The Killer Book of Cold Cases by Tom Philbin Page A

beginning of 1989, another arson investigator conference occurred, this time in Pacific Grove, which is near Monterey. The four-day conference was set to begin on March 5.
    The same thing happened at this conference that had happened at the earlier one: fires started to break out in various stores where foam products were stored. Casey knew that all the towns were south of where the conference was being held, just as had happened at the other arson conference.
    Just What Is a Pyromaniac?
    Pyromania is a deep-seated behavior disorder triggered by emotions such as anxiety, anger, powerlessness, or revenge. The arsonist views fire as powerful and is driven to deliberately set them for pleasure or as a form of relief.
Getting Closer
    This time, Casey thought of a way to compile an even smaller list of potential arsonist suspects from the list of arson investigators attending the conference. He got a list of the attendees and only included those from the Los Angeles area who would have had the opportunity to set the fires on their way to or from the conference.
    So instead of fifty-five possible suspects, he had only ten. He would be able to check the print found on the incendiary device to see if it belonged to any of them because they all were public employees and their prints would be on file.
    All ten print cards were drawn from the database, and Casey had an ATF fingerprint expert check them out at the Department of Justice Crime Lab in Fresno. The results of the fingerprint examination were sent to a special agent at the ATF, and he relayed the results to Casey. There was no match.
    The arsonist’s work continued with a vengeance. Starting in 1990 and ending in March 1991, it got even worse. The Los Angeles area was hit with what were determined to be nineteen arson fires or attempted arson fires. Fortunately, no more lives were lost, but fire experts knew that it was just a matter of time.
    Marv Casey had never stopped championing his theory that the arsonist would turn out to be an arson investigator, despite the fact that none of the ten investigators could be tied to the print found on the incendiary device.
    Then the string of arsons got the Feds interested, and though none of them really believed that the print from CraftMart was of any value, they decided to test it again. After all, two years had passed since the earlier test. Maybe the Pillow Pyro, as a number of task forces called the serial arsonist, had been arrested since 1989.
    The print was tested again, and Ron George who worked in the laboratory, called the ATF’s Pillow Pyro task force. He told the ATF agent who answered, “You oughta tell your arson investigators to keep their mitts off the evidence. It was touched by John Orr. Left ring finger.”
    Many investigators were devastated when they heard the news that Orr appeared to be the arsonist. People respected John Leonard Orr as a firefighter and a person, but now they had to accept something incontrovertible: the federal fingerprint expert had made a mistake earlier when he compared the partial print of a left ring finger to those of the arson investigators. There had been a match, but because the fingerprint expert missed it, Orr was able to set many more fires. Thankfully, they had not taken any more lives.
    Investigators did not pick Orr up at first. They had to build a case. The ATF and other investigators decided put him under surveillance, which included installing a tracking device under his car’s rear bumper. The device somehow dropped down so it was visible, but Orr didn’t seem to know what it was. Authorities set up a scam, indicating that the device was a fake bomb installed as a prank, and Orr seemed to believe that. They believed that Orr did know later about the tracking device. However, he did not know about another tracking device called a Teletrac that was installed in the dashboard of his car when he brought it in for servicing on November 22, 1991.

    A rare shot of John Orr.