Arson Investigation

By Edward Bates

Arson Investigation consists of true actual cases of arson. Photographs that were taken are included to indicate how the fires were started.

These arsons include murder, organized crime, cover-up for other crimes, and more.

Investigative techniques prepare the investigator to obtain sufficient evidence in order to convict the fire setter and then present this information as an expert witness in a court of law.

Technical information is replete in the text. In addition, serious and dangerous crimes are presented, including the infamous Chowchilla bus kidnapping, where twenty-six children were abducted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662475733

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Arson Investigation

Edward Bates

Copyright © 2022 Edward Bates

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-7571-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-7573-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Double Murder/Suicide/Arson

Arson at the Steak House

The Jet Bowl

Organized Crime Explosion and Fire

How They Did It!

Unique Arson Set: Organized Crime Figure?

Children Murdered and House Set on Fire

Interview and Polygraph

The Preacher Arsonist: Threatened Me, My Home, and My Family

Two Elderly People Killed by Wildland Arson: the Harlow Fire

Follow Up on Your Fire Case

North to Alaska

The Murder Business

The Brown Berets

A Hero Discovers Huge Fire!

Fire-Department Goofs: How Fire/Police Centered on Wrong Person and Goofed

Arson in the State of Washington Connected to a Suspect in California

Keep the Evidence Safe!

Murder—an Arson Cover-Up

Burn the Records

Crazy?

He Filed a Legal Lawsuit

Polygraph Consent

Use of Explosives

Cow Chip Number One

Cow Chip Number Two

Cow Chip Number Three

Cow Chip Number Four

Cow Chip Number Five

Cow Chip Number Six

Cow Chip Number Seven

Cow Chip Number Eight

Cow Chip Number Nine

Cow Chip Number Ten

Cow Chip Number Eleven

Cow Chip Number Twelve

Cow Chip Number Thirteen

Cow Chip Number Fourteen

This book is dedicated to the memory of Deputy Steve Lindblom, killed at the Last-Chance Market, short from ambush. The killer wounded two other deputies and himself was killed.

Foreword

Arson is a serious, dangerous crime, not only to the victims but also to those who are first responders. It is for that reason that should, for instance, a first responder be killed responding or suppressing such a crime, the felony-murder rule applies. The arsonist is a murderer!

This text draws upon knowledge gained from on-the-job experiences over ten years of true-to-life, full-time, arson-fire investigation, from thirty years of total actual investigation. The texts cover cases successfully conducted, along with some actual evidence photographs, some involving organized crime figures.

Since investigative techniques are within the text, the author has included some never-before-published evidence, from the FBI files involving the infamous Chowchilla Busnapping Case, where twenty-six children and their bus driver were kidnapped and buried alive! The author was in charge of that case as the sheriff coroner of Madera County, California, where the kidnapping occurred.

As a bonus, the author has included, for your enjoyment, a small work titled, True Tales of a Cow County Sheriff, which includes the kidnapping case.

Section 1

A Series of Arson Cases

Double Murder/Suicide/Arson

We were working major crimes on the day watch. It was almost noon, and we were ready to have a quick lunch. We were both detective sergeants. I knew that Bill was inexperienced as a detective, and I didn’t know how he would react to a major crime investigation. We were dispatched on a suspicious-person call. The report stated a man carrying a long rifle or shotgun was attempting entry into the saloon and office area of this fine local steak house.

We immediately responded since we were about two blocks away. Upon arriving in our unmarked car, I exited and pushed open a metal door, drawing my pistol at the same time. I heard a gunshot as I entered. I was greeted by a large Caucasian male who swung a shotgun, up from his hip. I was just ready to fire when he placed the sawed-off shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger. That was the end of the suspicious-person call. Bill was still standing near the outside entrance of the door, his pistol still in his holster. We discovered, behind the bar, the owner-operator of the steak house. He was dead, the obvious victim of the previous shotgun shooter.

As detectives, a murder-suicide is an easy case—just make reports. Not so fast! We called for the Identification Bureau to process the crime scene. We learned from employees that the killer suspected the owner of the steak house of having a sexual affair with his wife, hence the killing. We also learned that he killed the wrong man. Further investigation at the home of the killer revealed he had first killed his wife with the same shotgun. Easy case for detectives, murder-suicide.

