Cold Case: Arson Investigator under Fire

A gasoline can

Three matches and a cigarette folded in yellow legal paper

An electrical timer

A bottle of accelerant

Fires only in residential homes

Fires occurring along Highway 99 near a fire investigators conference

Fires always started at night in rural areas

Fires all set in the same city block

Blood spatter analysis

Ninhydrin treatment

DNA sequencing

Fiber microscopy

The database had no fingerprints recorded

The latent print was destroyed in evidence storage

The original examiner reported negative findings (no match)

The suspect's prints had been legally expunged

A witness saw him at the scene

His own confession

The LA County Sheriff's Lab enhanced and matched the latent to his prints in 1991

He left a written note at the store

His extensive videotapes of fires and a manuscript paralleling real fires

Eyewitness testimony placing him at every fire

Receipts for matches found in his car

A private investigator’s paid confession

It was a fictional work with no relation to real events

It contained factual details only the arsonist would know, paralleling actual fires

It was entirely ghostwritten by another investigator

It included a map labeling victims’ homes

Probation and community service

5 years in state prison

Four concurrent life sentences plus 20 years

Death penalty

Fingerprints from the front door

A rape kit with vaginal swabs containing semen

Security camera footage from a neighbor’s house

A written confession found in the trash

It matched Carmen’s husband, proving his guilt

It excluded the husband and matched the neighbor, Billy Bob Sutherland

The DNA sample was too degraded to produce results

It matched multiple unknown suspects, creating confusion