Speaker 1: If he's telling you he's innocent, he's not. Let me
Speaker 1: assure you he's not. I probably had no business testifying
Speaker 1: so he wouldn't get the death penalty. I only knew
Speaker 1: what I knew at the time, and I felt really
Speaker 1: guilty for doing that and sparing his life.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, A show about
Speaker 2: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 2: change everything. Loriie Oxford grew up in Eagle Rock, a
Speaker 2: neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I was the second daughter of Jody and John Orr,
Speaker 1: and my sister is two years older than me.
Speaker 2: When Laurie was just a year old, her parents separated.
Speaker 2: She and her sister lived with their mom and saw
Speaker 2: their dad every other weekend.
Speaker 1: Shortly after my parents divorced, my mom met my stepdad.
Speaker 1: His name was Jerry, and he moved in right away.
Speaker 1: Things were rough at home. Jerry was very abusive and
Speaker 1: an angry person, so when we would go to my
Speaker 1: dad's house, that would be vacation or reprieve from what
Speaker 1: was going on at home with mom.
Speaker 2: Laurie and her sister looked forward to spending time with
Speaker 2: their dad. With him they could relax and just be kids.
Speaker 2: It was the seventies and eighties in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: We would do the fun things. We would go places,
Speaker 1: go to movies, go to plays.
Speaker 2: Her dad, John loved being outdoors.
Speaker 1: Going camping, fishing, hiking, things like that with dad and
Speaker 1: his dad, which is my grandfather, they were very much outdoorsmen.
Speaker 2: John always had fun with the kids, but he wasn't
Speaker 2: the most expressive father.
Speaker 1: He was somewhat of a mystery. He didn't say a
Speaker 1: whole lot. He didn't talk about his feelings a whole lot.
Speaker 2: From a young age, Lourie and her sister knew that
Speaker 2: their dad had a very important job.
Speaker 1: The time that he didn't spend with us, he would
Speaker 1: be at work, and that was okay with us because
Speaker 1: he was saving people.
Speaker 2: John was a firefighter.
Speaker 1: We would go with him to the fire station and
Speaker 1: everybody would talk to him. Everybody would stop to talk
Speaker 1: to my sister and I.
Speaker 2: He was a respected leader and experienced firefighter, and to
Speaker 2: Lourie and her sister, he was a hero.
Speaker 1: We would see him on TV and he would be
Speaker 1: saving a dog or saving someone's life. My sister and
Speaker 1: I would always be tickled when we would see him
Speaker 1: on the news. We'd go to school and tell our friends,
Speaker 1: did you see the news last night? My dad was
Speaker 1: on there.
Speaker 2: John rose through the ranks of the fire department. He
Speaker 2: was promoted to fire captain. Then he was promoted to
Speaker 2: the role of arson investigator. There were only a few
Speaker 2: in La County. Arson investigators determined the cause of a
Speaker 2: fire by collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, and examining the scene
Speaker 2: of the fire for any clues as to what started it.
Speaker 2: The role was kind of like a cross between a
Speaker 2: firefighter and a police detective. It was John's dream job.
Speaker 2: Being an arson investigator also meant John had the ability
Speaker 2: to arrest people.
Speaker 1: One time, my sister and I were going with him
Speaker 1: for the weekend and we were driving back to his house,
Speaker 1: and in the old days, they would have the light
Speaker 1: to pull people over with, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he put that on his roof of his car to
Speaker 1: pull somebody over. He was very serious and stern, and
Speaker 1: he told us to get underneath the dash onto the
Speaker 1: floor and don't get up until I come back. And
Speaker 1: he reached in the glove compartment, took out his gun,
Speaker 1: and then went outside onto the side of the freeway.
Speaker 2: Laurie and her sister hid in the car, not sure
Speaker 2: what was happening.
Speaker 1: Then he came back into the car, told us we
Speaker 1: could get up, put the gun away, drove off, and
Speaker 1: we never heard another word about it.