We finally had a late dinner at a fine Chinese restaurant. We were thinking that was the end of the steak house case. Nope.

Arson at the Steak House

The next week I was assigned to assist the county fire department in an investigation of the cause and origin of a large fire—the steak house! That’s right, the same one.

Upon my arrival I met with the county’s fire investigator and the fire captain involved in the fire suppression.

It was obvious that the most severe damage, and where the fire suppression had first attacked, was the office area. We learned, from the now widow, that she closed after two. She had placed the night’s silver cash receipts on a wooden table, now destroyed. Silver coins, e.g., silver dollars, and half dollars, quarters, and dimes were separated in the rack. Of course, the rack and table were destroyed. The floor was cement. We ordered a filter rack be built, and the debris from where the table had been was shoveled into the filter. Guess? Only copper from pennies were found. No melted silver!

That led to questioning regarding a burned area, not completely destroyed where cases of liquor in collector decanters had been. Several cases were missing. We obtained the liquor-case serial numbers from invoices kept in a file for later possible evidence. From the widow, we learned that she was even more emotional. It was her husband (now deceased) who was the key man in the business. What was she to do now he was dead? Yes, she had a large fire-insurance policy, and she did not intend to rebuild. Possible fraud motive?

Soon, a special agent from the Fraud and Arson Squad of the National Board of Fire Underwriters was on the scene offering to assist us. We interviewed the widow regarding her employees. Several hours before closing, she had fired a relatively new employee. Armed with his address, we proceeded there. Neighbors said he came home in the early morning. He seemed to be moving from the rental dwelling. He loaded his car and left.

I knocked on the front and rear doors and peered through the windows. The house was in disarray. Although the fire investigator could not hear well, I could. I detected what sounded like a voice asking for assistance. Therefore, l entered. In plain sight on the floor was a pile of miscellaneous paper debris. On top was a letter addressed to the occupant. The return address was from the State of Utah Prison System. Soon, I learned that he was on parole after serving time for the crimes of burglary and arson! Now how lucky can you be? I always said you don’t have to be smart to be a detective but had to have a lot of low animal cunning, and l qualified.

To make this tale short, I placed wanted notices in the FBI NCIC, and soon, he was in custody in Portland, Oregon. He was writing checks on the steak house. In his hotel room were cases of decor whiskey. The serial numbers matched. I had flown to Portland and worked with two detectives. He waived extradition, and I flew him home. End of case.

No, not really: I was offered employment as a special agent with the NBFU, and I accepted. After more job experience with the Los Angeles City Arson Squad, I was assigned to the entire San Joaquin Valley of California. I spent the next ten years working with fire and police agencies from Modesto to Bakersfield, California. Read on about other such cases, an interesting study of arson and related crimes.

The Jet Bowl

If you watch TV, you will see stories about the top-secret US air base called Area 51 and about flying saucers near or at that base. Near there was a bowling alley called the Jet Bowl. It was summertime, and it gets hot in the Mojave Desert, so I left my beautiful little horse ranch in Coarsegold, California, and reached the Kern County Fire Prevention Bureau very early. I met Inspector Leon Zueck, who had been assigned the case of the Jet Bowl fire. He had been horribly burned in fighting an oil fire. He had fallen into a huge pit of blazing oil. It did not stop him from his career. He became an expert fire cause investigator. We got into his air-conditioned official vehicle (mine was not) and proceeded.

The building was completely destroyed. At floor level, one could still see the bowling lanes burned and charred. We asked for a pumper, and they washed them down, the entire floors. This was after we caused the steel rafters removed.

What did we find? Each of the charred lanes shown clean round circles spaced, where round cans or containers every several yards had been placed. The circles matched cans or containers. Records revealed Bill Bailey, the owner, had been found outside on the ground, away from the two heavy glass doors. When found, cut badly by flying glass, people who found him thought he had been involved in an automobile crash. At an emergency ward, the doctors thought so also. He reeked of gasoline.

We examined the front-door glass (I took photos that showed the rear entrances were locked and one front door, the other open later, did not burn severely. Glass had been blown fifty feet or more across the driveway. The front doors had been locked (from the inside) with chain and large padlock. The rear door was blown open with hardly any burns.

