Naman Shrestha
The episode titled ‘The Firestarter: A Wall of Flames’ of Investigation Discovery’s ‘Very Scary People’ delves deep into the series of arsons that haunted California in the 1980s and 1990s. After the suspicion landed on one of their own professionals, the Glendale Fire Department was quick to investigate John Leonard Orr. Upon digging deeper into the fire investigator, some dark truths about him surfaced. Responsible for setting ablaze thousands of fires across California, the culprit was punished for his crimes.
John Leonard Orr’s Journey to Becoming a Fire Investigator Wasn’t Smooth
Born in the late 1940s, John Leonard Orr grew up among his two siblings as his parents got divorced when he was quite young. Despite the hardships in life, his focus on the academic front did not waiver as he passed out of high school with good academic results. He also started dating while he was in high school. Soon, he joined the US Air Force before starting basic training and joining the Air Force firefighting school in the late 1960s. While he was stationed in Spain, he made his relationship with his high school sweetheart official and tied the knot. By April 1971, he was discharged from the Air Force and returned to Los Angeles, California.
While he had applied to a couple of police departments and fire departments, John and his wife became parents to their daughter, whom they named Lori. Instead of getting closer, the couple drifted apart and resultantly, got divorced. When he failed his Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Fire Department tests, he applied to the Glendale Fire Department despite its low pay. In order to make his dreams of becoming a firefighter come true, he studied fire science while working at 7-Eleven and Sears stores before finally getting accepted in 1974. Once he earned a carry permit, he went on to become a fire investigator and attained the rank of captain in Glendale, California.
John Leonard Orr Was Behind Multiple Arsons Between the 1980s and 1990s
John Leonard Orr’s job as an arson investigator included understanding and tracking down cases of arson for the Glendale Fire Department in Southern California. However, later in his career, he was allegedly involved in causing thousands of fires across the state in the 1980s and 1990s. Nicknamed “Frito Bandito,” “The Coin Tosser,” and “The Pillow Pyro,” John reportedly used to set fires in open and populated stores using a timed device made of a cigarette, three matches, a yellow writing paper, and a rubber band. 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 1991, 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, 1991, 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. Although he was arrested, the investigation did not stop. They learned about a manuscript titled ‘Points of Origin’ written by John and it is about a fireman named Aaron who also uses a slow-burning incendiary device just like he was accused of doing. However, he claimed that the novel, as well as the character of Aaron, was purely fictional.
John Leonard Orr is Serving Multiple Life Sentences at a California Prison
On July 31, 1992, John Leonard Orr was found guilty of three counts of arson related to hardware store fires in the San Joaquin Valley. For this set of arsons, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In March 1993, he took a plea deal to three additional arsons in Los Angeles, and in return, he would be paroled from the prison in 2002. However, the following year, in November 1994, he was indicted on four counts of first-degree murder and 21 counts of arson. While the prosecution pushed for the death sentence for the defendant, the state sentenced him to four concurrent terms of life without the possibility of parole for the murder charges and an additional 21 years for the arson charges.
At the trial, John’s daughter Lori initially supported him, and her testimony played a role in his avoiding the death penalty. However, after years of defending her father, she also believed that John was guilty and avoided contacting him at all thereafter. On March 15, 2000, nine years of his state sentence were dismissed by the California appeals court when it was learned that some of the home arsons were incidental to his intention of only starting a bush fire. Once he completed his federal sentence in 2002, his state sentence began. Thanks to the American Prison Writing Archive, the convict could publish his written autobiographical accounts of his experience in prison. As of today, he is incarcerated at the Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California.
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