Speaker 2: John's job scared LORII and her sister sometimes they didn't
Speaker 2: want their dad to get hurt, but they knew he
Speaker 2: was doing noble work. In a region like southern California,
Speaker 2: where fires caused devastating losses every year, local fire departments
Speaker 2: are especially vital to the safety of the community. When
Speaker 2: major fires in the area happened, John was called to
Speaker 2: the scene. He developed a reputation as highly respected arson investigator.
Speaker 2: He had to make sense of countless scenes of destruction.
Speaker 2: One of the most heartbreaking cases he handled was a
Speaker 2: fire that broke out in a hardware store in Pasadena
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Four people died. Two were employees, and then a grandmother
Speaker 1: and her grandson. They were being escorted out of the
Speaker 1: fire by an employee and they ended up getting separated
Speaker 1: from that employee. The employee barely made it out with
Speaker 1: lots of burns, but the grandmother and her grandson, they
Speaker 1: were about twenty feet from the exit when they did
Speaker 1: find them deceased in the fire.
Speaker 2: The Sheriff's department found the cause of the fire to
Speaker 2: be accidental, a case of faulty electrical wiring. But John
Speaker 2: saw it differently.
Speaker 1: He knew that it was arson, and he was vocal
Speaker 1: about that to a number of different people.
Speaker 2: He saw clues nobody else's did. He kept the community safe,
Speaker 2: and Laurie always felt safe with him too.
Speaker 1: I didn't even tell Dad that Jerry, my stepdad, was abusive,
Speaker 1: so Dad didn't know what was going on at mom's house.
Speaker 1: I was never scared of my dad. He never was
Speaker 1: a disciplinarian in our life at all. With Dad, it
Speaker 1: was just about having fun and I didn't see anything
Speaker 1: even close to anger with him.
Speaker 2: In high school, Laurie and her sister lived full time
Speaker 2: with their mom and Jerry and saw their dad less often,
Speaker 2: but John continued to support the girls as best he could.
Speaker 1: He provided my first car, so I got my grandmother's
Speaker 1: old car, VW. Rabbit and it was orange, but I
Speaker 1: loved it.
Speaker 2: Laurie had a boyfriend, played softball and worked two jobs.
Speaker 1: Part of that was being able to be away from
Speaker 1: home as much as possible. Also I wanted my own
Speaker 1: money because I didn't want to have to rely on
Speaker 1: my parents to give me anything.
Speaker 2: During this time, their dad, John got remarried.
Speaker 1: It was his fourth marriage. Wanda and I got along
Speaker 1: really well, and I think that she was his best
Speaker 1: wife of all four of them.
Speaker 2: Lorie treasured time with her dad. He never stopped prioritizing fun.
Speaker 1: He would always take us to Baskin Robins for ice cream.
Speaker 1: That was a dad thing. We did it every time
Speaker 1: we were with him. I couldn't even eat ice cream
Speaker 1: because I was lactose intolerant, so I had to get
Speaker 1: Sherbert every single time. But I still valued the times
Speaker 1: that we would go to Baskin Robins because that was
Speaker 1: time with dad.
Speaker 2: Returning home to her mom in Jerry's house was always challenging.
Speaker 2: Jerry's abuse continued as the girls got older.
Speaker 1: My sister left the house before she graduated high school.
Speaker 1: At some point, her and Jerry got in a huge
Speaker 1: fight and she basically ran away and left. My sister
Speaker 1: ended up staying at her friend's house and never coming
Speaker 1: back home. I have had a challenging relationship with my
Speaker 1: mom over the years because of her turning the blind
Speaker 1: eye knowing how Jerry was treating us and still allowing
Speaker 1: it to happen.
Speaker 2: Laurie began to plan what she wanted for her own
Speaker 2: life and what she would do after graduating from high school.
Speaker 1: When I would think about my future in my teen years,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of hopes and dreams. But
Speaker 1: what I did know was that I wanted to be
Speaker 1: in human resources. That is what I wanted to do
Speaker 1: for a job. And I got that from going to
Speaker 1: my first real life interview. When I left that interview,
Speaker 1: I said, I want to be on the other side
Speaker 1: of that. That's what I want to do for my life.
