Fire Lover

by Joseph Wambaugh

  Task-force members often used other words like complex and contradictory when describing John Orr. And they talked of a “dual personality,” whatever that may have meant to them. In the one arson he’d been acquitted of committing—the Warner Brothers Studios fire—the prosecution believed that he’d sped to the fire, set it, and sped back to the school for a parent-teacher meeting, like the good surrogate father that he was. None of them had alluded to the irony that Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School was named for the man who’d given the world The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  After yet another uncharged count of arson was argued, the prosecution called the father of Matthew William Troidl. When the accountant was asked how old his son had been on the day of his death, Matthew Troidl answered, “He was two years, eight months, and twenty-seven days old.” Then he added, “He’d be sixteen and a half now. And I’m sure he would’ve tried to beat the July first deadline to try to get his driver’s license. He’d like the girls, and he’d be athletic and good in school. We’d be talking about college now, and where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do.”

  Sandra Flannery asked, “In the past few years, in the past few weeks, how has this loss affected you?”

  The witness replied, “About four years ago, we got a call from the deputy DA asking us about the fire and what we knew about it. And we’d always been told it was an accidental electrical fire. But they were looking into charging John Orr with this. And I started coming into court. And I came to almost every pretrial hearing for the last three years.

  “I wanted everyone to know that my son was important, and that he was a human being. And he was somebody. Mr. Cabral read the three pages out of the manuscript and I was stunned to learn that he’d used my son’s name in his book.”

  “Thank you,” Sandra Flannery said. “I have no further questions.”

  The mother of Carolyn Krause was called to testify, and she looked at a photo of her daughter, a good-looking, fair-haired California girl with her baby strapped in a carrying pouch. Carolyn Krause’s mother related a very sad tale of how her only daughter’s death had affected her life and that of her grandchildren. She told of the widower remarrying a young woman who’d been a friend of Carolyn’s, and how, as a grandmother, she’d eventually had had to go to court to get grandparent visitation rights. Carolyn’s daughter was no longer living with her father and stepmother, and Carolyn’s mother had not seen her grandson for ten years.

  It was a tragic portrayal of how premature violent death tends to shatter things, all sorts of things.

  By far, the most ravaging testimony was offered by Kimberly Deal Troidl, daughter of Ada Deal, mother of Matthew William Troidl.

  Cabral began by asking the schoolteacher, “Do you remember October tenth, 1984?”

  “Yes,” the witness replied.

  “And why is that?”

  “It was the night I lost my son and my mother,” she said.

  And then the witness began a wrenching narrative, telling how they’d heard news of the fire and had driven to Ole’s, where they’d found her father, Billy Deal. And how he’d looked at her and said, “I did everything I could!” and started crying.

  She told of how she’d looked at flames that seemed hundreds of feet high, and told herself: “I have to go in there because there is nowhere that my baby could go that I will not follow him. And I started walking. I wasn’t afraid. My baby was in there and I had to be in there with him. And all of a sudden a voice popped in my head, and it wasn’t my voice, and it said, ‘What about Bethany?’

  “And I stopped walking. My mother wouldn’t be there to take care of her. Bethany had lost her little brother. If she lost me on top of it, it would destroy her. So I had to stop. And I had to turn around. And that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I couldn’t leave her. And I have always told her that the only reason I’m alive today is because of her. I would not have stayed for anybody else.

  “As time has gone on we have our son David, who’s twelve now. And he had to grow up without knowing who his brother was. And I keep pictures up in the house, and we tell stories about him. My family does the same thing with my mom. We have to try to keep them alive.

  “For myself, I frequently feel like the way a cat looks if you hold it by the scruff of its neck in midair, with arms and legs, everything going everywhere, and it is trying to get some kind of perch, but it can’t. Because when I lost my mom I lost the person who had held my hands when I learned to walk. I lost the person who put the veil on my head when I got married. My mom, you know? The one person that I probably would’ve turned to, who could understand a mother’s loss of a child, was my mom. But she wasn’t there to comfort me.

  “And in losing my child … I carried him for nine months. And I watched what I ate. I wouldn’t even sit too close to the TV or go near the microwave because I didn’t want anything to happen to him. I baby-proofed my house. Nobody outside my parents baby-sat him.

  “And he had this game that he liked to play. And I sometimes wonder how much children know that we don’t know, because he would lay in his father’s arms, and he would lay really limp and close his eyes, and then he would open them and say, ‘Mommy, if I died, would you save me?’ And I would get so upset when he did that. And I would grab him up out of his father’s arms, and I would smother him with kisses and hold him really close and say, ‘Yes, Mommy will always save you.’

  “And I have lived with that guilt and the shame of it every single day because I know … I’m a mom … I know how he was afraid of dying in that horrible place. I know he thought Mommy would come and save him because that’s what mommies do. And I never came!”

  When she paused to gather herself, Mike Cabral, a man with three children of his own—who’d kept a photo of Matthew William on his desk as inspiration during all the years that he’d worked on this case—asked a question to which he knew the answer: “Mrs. Troidl, has this affected you when people ask how many children you have?”

