John leonard orr biography

Moreover, the grassy hills were also set on small fires just to draw the attention of firefighters. When the fire department suspected that someone in their department was responsible for the arsons, they looked into John and hid a tracking device in his personal vehicle. Although he discovered the tracking device in May , he had no idea about the second tracking device they installed in his city vehicle in November of the same year.

As they tracked his movements, he was found at the scene of a fire, which was enough to make an arrest. On December 4, , after several years of causing arson across the state, John Leonard Orr was taken into custody outside his Glendale house and charged with arson for a number of fires.

John leonard orr biography

Although he was arrested, the investigation did not stop. However, he claimed that the novel, as well as the character of Aaron, was purely fictional. On July 31, , John Leonard Orr was found guilty of three counts of arson related to hardware store fires in the San Joaquin Valley. But then a peculiar thing happened. Billy looked around. There was nothing.

Billy peered through that door, that fireproof barricade, toward the west side of the store, and he saw a big cloud of smoke in the center of the space. He ran toward the south fire door searching for Ada and Matthew, and when he got there the cloud behind him had turned into a wall, a wall of very black smoke. He ran toward the entrance doors that he and his wife and grandson had passed through a half hour before, and saw that a fire engine was arriving.

In the darkness, Jim Obdam battled panic. He was all alone in the smoke and heat. He knew there were steps to an emergency exit in the back stockroom. Then he remembered there was a fire exit in the hardware department in the far northwest corner, if he could only find the far northwest corner. He staggered to the back wall and duck-walked his way along, feeling the wall and feeling merchandise, feeling anything to guide him.

He was holding his breath, low to the floor, and he dropped even lower, desperate for the same oxygen that the fire craved. He was just about to give up. When he suddenly realized he was six feet from the emergency exit, he felt an energy rush and he lunged, pushing the bars, activating the alarm. And he was out. He was outside, but he felt as though he were still inside.

It was hot and he was burning. His arms, neck, and ears all suffered second- and third-degree burns. Jim Obdam, covered head to foot with soot, ran toward the front of the store, anxious to call his parents to tell them he was all right, but when he touched his hand to his burning wrist, the flesh fell off onto the pavement. It was indeed a bizarre evening for firefighters in that part of the San Gabriel Valley.

McClure had found the point of origin easily enough, in the grocery racks piled high with bags of potato chips. McClure called dispatch and requested that they send arson investigator John Orr from nearby Glendale Fire Department, probably the most accomplished arson sleuth within the several fire departments that rendered mutual aid in the area.

John Orr showed up very quickly, and he explained to McClure about the volatility of potato chips, that the oils in the chips and the bag material are highly combustible, a sack of solid fuel. This post is sponsored by Open Road Media. Thank you for supporting our partners, who make it possible for The Lineup to continue publishing the true crime and creepy stories you love.

Want more true crime? The first such incident was started in a Fresno drugstore, when a sleeping bag display was set alight, whilst across the street another fire engulfed a fabric shop. In the nearby town of Tulare, another drugstore and fabric shop went up in flames, followed by a fire which broke out in a display of dried flowers in a Bakersfield crafts shop.

Investigators found the charred remnants of what appeared to be a simple incendiary device of a filter-tipped cigarette and matches, all held together with a rubber band, the tell-tale sign of an arsonist they dubbed the Pillow Pyro, because of his fondness for setting fires in fabric shops. One of the devices found was partially wrapped in yellow paper, and Captain Marvin Casey, of the Bakersfield Fire Department, held suspicions that it was the work of one of the experts attending the convention.

But without further evidence Casey could not prove his theory. In March , another meeting of arson experts in Pacific Grove, California, coincided with an outbreak of fires in the towns between the site of the conference and Glendale. Fire Captain Casey investigated these fires and found that the same strange, yet simple device of cigarettes, matched and yellow lined paper had been used to start the fires.

However, this time he was able to locate a small additional clue, that of a partial fingerprint. Acting on his hunch that the arsonist was a fellow fire expert, Casey compared the list of attendees from the previous Fresno conference with the list of attendees at the newly held Pacific Grove conference, and was able to compile a short list of ten possible suspects.

The fingerprints of those on the list was compared with the fingerprint recovered by Casey from the piece of notebook paper found at one of the arson crime scenes, and all ten suspects were cleared of suspicion. Orr continued with his career, and uncanny ability to sniff out the root cause of accidental fires and deliberate cases of arson.

In response to this, a large task force known as the Pillow Pyro Task Force was formed to identify and apprehend the arsonist. There he handed out a flier which described the modus operandi of the suspected Pillow Pyro serial arsonist who was responsible for the Los Angeles fires. Campuzanno and two of his colleagues met with Casey, who shared his belief that the perpetrator was an arson investigator from the Los Angeles area.

He provided them with a copy of the fingerprint that he had recovered from one of the crime scenes, and Campuzanno used improved fingerprint technology to locate a suspect. He would now be the focus of an intense investigation. He was placed under investigation for several months, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tabbaco and Firearms placed a tracking device on his car, in an attempt to catch him in the act.

In May , Orr discovered the tracking device hidden in his vehicle, but he did not become aware of a second tracking device later installed in November inside his city vehicle. By December, investigators had accumulated enough evidence to warrant and arrest, when Orr was present at a suspicious fire. A federal grand jury handed down an indictment, and he was arrest on December 4, During a search of his home investigators found a page manuscript for a novel Orr had written, which read almost like a confession.

Stiles preferred incendiary device of choice was made of a cigarette and matches held together with rubber bands, exactly the same as those found at the real Californian fires. Just stupid people acting as stupid people do. The presiding judge sentenced Orr to four concurrent terms of life without parole for murder, plus an additional 21 years in prison for arson.

The state sentence ran consecutively with his federal sentence for arson. A California appeals court vacated nine years of his state sentence on March 15, , finding that the burning of homes in the College Hills blaze had only been incidental to his objective of starting a brush fire. It left the remainder of the sentence untouched, all but assuring that Orr will die in prison.

Orr is currently serving his life sentence at California State Prison, Centinela. Some fire investigators and an FBI criminal profiler have deemed Orr to be possibly one of the worst American serial arsonists of the 20th century. Orr's daughter Lori, who later became a motivational speaker, testified on behalf of the defense at the trial. Her testimony prevented him from receiving the death penalty.

After maintaining her father's innocence for years, she eventually came to believe he was guilty and broke off all contact with him. As part of Hamilton College 's prison writing initiative, the American Prison Writing Archive, [ 37 ] Orr was able to publish several autobiographical accounts of his experiences as a prisoner in the American prison complex.

Orr's story has been chronicled by bestselling true crime author Frank Girardot , [ 38 ] who co-wrote a biography of Orr in collaboration with his daughter, Lori Kovach, entitled Burned. Orr's story was earlier chronicled by bestselling true crime author Joseph Wambaugh in his book Fire Lover. On several occasions, film and television have also presented the story of Orr's arson activities and eventual arrest and criminal conviction.

He also was mentioned in the 12th episode of the second season of Lone Star. In July , truth. In , YouTuber MrBallen , on his podcast, told the story of Orr from the perspective of an observer piecing together his actions and final arrest, starting with the Ole's hardware store fire. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history.

Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. American fire investigator and arsonist born For other people named John Orr, see John Orr disambiguation. California , United States. Early life [ edit ]. This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources.

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