John Orr
Encyclopedia
John Leonard Orr is a former fire captain
and arson investigator
for the Glendale
Fire Department in Southern California
and novelist who was indicted and later convicted for serial
arson
. Orr had originally wanted to be a police officer, but had failed his entrance exam; instead he became a dedicated fire investigator and career fire officer. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Los Angeles was plagued by a series of fires that cost millions of dollars in damages and claimed four lives. John Orr was found to be the cause of most of those fires. During his arson spree, Orr was given the nickname the Pillow Pyro by arson investigators.
His modus operandi
was to set fires using an incendiary timing-device, usually comprising a lit cigarette, three matches wrapped in ruled yellow writing paper and secured by a rubber band, in stores while they were open and populated. He would set small fires often in the grassy hills, in order to draw firefighters, leaving fires set in more congested areas unattended.
, a major fire broke out at an Ole's Home Center hardware store
located in a shopping plaza. The store was completely destroyed by the fire, and four people died in the blaze, including a two-year-old child. On the following day, arson investigators from around southern California converged on the destroyed store, and declared the cause to be an electrical fire. However, John Orr, as an arson investigator, insisted that the cause was arson.
Investigations later showed that the fire started in highly-flammable polyurethane
products, which caught fire very quickly, causing the fire to flashover
very rapidly. After his arrest in 1991 and subsequent conviction for a series of other arson fires not related to the 1984 Ole's fire, Orr was charged with arson in the blaze by investigators due to a forensic re-evaluation of the causes of the fire, circumstantial evidence and a highly detailed description of a similar fire in his novel Points of Origin that bore several almost perfect similarities with the real-life 1984 fire. Orr was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1998. Orr insists that he is innocent with regards to the 1984 hardware store fire.
. During and after the convention, several suspicious fires were set in Bakersfield
(South of Fresno). This, combined with the recovery of a single unmatched fingerprint left on a piece of notebook paper as part of a time-delay incendiary device, led Captain Marvin G. Casey of the Bakersfield Fire Department
(BFD) to suspect that an arson investigator from the Los Angeles
area was responsible for these arsons.
During March 1989, another series of arsons was committed along the California coast in close conjunction with a conference of arson investigators in Pacific Grove, California
. By comparing the list of attendees from the Fresno conference with the list of attendees at the Pacific Grove conference, Captain Casey of the BFD was able to create a short list of ten suspects. Orr was on Casey's short list, but all of the people on this short list were cleared of suspicion when their fingerprints were compared with the fingerprint that Casey had recovered from the piece of notebook paper found at one of the arson crime scenes.
In late 1990 and early 1991, another series of arson fires broke out in southern California, this time in and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area
. As a result, a large task force, nicknamed the Pillow Pyro Task Force (a reference to the arson fires set in pillows) was formed to apprehend the arsonist. On March 29, 1991, Tom Campuzanno of the Los Angeles Arson Task Force circulated a flier at a meeting of the Fire Investigators Regional Strike Team (FIRST), an organization formed by a group of smaller cities in and around Los Angeles County that did not have their own staff of arson investigators. The flier described the modus operandi of the suspected serial arsonist in the Los Angeles area. Scott Baker of the California State Fire Marshal's Office was at that meeting and told Campuzanno about the series of arsons investigated by Captain Casey of the BFD and about Casey's suspicions that the perpetrator was an arson investigator from the Los Angeles area. Consequently, Campuzanno and two of his colleagues met with Casey, obtained a copy of the fingerprint that Casey had recovered, and matched it to John Leonard Orr on April 17, 1991.
Orr then became a serious arson suspect and the subject of investigation and surveillance for several months. Orr was alerted to this surveillance effort on May 3, 1991, when he discovered and removed a tracking device that belonged to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
(ATF) hidden under the bumper of the vehicle he was driving. However, Orr was apparently unaware of the fact that a Teletrac tracking device was later installed behind his dashboard when he brought his city vehicle for service on November 22, 1991. Meanwhile, a federal grand jury handed down an indictment, and shortly thereafter Orr was present at the scene of a suspicious fire, so a decision was made to end the surveillance, obtain an arrest warrant, and effect an arrest. Orr was arrested on December 4, 1991.