Speaker 2: One day, Laurie was hanging out with her high school boyfriend.
Speaker 1: We had gone to his parents' house and came in
Speaker 1: the door and were walking by them. They were watching
Speaker 1: TV and they said, Laurie, your dad's on TV. I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's on the news a lot, and they said, no,
Speaker 1: you probably want to see this. I'm like, okay, So
Speaker 1: I came in. I sat down on their couch and looked.
Speaker 1: The first thing that I saw was my dad handcuffed
Speaker 1: and police officers putting him into the police car. He
Speaker 1: was being arrested for arsin.
Speaker 2: Laurie stared at the TV in shock.
Speaker 1: I was completely confused. What, No, he's an arson investigator.
Speaker 1: He's not doing arsin? How ludicris? What are they doing?
Speaker 1: They got all their facts wrong.
Speaker 2: She called her mom immediately.
Speaker 1: I said, Mom, what's going on? She said, I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I'm seeing what you're seeing.
Speaker 2: Next, she called her dad's wife, Wanda.
Speaker 1: And I said, please, what's going on? And she said,
Speaker 1: this is all a mistake. There is a fireman who
Speaker 1: is lighting fires. Your dad knows who it is, but
Speaker 1: it's not him. He just needs to explain that to
Speaker 1: them and he'll clear it up and everything's going to
Speaker 1: be fine.
Speaker 2: Laurie exhaled a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, okay, Well, they've got a copboard. They
Speaker 1: know it's a mistake. It's going to work itself up.
Speaker 2: John was placed on house arrest while he awaited trial.
Speaker 2: Lurie and her sister went to go see him.
Speaker 1: My sister and I went in. He was very quiet.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the dad that we knew. He was quiet,
Speaker 1: didn't talk a lot.
Speaker 2: It was hard to see him struggling like this. Laurie
Speaker 2: hoped they would find the real person behind the fire
Speaker 2: soon her dad was at so many crime scenes. Surely
Speaker 2: he had just gotten mixed up in the evidence. He
Speaker 2: dedicated his career to stopping fires. This had to be
Speaker 2: a mistake.
Speaker 1: I had no reason to doubt my dad. He had
Speaker 1: never lied to me ever that I knew of, and
Speaker 1: I had no reason to not trust what he was saying.
Speaker 1: Everything I knew about him supported the fact that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't do something like that.
Speaker 2: John prepared for his trial and Laurie and her sister
Speaker 2: went back to their daily lives.
Speaker 1: It really wasn't a big issue for us. We were
Speaker 1: just so confident that it was going to be worked
Speaker 1: out that it really was not that intrusive in our
Speaker 1: lives at that point.
Speaker 2: But the whole incident started causing problems. John was the
Speaker 2: one that was supposed to pay for Lori to attend college.
Speaker 1: Now that he was arrested, all his money was going
Speaker 1: towards his legal battle, and I just understood that I
Speaker 1: was on my own. So I worked full time and
Speaker 1: went to college a little bit, but it was too difficult,
Speaker 1: so I ended up quitting community college.
Speaker 2: While her dad waited for his trial, Lurie and her
Speaker 2: high school boyfriend got married, had a child together and
Speaker 2: moved to Oregon. Then they separated and Laurie moved back
Speaker 2: to California to be closer to her family. She was
Speaker 2: in her early twenties and now a single mother to
Speaker 2: her one year old son. When she got settled back
Speaker 2: in California, her dad's trial finally began. John was confident
Speaker 2: he would be acquitted, and he told Laurie it would
Speaker 2: be a waste of her time to sit through the
Speaker 2: whole trial.
Speaker 1: My sister and I both wanted to attend the trial
Speaker 1: and show that we were in support of him. He
Speaker 1: did not allow us to do.
Speaker 2: That, but there were a couple days where he said
Speaker 2: it would be all right for them to come and
Speaker 2: show support.
Speaker 1: We went to two days of the trial, super boring days,
Speaker 1: Nothing really happened, and that was it.
