeager.
Suddenly, the judge interrupted Giannini, but this time his questions helped the defense elicit the testimony it needed.
“Let’s try to get through this,” the judge said. “Mr. Giannini was talking about Mr. Orr getting statistics together, information on how the homes burned, basically trying to defend the fire department or at least putting information together that the fire department could use in talking to the public. The point is, he was involved with statistics he was gathering in relation to the College Hills fire?”
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” the witness agreed.
“You wanted more investigative effort put in the investigation on the cause of the fire?”
“Yes, yes,” the witness agreed.
“And you became frustrated and you went to the supervisor, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” said the judge, “but you’re not saying that Mr. Orr was not working on College Hills?”
“No, absolutely not,” Yeager said.
Giannini said, “Thank you, Your Honor, I couldn’t have done it better.”
Judge Perry seemed to feel, along with many observers, that the lawyers and witnesses were in desperate need of a good editor. Regardless, the defendant still saw him as Judge Roy Bean, with a law book in one hand and a rope in the other.
Then came the reference to something that had been mentioned in opening argument, a “DR number.” It was the number assigned to a crime, by which the reports could be tracked for all time. The prosecution wished to show that in such a major disaster, one that the defendant had initially called an arson, there had never been a crime number requested or assigned, as one would do with something as ordinary as juveniles setting a trash can on fire.
At this point, late on a Friday afternoon, the judge seemed frustrated with the lawyers on both sides for not having asked fundamental questions in a straightforward manner.
Judge Perry said, “I will just ask it. Would you have expected a DR number to have been pulled for the College Hills fire?”
The witness replied, “Absolutely.”
“All right, let’s wrap it up,” said Judge Perry.
And then he wished everyone a pleasant weekend, reminding them to allow plenty of time for their Monday morning commute. And everyone got out of there and careened into the nightmare of Friday afternoon traffic in Los Angeles, where frustrated people routinely stare at one another through tinted glass and contemplate acts of violence.
On Monday of the trial’s third week, John Orr’s immediate boss, Assistant Fire Chief Christopher Gray, was called to explain how, because of the media blitz and public criticism, all personnel of the Glendale Fire Department had been ordered by the fire chief to account for their activities on the day of the fire. In describing his activities on that day, the defendant had written, “I was performing a reinspection at the end of Whiting Woods Road when the first alarm was called. I drove to the area and arrived as the final first-alarm units were arriving.”
When asked by Flannery, Chief Gray said that Whiting Woods Road was about two miles from the College Hills fire, and that a subsequent search for documentation of John Orr’s reinspection activities was negative. In fact, he could not find documentation of a first inspection prior to the alleged reinspection.
A fascinating question and answer had to do with the fact that after the College Hills disaster, the budget cuts that the fire department had been facing were never implemented.
On cross-examination, Giannini had Gray explain the media madhouse that had surrounded the command post that day. The chief estimated that there were about sixty people milling around with cameras, boom mikes, and tape machines. As to whether he’d instructed John Orr to speak to the media, Chief Gray couldn’t say, but agreed that it could’ve happened.
The chief testified that it wasn’t until a year after the fire that he’d learned from a story in the Glendale News-Press that his arson sleuth had changed his mind about the disposable lighter as having been the open-flame incendiary device that had started the massive fire, deciding instead that it may’ve been started by a time-delayed incendiary device.
The next person called by the prosecution was Constance Schipper, who’d been manager of the paint and plumbing department of Builder’s Emporium in North Hollywood. She testified that on the afternoon of December 14, 1990, six months after the College Hills fire and one year before the arrest of John Orr, she’d become aware of a small fire in a shopping cart full of throw pillows.
The employees extinguished the fire, and in the white residue on the floor she’d noticed a small object that turned out to be a cigarette butt and paper matches wrapped by a rubber band. She also testified that eighteen months after that, she’d been shown a photo spread and had recognized photo number five as having been a person who frequented the store.
Giannini asked some perfunctory questions, and the judge informed the jury that this was one of those “uncharged acts” they’d been told about at the start of trial. They were to learn later that this one resulted in a guilty plea.
A Tulare police officer was called and talked about the fire at the Family Bargain Center on January 16, 1987, and that an identical incendiary device had been found, including a piece of unburned notebook paper.
The judge said to the jury, “Let me remind you, this evidence, if believed, may not be considered by you to prove that the defendant is a person of bad character, or that he has a disposition to commit crimes. It may be considered by you only for the limited purpose of determining if it tends to show modus operandi.”
So all of the nonlawyers were supposed to believe that because the defendant had pled guilty to the Builder’s Emporium arson, it would not necessarily mean that he had a disposition to set incendiary devices in retail stores. Nor should the jury think of him as a man of bad character. The Fire Monster might’ve keeled over laughing at that one.