On July 31, 1992, a jury in a federal court convicted Orr of three counts of arson in a five count indictment, and the judge in that case sentenced Orr to three consecutive terms of ten years in prison. However, Orr maintained and still maintains his innocence, notwithstanding his subsequent guilty plea on March 24, 1993 to three more counts of arson pursuant to a plea bargain agreement for an eight count indictment that probably would have seen him paroled from federal prison in the year 2002.
On June 25, 1998, a jury in a California state court convicted Orr of four counts of first-degree murder from the 1984 hardware store fire with special circumstances in a twenty-five count indictment, deadlocking on only one of the twenty-five counts, which was subsequently dismissed at the request of the prosecution. When asked to sentence Orr to the death penalty, the same state court jury deadlocked eight to four in favor, and the judge in that prosecution sentenced Orr to life plus 20 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
Some arson investigators and an FBI
criminal profiler have deemed Orr to be possibly one of the worst American serial arsonists of the twentieth century. Federal ATF agent Mike Matassa believes that Orr set nearly 2,000 fires between 1984 and 1991. Furthermore, arson investigators cited that after Orr was arrested, the number of brush fires in the nearby foothill areas decreased by over ninety percent. However, Orr continues to maintain his innocence, and wrote an autobiography stating that he was innocent and betrayed by the legal system
The story of John Orr has been chronicled by bestselling true crime
author Joseph Wambaugh
in a book entitled Fire Lover. On several occasions, film and television have also presented the story of Orr's arson activities and eventual arrest and criminal conviction. An episode of the PBS
science series Nova
titled "Hunt for the Serial Arsonist" chronicled the story of John Orr. In addition, the investigation which led to Orr's arrest and conviction was recounted on the A&E Network
's true crime series Cold Case Files
. Most notably, a film entitled Point of Origin
starring Ray Liotta
as John Orr was released by the HBO network in the year 2002
. The title of the film is a reference to novel Orr wrote that was titled Points of Origin, about a serial arsonist that happens to be a fireman. Arson investigators believe that Orr chronicled the arson fires that he set in the novel he wrote, and feel that some of the fires in the novel bear many similarities with fires that they believe Orr actually set. Orr states that the novel is a work of fiction and has no relation to any actual events. In an interview, defending his manuscript, Orr has expressly stated:
Fire captain
Captain is a rank in various fire services.In most American and Canadian fire services, a captain ranks above a lieutenant and below a Battalion Chief. This varies, though, between departments – in the Boston Fire Department, the captain is the officer in overall charge of a fire company...
and arson investigator
Fire investigation
Fire investigation, sometimes referred to as origin and cause investigation, is the analysis of fire-related incidents. After firefighters extinguish a fire, an investigation is launched to determine the origin and cause of the fire or explosion...
for the Glendale
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
Fire Department in Southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and novelist who was indicted and later convicted for serial
Serial crime
Serial crime is generally defined as crimes in a serial or repetitive nature. However, according to criminologists, a habitual offender or a career criminal is not a serial criminal...
arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
. Orr had originally wanted to be a police officer, but had failed his entrance exam; instead he became a dedicated fire investigator and career fire officer. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Los Angeles was plagued by a series of fires that cost millions of dollars in damages and claimed four lives. John Orr was found to be the cause of most of those fires. During his arson spree, Orr was given the nickname the Pillow Pyro by arson investigators.
His modus operandi
Modus operandi
Modus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning...
was to set fires using an incendiary timing-device, usually comprising a lit cigarette, three matches wrapped in ruled yellow writing paper and secured by a rubber band, in stores while they were open and populated. He would set small fires often in the grassy hills, in order to draw firefighters, leaving fires set in more congested areas unattended.
1984 South Pasadena fire
On October 10, 1984, in South Pasadena, CaliforniaSouth Pasadena, California
South Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,619, up from 24,292 at the 2000 census. It is located in in the West San Gabriel Valley...