Obviously, Bill Bailey, the owner-operator, had been inside and was blown outward. Somehow, an ignition had ignited the vapors of a petroleum product, and the explosion resulted. Did he light a cigarette? Or did an electric motor from a Coke machine come on with a spark?

At the emergency ward where Bailey had first been treated, we found his notebook. It contained names of known organized crime figures in Southern California and Nevada. Somehow, that book ended up with the FBI.

We presented the case to the Kern County District Attorney, but Bailey did not show up for his first court appearance? Why not?

The Jet Bowl was heavily insured. Bailey had been losing money. His southern associates did not like that. A solution? Sell it to the insurance company!

Where was Bill Bailey? At a beachfront home in Southern California, two masked men entered, carrying shotguns. They intended to kidnap an heir to the Firestone Rubber Company. But the Sheriff’s Department had been tipped off. Two sheriff detectives leaped up from behind a couch. They also had shotguns. When the two masked men refused to drop their weapons, but pointed them at the deputy sheriff’s, they were both shot and killed.

When the masks were removed, there was Bill Bailey, glass-cut scars and all.

End of case.

Photographs

Front doors of the Jet Bowl. Bill Bailey, reeking of gasoline, was found outside bleeding from being blown out through the glass door blown open by explosion. Rear door blown open but not burned. Photo of round, unburned part of bowling lane. These were throughout all lanes.

Organized Crime Explosion and Fire

This was to be my first assignment as a special agent with the National Board of Fire Underwriters. Firstly, though, I had been sent to Los Angeles to work with the LA Arson Squad, more as an observer and to learn of their techniques of fire investigations.

Very early I arrived in the City of Delano, the headquarters for the United Farm Workers Union, where later I worked a number of arson cases that occurred at fruit sheds owned by farmers at odds with the union. (See the Brown Beret case.)

As a good cop, I found a small coffee shop. Before I could order, a uniformed sergeant of the police approached me. He recognized me as a detective sergeant from Modesto. We sat together, and I explained my new duties and assignment in Delano. I asked him about the horse barn that had exploded and burned on the Fourth of July. He asked me to accompany him to meet his uncle, the owner of a furniture store.

He told me that bits of metal embedded in the concrete walls of the explosion site and fire had been sent to a lab in LA. He was unaware of the lab results.

Come with me, I’ll introduce you to my uncle. He can tell you how ‘they’ blew it up. You know it was owned by Mickey Cohen, the Mafia guy now in San Quentin, don’t you?

I replied, Let’s go.

How They Did It!

We walked over to his uncle’s store, and introductions were made. Uncle wanted to know how we met. He was very suspicious of me. The sergeant told about meeting me when I was a detective sergeant in Modesto, California, with the Sheriff’s Department. He knew me by my reputation. I was a lie-detector examiner also, and he knew me through some cases he was partially involved with years before.

Uncle wanted to know if I had any objection to being searched for any hidden wire or recording device. I didn’t, and he searched. Then he asked if I knew who owned the building and who was the insured. I told him I did: Mickey Cohen, the Mafia figure.

He then told me how they did it. The lid was taken off a partially filled fifty-five-gallon drum of gasoline. A smaller heavy-metal can of gas, tightly sealed, was dropped into the larger. A long delay fuse was inserted that led outside and ignited. When the smaller drum became superheated, it expanded, followed with the resulting boom and bits of metal into to the cement brick walls.

Uncle refused any other information. My reports went to SF and NY. Not bad for my first case, I thought.

The insurance company refused to pay, and the matter ended in the federal court in Fresno, California. Later, I was the sheriff and coroner of the famous Chowchilla Busnapping Case, where twenty-six children and their bus driver were kidnapped. The federal judge in this arson case was from Chowchilla. Small world! I testified, and Uncle was called as a hostile witness. The insurance company won!

Addendum: See a later case where Uncle set fire to his house, and I was called in to investigate it! He had used quite a different and unique manner to commit arson. I don’t think Uncle was pleased to see me again, but no introduction was necessary.

Again, no attaboy. It was to be expected. See follow-up case involving Uncle!

Unique Arson Set: Organized Crime Figure?

After dealing with the Fourth of July explosion fire in Delano, California, I wasn’t surprised when the fire department called again. A fire had originated inside the dwelling house of Uncle, involved in that Fourth of July arson/explosion.