Speaker 2: The trial went on for weeks, and for most of
Speaker 2: it Laurie was busy parenting and working full time.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what was going on. We didn't know
Speaker 1: what the evidence was against him. We didn't know pretty
Speaker 1: much anything at that point.
Speaker 2: This was nineteen ninety two, so she couldn't just search
Speaker 2: the internet for more information.
Speaker 1: There was no way to really know what was going on.
Speaker 1: Except the news, of course, when they would do their
Speaker 1: news updates and the drawings of Dad while he was
Speaker 1: in the courtroom.
Speaker 2: Whatever anyone asked Laurie about her dad's trial, she was confident.
Speaker 1: My dad's innocent, He's been wrongfully accused, and hopefully he'll
Speaker 1: get out.
Speaker 2: Laurie knew the verdict would be announced on the radio
Speaker 2: on her Friday in July.
Speaker 1: I was at work and the only way I could
Speaker 1: find out what was going on was on an AM
Speaker 1: news radio station, a little tiny radio on my desk
Speaker 1: at work. I was listening all afternoon so that I
Speaker 1: could hear hear it. Finally, close to five o'clock they
Speaker 1: came on and said that they had found him guilty.
Speaker 1: But they said they found him guilty of murder.
Speaker 2: Murder.
Speaker 1: I thought he was being tried for Arson.
Speaker 2: When Laurie's dad, John was arrested for Arson, he downplayed
Speaker 2: the charges against him. He was so confident he told
Speaker 2: his daughters not to bother coming to his trial. But
Speaker 2: when Laurie tuned in to hear the verdict.
Speaker 1: They said they found him guilty of murder. I thought
Speaker 1: he was being tried for arson. It was completely shocking
Speaker 1: that it was a murder charge on top of everything else.
Speaker 2: Laurie learned on the radio that her dad had been
Speaker 2: found guilty not only of arson, but of four counts
Speaker 2: of first degree murder for four people that died in
Speaker 2: an arson fire. Then the radio report moved on to
Speaker 2: other topics like the weather and politics. But Laurie's world
Speaker 2: had just come crashing down.
Speaker 1: My brain just could not handle what that all meant.
Speaker 1: At that very moment, I put my head down on
Speaker 1: the desk and cried, my dad was gone forever. That
Speaker 1: was it, right there, just in that moment, he was
Speaker 1: just taken away like he had died.
Speaker 2: But she wasn't given much time to grieve.
Speaker 1: Within an hour, his attorneys were on the phone calling, saying,
Speaker 1: you need to get to our office tomorrow so that
Speaker 1: we could participate in the sentencing phase and testify for
Speaker 1: him to not get the death penalty, the death penalty.
Speaker 2: As Laurie drove to the attorney's office, her mind spun.
Speaker 2: She was convinced of her dad's innocence with every fiber
Speaker 2: of her being her stepdad Jerry, that's what a bad
Speaker 2: guy was like. Her dad was the complete opposite. He
Speaker 2: was a hero, a good guy. She didn't just believe
Speaker 2: that she knew that.
Speaker 1: He's innocent, Like, how can this happen? He was wrongfully accused?
Speaker 1: How dare you? It was shocking, but it was more
Speaker 1: shocking that they could put an innocent man behind bars
Speaker 1: right away.
Speaker 2: Luria and her sister agreed to testify in support of
Speaker 2: their dad at his sentencing hearing. With the death penalty
Speaker 2: on the table, the stakes could not be higher.
Speaker 1: We were on the same page, and I kind of
Speaker 1: went into I need to save my dad mode. He
Speaker 1: can't get the death penalty. I need to save his life.
Speaker 2: The weight of the sentence hung heavy on Laurie's shoulders.
Speaker 2: She lay awake at night, her mind racing what if
Speaker 2: she couldn't save his life?
Speaker 1: Would I want to be there when they carried out
Speaker 1: the death penalty? Would it be my fault if he
Speaker 1: gets the death penalty? Does that mean I didn't do
Speaker 1: enough or I didn't say the right things?