, a major fire broke out at an Ole's Home Center hardware store
Hardware store
Hardware stores, sometimes known as DIY stores, sell household hardware including: fasteners, hand tools, power tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, cleaning products, housewares, tools, utensils, paint, and lawn and garden products directly to consumers for...
located in a shopping plaza. The store was completely destroyed by the fire, and four people died in the blaze, including a two-year-old child. On the following day, arson investigators from around southern California converged on the destroyed store, and declared the cause to be an electrical fire. However, John Orr, as an arson investigator, insisted that the cause was arson.
Investigations later showed that the fire started in highly-flammable polyurethane
Polyurethane
A polyurethane is any polymer composed of a chain of organic units joined by carbamate links. Polyurethane polymers are formed through step-growth polymerization, by reacting a monomer with another monomer in the presence of a catalyst.Polyurethanes are...
products, which caught fire very quickly, causing the fire to flashover
Flashover
A flashover is the near simultaneous ignition of most of the directly exposed combustible material in an enclosed area. When certain organic materials are heated they undergo thermal decomposition and release flammable gases...
very rapidly. After his arrest in 1991 and subsequent conviction for a series of other arson fires not related to the 1984 Ole's fire, Orr was charged with arson in the blaze by investigators due to a forensic re-evaluation of the causes of the fire, circumstantial evidence and a highly detailed description of a similar fire in his novel Points of Origin that bore several almost perfect similarities with the real-life 1984 fire. Orr was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1998. Orr insists that he is innocent with regards to the 1984 hardware store fire.
Investigation
In January 1987, a convention for arson investigators from California was held in the city of FresnoFresno, California
Fresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...
. During and after the convention, several suspicious fires were set in Bakersfield
Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....
(South of Fresno). This, combined with the recovery of a single unmatched fingerprint left on a piece of notebook paper as part of a time-delay incendiary device, led Captain Marvin G. Casey of the Bakersfield Fire Department
Bakersfield Fire Department
The Bakersfield Fire Department is a metro fire protection agency that serves the City of Bakersfield, California. The department currently serves a population of approximately 334,000, making the City of Bakersfield the 9th largest in California....
(BFD) to suspect that an arson investigator from the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
area was responsible for these arsons.
During March 1989, another series of arsons was committed along the California coast in close conjunction with a conference of arson investigators in Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...
. By comparing the list of attendees from the Fresno conference with the list of attendees at the Pacific Grove conference, Captain Casey of the BFD was able to create a short list of ten suspects. Orr was on Casey's short list, but all of the people on this short list were cleared of suspicion when their fingerprints were compared with the fingerprint that Casey had recovered from the piece of notebook paper found at one of the arson crime scenes.
In late 1990 and early 1991, another series of arson fires broke out in southern California, this time in and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Greater Los Angeles Area
The Greater Los Angeles Area, or the Southland, is a term used for the Combined Statistical Area sprawled over five counties in the southern part of California, namely Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County and Ventura County...
. As a result, a large task force, nicknamed the Pillow Pyro Task Force (a reference to the arson fires set in pillows) was formed to apprehend the arsonist. On March 29, 1991, Tom Campuzanno of the Los Angeles Arson Task Force circulated a flier at a meeting of the Fire Investigators Regional Strike Team (FIRST), an organization formed by a group of smaller cities in and around Los Angeles County that did not have their own staff of arson investigators. The flier described the modus operandi of the suspected serial arsonist in the Los Angeles area. Scott Baker of the California State Fire Marshal's Office was at that meeting and told Campuzanno about the series of arsons investigated by Captain Casey of the BFD and about Casey's suspicions that the perpetrator was an arson investigator from the Los Angeles area. Consequently, Campuzanno and two of his colleagues met with Casey, obtained a copy of the fingerprint that Casey had recovered, and matched it to John Leonard Orr on April 17, 1991.