  “I have two answers,” she said. “If I’m someplace where I’m not going to see these people again, like on a plane or something, I tell them I have three children. And I tell them that Matthew William is two and a half. And I tell them all the stories I can tell them, making it sound like they just happened. But if it is somebody I know that I’m going to be around again, people that I work with, I tell them I have two children. And then I’m ashamed again, because I feel like he’s lost so much, how can I deny him the fact of his existence?

  “But then if I tell people about him, then they want to know about how he died. And I have to talk about it. And it was a horrible way to die. It was a horrible way for my mom to die. And I can’t talk about it. I can’t.”

  “I have no further questions, Your Honor,” Mike Cabral said.

  Following noon recess, the younger of John Orr’s attractive daughters was called to the stand. After she was sworn, Peter Giannini said to her, “Lori, tell us who you are and why you’re here.”

  The witness gamely answered, “I’m the daughter of my dad, John Orr. And I’m here to save his life today.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-four.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I’m in human resources for foundation health.”

  “And are you married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “When you were young, your mom and dad were divorced, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  And then she told the court how John Orr had been a good father even though he hadn’t lived with them, and was always a good guy, in her mind. Since his arrest she’d talked to him on the phone and written letters. She showed the court a photo of her son and said of the photo, “That’s on his birthday when he got his fire truck.”

  “Does he know your dad?” Giannini asked.

  “He knows of him. He knows pictur
es of him. He knows him on the phone. He calls him Grandpa John. He just knows that he lives far away right now, and that he can talk to him on the phone, but he can’t go to his house.”

  She told the court that John Orr had been there for the big events in her life, and she said, “He was always a hero to me. We’d see him on TV. He saved someone’s life. He saved a dog. He saved a bunch of different people. And we’d go to school, you know, and say, ‘That’s my dad. He’s a fireman.’ We were so proud of him.”

  “How did you react,” Giannini asked, “when he got arrested? What was your response?”

  “I cried. I mean, I was shocked. I didn’t know what to … what to make of it.”

  “How do you think you’ll be affected if your dad is executed?”

  “Badly. I mean, not only for myself. But I’ll have to explain to my son some day why his grandfather was killed. And I don’t want to have to do that. My son didn’t do anything wrong. And I didn’t do anything wrong. And I just … I want what I can have of my dad. I don’t want that to end. I mean, that’s what I’ve been used to the last seven years. And I’ve still stayed in touch with him. And I still get things from him, as a father. You know, I still need him.”

  “Nothing further,” Peter Giannini said.

  And though it was customary for the adversary to say “No questions” at such a time, the prosecution chose to ask a few.

  “At some point in time,” Sandra Flannery asked, “when you got older and looked for an apartment, did your father advise you to only live in an apartment building that had fire sprinklers?”

  “Not sprinklers,” she said, “but alarms. And to make sure that they were always working.”

  “And how did you react when you learned that your father had pled guilty to setting three fires?”

  And the daughter of a man who had never admitted to setting any fires, other than during his tactical plea bargain, said, “Well, my dad had discussed that prior with my sister and I, and told us why he felt he had to do that. And so I was, you know, prepared for it, and for his reasons for doing that.”

  The defense lawyers thought that the question to John Orr’s shaken daughter was gratuitous and insensitive, and they were right.

  The next witness, John Orr’s father, took the stand and informed the court that he was hard of hearing and would be eighty-four years old in December. He sketched his family’s early life together, what John Orr had referred to as Ozzie-and-Harriet time. He talked of picnics and birthday parties, and said that his youngest son had been an excellent student and an obedient boy.

  He told of John Orr enlisting in the air force, and serving honorably, and how after his son had had children of his own, he’d bring them to see their grandfather.

  Ed Rucker said, “You understand that your son has been convicted of these murders that he was charged with?”

  “Yes, I understand,” the witness said.

  “Do you still care about your son?”

  “I love my son,” the witness said, and started crying. “I love my son.”

  “What affect would it have on you if he got executed?” the lawyer asked.

  “It could be very bad,” the old man said. “I live alone. He calls me about every week. I talk with him, and I write to him. I send him pictures, and I send him magazines. I do whatever I can do. I send him money. I don’t want to lose him.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Ed Rucker. And this time Sandra Flannery wisely said, “No questions.”

  John Orr’s first wife took the stand and told the jury that her marriage to the defendant had lasted for six years, and that he’d always met his financial obligations after their divorce. And that he’d been a good father.

  Rucker asked, “What do you think the effect on your daughters would be if John was executed?”

  “Oh, I hate to even think … Carrie will be totally and absolutely devastated. Lori will have a very difficult time trying to explain to her son what happened to his grandfather. I … I don’t know exactly.”

  “You understand that, given his convictions, he’s going to be sentenced to prison for the rest of his life, unless the jury decides that he should be executed. You understand that?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “But at least we can have contact with him. Talk to him. Write to him. Include him in what’s happening with the family. I mean, he … he would still be around to have contact with.”