And then the witness was called whom many had dubbed “the ball game” as far as the prosecution of John Orr was concerned: Marvin G. Casey of Bakersfield. The fifty-seven-year-old retired firefighter testified to his twenty-eight years of service with the Bakersfield Fire Department, and his current business experience as a fire investigator, and then he told about the CraftMart arson and of finding the incendiary device including the yellow note paper.
One couldn’t help but be reminded that had Casey received proper fingerprint analysis, John Orr would have been arrested and convicted in 1989. There would not have been a College Hills disaster, or an L.A. fire series, or a novel. And the Ole’s fire would’ve remained an “accident.” Many task-force members believed that nobody regretted the fingerprint screw-up more than did the defendant, John Leonard Orr, who doubtlessly would have been paroled in 2002.
On Tuesday, May 19, Steven Harvey Patterson was back in the John Orr case, having enjoyed his first month of retirement from the Burbank Fire Department, and respite from his obsession with the murder of Mary Susan Duggan. Patterson told the jury about the events surrounding the Warner Brothers Studios fire. And the jury heard of all the curious business about Patterson standing out there with a flashlight, and after a while calling John Orr again only to learn that he was already at the Waltons set a
nd hadn’t needed directions at all.
By far, the most damaging prosecution witness in the Warner Brothers case was John Egger, the studio’s director of security, who testified that he had been there while the fire was raging, when only the Warner Brothers fire engine was at the scene.
“As the fire was burning, did anyone approach and identify himself to you as an investigator?” the prosecutor asked.
The witness said that a man had walked through the gate and that the man was John Orr, adding, “I didn’t know him personally, but I’d been introduced to him and seen him at a few law-enforcement events.”
Peter Giannini did not confront the witness. He asked a few questions about the gate having been open, and ascertained that a security guard had been there, and that was it. If the witness was correct, John Orr had been at the scene twenty to thirty minutes after the fire call had been placed, and three hours before he’d met with Patterson and needed directions.
Witnesses were called from the “uncharged” fires in Bakersfield, Lawndale, and Redondo Beach who’d identified John Orr as having been a customer in their stores.
It was very difficult to discredit all the testimony without drawing too much attention to the arsons with which he’d not been charged, but at least Giannini managed to get across that many of the people who’d identified John Orr in the six-pak photo lineups had seen his face in the newspaper or on television before having seen the lineup. The strong indication was that they’d been influenced by pictures of a man whom the police had already arrested.
There was damaging testimony to the defense from Rich Edwards, who was recalled to testify about the Kennington fire, and about photos that John Orr had shot of the house before the fire, and photos of the structure while the house was burning. Rich Edwards testified that the photos had been mounted on a board in John Orr’s office, possibly a before-and-after lesson as to what can happen if you don’t pay attention to brush-abatement warnings.
Mike Cabral came back to ask questions about the San Augustine fire from Battalion Chief Gary Seidel of the L.A. Fire Department, who recalled having seen John Orr driving on the 210 Freeway shortly before the chief spotted a column of smoke from a brush fire.
Giannini did his best to minimize the importance of the sighting, but still, the jury had been made aware that once again, where there was fire, there was the defendant, alone.
Some of the most interesting conversation which the jury never heard took place at the bench when the lawyers and the judge squabbled over which passages from John Orr’s novel should be redacted. With Mike Cabral, Sandra Flannery, Ed Rucker, and Peter Giannini standing there, each with a manuscript, dialogue took place that might have perked up the jury who’d suffered through such technical and legalistic argument up to then.
It was quite a scene, really: The wiry judge peering out through those metal-rimmed spectacles. Peter Giannini looking Armani prosperous, with the mane of dark hair and basso profundo dominating. Ed Rucker looming, like a graying NBA player debating with normal-sized referees. Sandra Flannery prim, slim, speaking in low-key whispers. And of course, hairless Mike Cabral busting the seams of his size 50, with a body no miracle fabric could contain, except maybe the Shroud of Turin. And all of them unsmiling and serious and lawyerly.
At one point, Judge Perry said, “Now, the next section is at page sixteen. What will be excised is as follows: ‘Judging by the size of your dick right now, I’d say it was a pretty good fire.’ I don’t think that adds anything to the case. So that will come out.”
Nobody argued to save the dick.
He later said, “At page twenty-seven, four lines up from the bottom: ‘He watched her large breasts hanging loose under her T-shirt.’ That is gratuitous, unnecessary, and in my view should be excised or redacted.”
And later, “‘Nice shirt, he said as she passed. Fuck you! She spat at him, as he walked to a nearby car.’ That will be stricken.”
And still later, “I think it’s appropriate to excise these two sentences. ‘Her loose T-shirt fell away from her waist as she bent, showing one of her firm breasts from below. His body tingled as he wandered to the rear of the store.’ My view is that it would be viewed as prejudicial. It would invite the jury to consider that the author had some type of sexual fixation.”
And then there was debate about excising all references to Trish’s breasts, for fear of the jury thinking that the author liked hefty hooters.