Orr then became a serious arson suspect and the subject of investigation and surveillance for several months. Orr was alerted to this surveillance effort on May 3, 1991, when he discovered and removed a tracking device that belonged to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a federal law enforcement organization within the United States Department of Justice...
(ATF) hidden under the bumper of the vehicle he was driving. However, Orr was apparently unaware of the fact that a Teletrac tracking device was later installed behind his dashboard when he brought his city vehicle for service on November 22, 1991. Meanwhile, a federal grand jury handed down an indictment, and shortly thereafter Orr was present at the scene of a suspicious fire, so a decision was made to end the surveillance, obtain an arrest warrant, and effect an arrest. Orr was arrested on December 4, 1991.
Trial
On June 25, 1998, a jury in a California state court convicted Orr of four counts of first-degree murder from the 1984 hardware store fire with special circumstances in a twenty-five count indictment, deadlocking on only one of the twenty-five counts, which was subsequently dismissed at the request of the prosecution. When asked to sentence Orr to the death penalty, the same state court jury deadlocked eight to four in favor, and the judge in that prosecution sentenced Orr to life plus 20 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
After the trial, and legacy
Orr is currently serving time in California state prison to serve the remainder of his life sentence.Some arson investigators and an FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
criminal profiler have deemed Orr to be possibly one of the worst American serial arsonists of the twentieth century. Federal ATF agent Mike Matassa believes that Orr set nearly 2,000 fires between 1984 and 1991. Furthermore, arson investigators cited that after Orr was arrested, the number of brush fires in the nearby foothill areas decreased by over ninety percent. However, Orr continues to maintain his innocence, and wrote an autobiography stating that he was innocent and betrayed by the legal system
The story of John Orr has been chronicled by bestselling true crime
True crime
True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.The crimes most commonly include murder, but true crime works have also touched on other legal cases. Depending on the writer, true crime can adhere strictly to...
author Joseph Wambaugh
Joseph Wambaugh
Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. is a bestselling American writer known for his fictional and non-fictional accounts of police work in the United States...
in a book entitled Fire Lover. On several occasions, film and television have also presented the story of Orr's arson activities and eventual arrest and criminal conviction. An episode of the PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
science series Nova
NOVA (TV series)
Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...
titled "Hunt for the Serial Arsonist" chronicled the story of John Orr. In addition, the investigation which led to Orr's arrest and conviction was recounted on the A&E Network
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
's true crime series Cold Case Files
Cold Case Files
Cold Case Files is documentary television series on the cable channel A&E Network hosted by Bill Kurtis that documents the investigation of various long-unsolved murders through the use of modern forensic science , and criminal psychology, in addition to recent breakthroughs in the...
. Most notably, a film entitled Point of Origin
Point of Origin (film)
Point of Origin is a 2002 film released by HBO. It stars Ray Liotta and John Leguizamo. The film details an account of the true story of the convicted serial arsonist John Leonard Orr. John Orr is an Arson investigator who tries to figure out whose been setting fire to family businesses and Orr is...
starring Ray Liotta
Ray Liotta
[File:Ray Liotta is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and his role as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams...
as John Orr was released by the HBO network in the year 2002
2002 in film
The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...
. The title of the film is a reference to novel Orr wrote that was titled Points of Origin, about a serial arsonist that happens to be a fireman. Arson investigators believe that Orr chronicled the arson fires that he set in the novel he wrote, and feel that some of the fires in the novel bear many similarities with fires that they believe Orr actually set. Orr states that the novel is a work of fiction and has no relation to any actual events. In an interview, defending his manuscript, Orr has expressly stated:
"The character of Aaron Styles was a composite of arsonists I arrested."
External links
- Court TV - The Firestarter - John Orr - In depth coverage with video, documents, and annotated links.
- John Leonard Orr at the Notable Names Database.
- Inside the Mind of a Serial Arsonist- The Profiling of John Leonard Orr - An article discussing the story of John Orr and how the FBI profiles serial arsonists, as well as a section on the similarities between serial arsonists and serial killers and how fire investigators can use their profiles to an advantage.