  Sandra Flannery always got the job of confronting the female witnesses, and she did it again. “A few months after he started his job with the Glendale Fire Department, was there an event that precipitated your divorce?”

  “He decided that he wanted to leave and have a divorce,” said the witness.

  “And how did you learn that?”

  “He packed and left.”

  “And you came home one day and he was just gone?”

  “Um-hmm,” the witness said. “With no notice. He left a note and phoned me a day or two later.”

  “And is it correct to say he left you with no money?”

  “Well, yeah, I … I guess. I had no job. I mean, I had the two girls, but he did send me money and take care of my rent and so forth, as soon as he contacted me a couple days later.”

  “And were you nonetheless forced to go on welfare?”

  “A few months after that, yes. I didn’t want to leave my young children at home and get a job right away. And it gave me time to think about … figure out what I needed to do. So, yes.”

  “And as your daughters were growing up, who attended the parent-teacher conferences?”

  “I pretty much did that on my own,” said the witness. “I’m not sure if John attended any or not. He may have attended a few. I don’t even know if my second husband attended any or not. I pretty much did those on my own.”

  “Shortly after John Orr left you, did he remarry?”

  “I would say that it was about a year after.”

  “And do you know who he remarried?”

  “I know her name.”

  “And by any chance do you know what part of Los Angeles she lived in?”

  “Absolutely not,” the witness said.

  Sandra Flannery took the witness through John Orr’s last two marriages, so the jury would know of his inconstancy, and then asked the same question about her husband’s advising his daughters to live in an apartment with fire sprinklers. The reason that the prosecutor had mentioned sprinklers on two occasions was to remind the jury that other people’s children had not had the benefit of sprinkler protection, that the part of Ole’s that burned did not have a sprinkler system, and that perhaps the fire setter had been well aware of that.

  It was an obscure reference, the talk about sprinklers, but these warrior prosecutors would never let a bullet go unspent. They just had to keep firing until their barrels melted down, and then they’d draw bayonets for the coup de grâce.

  When Ed Rucker called John Orr’s mother to the stand, the judge said to the elderly woman, “You can pull the microphone up and speak loudly into it.”

  But she declined, saying, “I got a big booming voice anyway.”

  Ed Rucker had her introduce family photographs, and asked her to describe the scenes depicted in them. She told the court how, as a boy, her son John had taken a younger mentally handicapped boy under his wing and shown him every kindness. She told how hard he’d worked while in high school, making extra money and helping his older brothers with loans.

  Like the others, she said that if her son was sentenced to prison for life, she’d visit him and write to him. “Whatever I have to do to be with him,” she said.

  The last defense witness was John Orr’s daughter Carrie, who told the court that she was twenty-seven years old and married.

  Giannini asked her, “How did you react when your dad was arrested?”

  “It was a huge shock that came out of nowhere,” she said. “I don’t know, just complete shock. I mean, I wanted to know what was going on. What happened. Where did t
his come from?”

  “How do you think it would affect you if they decided to give him the death penalty?”

  “It would be horrible!” the witness said. “I mean, I’d lose my dad. I don’t know … I don’t know how … I mean, even though I hardly see him now because of the situation, I would never be able to see him again!”

  “So is there anything else you’d like to say to this jury?” Giannini asked. “Anything at all?”

  And the distressed young woman said a wiser thing that day than lawyers in that courtroom had said for many days: “I don’t know really what to say. I don’t know.”

  22

  THE DEBATE

  With the courtroom now full of lawyer-spectators wanting to hear the death debate, exhausted jurors met on Monday, July 6, to listen to arguments about whether John Orr should be sentenced to life without parole or suffer execution. But not before they got to hear another defense witness, Ronald Markman, M.D., whose book Mike Cabral had studied on a houseboat vacation when everyone else had been having a good time. The psychiatrist specialized in forensic psychiatry, and by his own estimation had evaluated two to three thousand people in homicide cases. In response to Peter Giannini’s questions, he testified that he’d seen John Orr on three occasions and had formulated a working psychiatric diagnosis.

  “And what is that diagnosis?” Giannini asked.

  “Well, there is an access to diagnosis of an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder,” the witness said. “And assuming that the behaviors for which he’s charged are correct, a diagnosis of pyromania.”

  Giannini asked, “About obsessive compulsive personality disorder, in Mr. Orr’s case, how does that manifest itself?”

  “He’s a very meticulous guy,” the witness said, “who has very very controlled, constructed views of issues. He’s very, very demanding of others and of himself. He’s interested in crossing every t and dotting every i.”

  After discussing psychiatric terms and citing examples of the disorder, he continued, “Obsessing is a thinking process. It’s a thought focus. Compulsive behavior is a component of obsession, but they’re psychiatrically different. As you think and obsess about something, you elevate or increase your anxiety level. And people can only tolerate an optimal level of anxiety, if I can use that term.”