Speaker 2: Then the day of the sentencing hearing arrived, Laurie, her sister,
Speaker 2: her mom, and her grandparents all stood anxiously in the
Speaker 2: halls of the courthouse, waiting to be called in one
Speaker 2: by one.
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of firemen out there as well,
Speaker 1: and I introduced myself and I asked if they were
Speaker 1: there in support of my dad, and they kind of
Speaker 1: had an elusive answer. I thanked them for being there
Speaker 1: and thought that they were supporting the fact that he
Speaker 1: doesn't get the death penalty.
Speaker 2: Then Laurie was called in to testify.
Speaker 1: I can't even describe how nervous I was and shaking.
Speaker 1: I saw Dad off to the side and he didn't
Speaker 1: look at me. He didn't say anything, mouth anything, acted
Speaker 1: like I was a complete stranger.
Speaker 2: Laurie took the stand, his.
Speaker 1: Attorneys asked some questions. I was so nervous that it
Speaker 1: was almost like a blackout.
Speaker 2: A few days later, Wanda called her with the ruling.
Speaker 1: Four people said death penalty and eight people said no.
Speaker 1: He got life in prison without the possibility of pearl.
Speaker 1: I felt relieved that he didn't get the death penalty
Speaker 1: because I could still have a relationship with him.
Speaker 2: She tried to hold on to the closeness she felt
Speaker 2: with her dad.
Speaker 1: We would go visit him in prison, which was just
Speaker 1: horrific to suddenly be visiting your father in prison and
Speaker 1: bringing my one year old two year old son to
Speaker 1: see him.
Speaker 2: John eventually got transferred to a prison further away from
Speaker 2: Laurie when visiting became too difficult. She continued to write
Speaker 2: letters and he called her often.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about anything in depth. He always said
Speaker 1: that everything was recorded in jail and that he couldn't
Speaker 1: talk about his case because he was trying to appeal
Speaker 1: it and they would hear everything, so it was very surface.
Speaker 1: You know, what are you doing these days? How's your job?
Speaker 1: How's your mom.
Speaker 2: Part of Laurie's identity was being the child of a
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted man. It was a tragedy, a miscarriage of justice,
Speaker 2: and one she was powerless to fix. In the first
Speaker 2: year or two of a sentence, she thought about him
Speaker 2: every day, even from a distance. He was still the
Speaker 2: thoughtful father she knew and loved. But as the years
Speaker 2: asked her dad became resigned. When they were on the phone,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't ask about Laurie's life or her kids. He
Speaker 2: mainly called to ask for favors.
Speaker 1: He would ask, can you do this for me? Can
Speaker 1: you do that for me? Can you send me money?
Speaker 1: Contact this person, or write a letter to this person,
Speaker 1: or go in the boxes and try to find this page.
Speaker 1: And it's like we didn't have time to do all
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Laurie started avoiding his calls.
Speaker 1: I knew it was going to be another request to
Speaker 1: do something for him. It wasn't about how are you doing?
Speaker 1: It was about what he needed.
Speaker 2: The man on the other end of the phone started
Speaker 2: to sound different from the father Laurie had grown up with.
Speaker 2: Her father was selfless and spent his days saving others.
Speaker 2: This man now was selfish and seemed to care only
Speaker 2: about saving himself. It was only then that Laurie began
Speaker 2: to wonder what if she didn't really know her dad.
Speaker 1: I started to feel manipulated by him and feel like
Speaker 1: there was more to him. That's when I really said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read this book.
Speaker 2: The book it was a novel that her father, John
Speaker 2: wrote before he was arrested, a fictional story about an
Speaker 2: arson investigator who moon lies as a prolific arsonist. Once
Speaker 2: John was arrested, the book became a key piece of
Speaker 2: evidence in his trial.
Speaker 1: Is supposed to be fiction, and they used it in
Speaker 1: his trial, saying it was more like a diary.
Speaker 2: Laurie decided it was time to finally read it.
Speaker 1: I got through the first chapter and I had to
Speaker 1: put it down because every single thing in that chapter
Speaker 1: that I read about, the pictures he had on his walls,
Speaker 1: who he lived with, where we would go visit him
Speaker 1: as kids, everything I could remember as real life. That
Speaker 1: was scary. I thought, if I continue reading this book,
Speaker 1: everything I think about my dad can change.