Peter Giannini said, “There’s a line in there after ‘nice tits.’”
The judge said, “Everything comes out starting with ‘nice tits’ to ‘she never wears a bra either.’ Those seven lines are going to be excised. I am going to allow some limited reference to masturbation while the fire is going, but it is past tense, unrelated to any fire I believe that is charged in the case. And I’m going to sustain the objection on page sixty-four to the following: ‘He remembered his binoculars and focused on the teenage girl as she fled. Aaron fondled his cock then. And he found himself unzipping his pants now as he relived the excitement he felt.’ I’ll hear your argument, but I don’t think that one is necessary for the people’s case.”
Sandra Flannery wanted the wanking: “Your Honor, as the court knows, the defendant had some binoculars in his briefcase. Also in his briefcase were the components of the device that he used to start fires. I believe that this passage ties the binoculars to the setting of fires. And it also indicated that one of the benefits he derived from setting fires was that at a later opportunity, he could relive the fires in his mind and have the sexual excitement that the fire provided.”
The judge said to her, “Well, that’s a good argument. I think that the first sentence is not particularly objectionable. But what is objectionable is that ‘he fondled his cock, and then unzipping his pants and reliving the excitement.’”
The last and best deletion took place near the end of the session, when the judge said, “And then on page three-fifty-nine, I agree with the defense about the line, ‘With an obscene acronym across the front of it.’ That comes out.”
The excised acronym was for “Tactical Watershed Attack Team.”
18
UNCHARGED ACTS
The prosecutors called most of the witnesses from the Pillow Pyro Task Force whose testimony had helped to convict John Orr in Fresno. Now they were testifying to “uncharged acts,” as though somehow, ordinary inhabitants of planet earth could hear all of that and not get a pretty good idea that the man seated before them, more likely than not, had some character flaws.
Glen Lucero came back to talk about the incendiary device recovered from Stats Floral in Redondo Beach, which seemed like a lifetime ago. Peter Giannini made good attempts with each witness, pointing out discrepancies such as that the fireman who’d found that incendiary device had said it contained six to eight matches, but Lucero had found only three, marking the “signature” of the Pillow Pyro arsonist. But it was all cumulative, mistakes and all, those crushing “uncharged” crimes that were being dumped on the table.
A former employee of Ole’s sister store in Pasadena testified about an attempted arson that her store had experienced three months after the disaster in South Pasadena. She told of finding an incendiary device consisting of a cigarette and matches held together by a rubber band. The jury was to be reminded that in John Orr’s novel, his fictional arsonist tries to torch a store after the stupid cops fail to give him “credit” for the calamity he’s wreaked at Cal’s in South Pasadena.
When Mike Matassa testified, it was to an abbreviated version of all that the Pillow Pyro Task Force had done during its existence, including the arrest of John Orr. But what most hurt the defense were the questions by Cabral concerning the guilty pleas.
Matassa’s job was to sit there like a ventriloquist’s dummy and say, “Yes.”
Cabral asked, “Special Agent Matassa, on March twenty-fourth, 1993, were you in the state district courthouse for the Central District of California, number one?”
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br /> “Yes,” said the witness.
And then Cabral asked a series of questions to establish what had been going on in the courtroom that day, questions dealing with John Orr’s having given affirmative answers to understanding the charges, and to his plea on the arson counts from Atascadero.
Finally Cabral said, “And was he asked how he pled to the December fourteenth, 1990, Builder’s Emporium fire in Los Angeles County?”
“Yes,” said the witness.
“And how did he plead?”
“Guilty.”
“And did the court say: ‘On December fourteenth, 1990, sometime before one P.M., did you enter the Builder’s Emporium, located at six-six-oh-one Laurel Canyon Boulevard, North Hollywood, California? Did you then place a lit incendiary device in pillows located inside of the Builder’s Emporium with the intention of starting a fire that would damage property in the store?’ What was his response to that?”
“Yes.”
“I have no further questions,” said Mike Cabral.
And all of the lawyers could spend days and weeks, and call their hundred witnesses, and argue and harangue, but when it got right down to it, any layman could see that prior convictions and uncharged acts could cripple a defense, but guilty pleas could inflict fatal injuries. Hearing of guilty pleas, the jury loses its ability to rationalize away prior convictions which may have been based upon inadequate representation, or law-enforcement malfeasance, or erroneous testimony.
When the jury hears the words of acknowledgment that were uttered by a person accused of violent serial crime, it’s less a crippling blow than a beheading. That Friday afternoon, sixteen days after the start of John Orr’s murder trial, the Fire Monster was heard to roar.
On Tuesday, May 26, one of the jurors approached the bailiff and ratted out Juror Number Ten for doing a crossword puzzle during the taking of testimony. The judge and the lawyers had a long conversation before the jurors were seated, and they finally decided that the matter could be settled by a general warning from the bench.
Fire Lover Page 29