Reputable guests were seated, talking and having cool drinks in Uncle’s inside patio. They could look out through windows that covered the entire width of the patio. A very fine curtain allowed them to see outside. Suddenly, without any warning, the entire interior wall seemed to be on fire. There was no apparent source of heat or ignition that high up, hence the call to me.

I called for a filter box to be constructed, which the fire crew did, and for the fire crew to assist me to shovel debris. We started under the inside windows. It wasn’t long before we found strands of very fine copper wire extending the entire length. A little more filtering revealed a six-volt cigarette lighter, from what turned out to be a 1963 Cadillac. Uncle had one, but his daughter had left for her home in Southern California an hour before the fire. The fire department requested the LA Arson Squad to locate her and the vehicle, to see if it had a cigarette lighter. They confirmed it was missing.

Meanwhile, we traced the copper wire into the attic; it was connected to a six-volt transformer. And the transformer was connected to the door buzzer outside. The buzzer had been taped so it would energize the transformer continually, which energized the six-volt cigarette lighter.

Boy! Uncle was quite ingenious, wasn’t he? Or was he?

I didn’t get an attaboy for this one either. Most of our agents were former FBI. How could a former lowly detective be so lucky? No attaboys for being lucky!

Photos Depict

Photo of one entrance to dwelling upon arrival of the fire department. Photographs of window frames where curtains had been ignited (interior and exterior) and floor area inside. Fuse placed adjacent to curtains.

Lighter dug up from debris at floor level, with attached copper wire. Ingenious time-delay device. six-volt transformer wires led to electric wires the length of room. Wires connected to a six-volt cigarette lighter. It heated electric wires and flimsy curtain material. The transformer was energized by a doorbell button, taped in a permanent on position.

Also, remains of a sofa, with springs still retaining strength. In a slow, smoldering fire they would have collapsed of their own weight, as the heat annealed the springs.

Children Murdered and House Set on Fire

Assistant Ranger Sam Garza, CDF, with the Mid Valley Fire Department was a top-flight investigator. He was assisting the Clovis Fire Department, on a very suspicious dwelling fire. He called me to assist. He desired polygraph examinations.

The dwelling was located in a typical middle-income tract of homes, occupied by a family of seven, a husband and wife and four small children. The brother of the husband had been visiting for several months. Prior to moving in to his brother’s home, he had resided near Portland, Oregon. Little was known about him.

In the very early morning, the brother, in a separate bedroom, was awakened by smoke and heat. He barely escaped by breaking out a window and fled into the backyard. The husband and wife awakened and escaped.

The children did not escape. He had been playing games with brother in the front room, before he went to bed. What about them? The fire was mainly confined to the front room where the children had been playing games with brother.

The origin of the fire was an easy one to determine. Other than heat damage to the living room and contents, a large hole was burned through the hardwood floor.

There was no natural cause we could attribute from any obvious heat source. There was none. The children had been removed by the county coroner. Were they still in the front room or in bed when the fire erupted? What investigation was completed at the scene by anyone was not revealed to me. While I was engaged, no one from the police or fire departments ever appeared. They could have been there earlier. How did the parents react to find the children dead? Did they call the police? Had they talked to brother? What did the coroner attribute to the cause of their deaths? Was soot found in their lungs and airways?

It appeared that my role was to determine fire cause and polygraphs if necessary. Were tests made to determine if sex had occurred? Any blood analysis? I wondered.

We both agreed the fire had to have been deliberately set—to wit, arson. A private fire investigator, a former special agent with the NBFU, appeared later and agreed about the fire. He could have come from the insurance company. I never saw him again.

Interview and Polygraph

Sam Garza and I took statements from the husband, wife, and brother about any knowledge how the fire started and their activities. All denied any knowledge or thoughts about the cause of the fire. The husband’s brother agreed to a polygraph examination, which I administered.

The wife, during our interview, admitted she had been having sexual acts with brother. What a mess!

The combined pretest interview of brother lasted several hours. It was impossible to obtain a norm on his polygraph charts because he was reacting to every question, critical or noncritical. I confronted him with his devious and untruthful responses. He then made a startling admission.

He worked nights at a well-established funeral home. The body of an internationally known Armenian automobile racing champion was in the mortuary. She had passed away and was lying naked there. He had been molesting her body! He accounted for his