Speaker 2: She put the book down. Reading any further felt like
Speaker 2: opening Pandora's box, and for one more year she kept
Speaker 2: the lid tightly shut. But then eventually she picked up
Speaker 2: the book again. The main character sets a fire in
Speaker 2: a hardware store. Before he does, he walks through the
Speaker 2: store pretending to be a customer. He overhears a conversation
Speaker 2: between grandparents running errands with their grandson.
Speaker 1: The grandmother and grandfather were telling their grandson that if
Speaker 1: he was good while he was in the store that
Speaker 1: they would take him next door to Baskin Robbin's and
Speaker 1: get ice cream. It was said in his book that
Speaker 1: the child said, I want midchip ice cream.
Speaker 2: The fire in the hardware store that John wrote about
Speaker 2: in his book was hauntingly similar to the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: four fire that killed four people in a hardware store
Speaker 2: in Pasadena, the one John investigated. But when the police
Speaker 2: Department started investigating his connection to a string of fires
Speaker 2: throughout California. They returned to interviews with the survivors of
Speaker 2: the fire, looking for any details that might show John
Speaker 2: was at the scene before the fire broke out.
Speaker 1: When they talked to the grandfather after the fire, they
Speaker 1: asked him about that scenario, and he said, we promised
Speaker 1: we would go next door to Baskin Robbins to get
Speaker 1: his favorite mintschip ice cream.
Speaker 2: When Laurie's father, John was arrested for arson, she was
Speaker 2: sure it was a mistake. He was an arson investigator
Speaker 2: and had dedicated his life to stopping these tragedies. He
Speaker 2: pled guilty in court to a lighter sentence, but always
Speaker 2: maintained that he was innocent. Laurie believed him, but then
Speaker 2: years later she decided to read his book, and what
Speaker 2: she read scared her.
Speaker 1: There's information in there that other people would not have known.
Speaker 1: I think that he had to be there in some
Speaker 1: of those circumstances.
Speaker 2: Could this be true? Laurie needed to know more.
Speaker 1: I read every piece of information I could find on him.
Speaker 1: I watched every show that I could get my hands on,
Speaker 1: newspaper articles, anything that had any information about his trial
Speaker 1: or crimes.
Speaker 2: But the most important evidence she found was in her
Speaker 2: own garage.
Speaker 1: We had boxes of stuff from the trial in our garages,
Speaker 1: and I started to investigate that she.
Speaker 2: Never really dug into those boxes. But when she started
Speaker 2: combing through them, she found something that made her stomach
Speaker 2: drop a videotape made by her dad.
Speaker 1: He had videoed places that were on fire, which was
Speaker 1: not uncommon for a narsional investigator because they analyzed fires.
Speaker 1: The difference in these videos was that he was videotaping
Speaker 1: the place that was on fire before it ever caught
Speaker 1: on fire, and then after while it was engulfed in flames.
Speaker 2: In June and nineteen ninety, temperatures in Glendale, California, reached
Speaker 2: over one hundred degrees. The hills that wrapped around the
Speaker 2: city grew dry, and then on June twenty seventh, a
Speaker 2: brush fire broke out in the hills. It picked up speed,
Speaker 2: quickly tearing into neighborhoods. Residents rushed to evacuate. The fire
Speaker 2: took a devastating toll. It destroyed forty six homes and
Speaker 2: damaged twenty others. Altogether, the brush fire caused fifty million
Speaker 2: dollars in damage. John hurried to the scene to investigate
Speaker 2: the cause, but during his trial it was revealed that
Speaker 2: John was at the scene before the fire started.
Speaker 1: He had a recording that showed the hillside prior to
Speaker 1: being on fire, just calm, quiet, settled, and then right
Speaker 1: after that it was the recording of the same exact spot,
Speaker 1: the same exact house burning to the ground.
Speaker 2: For over a decade, Laurie believed her dad when he
Speaker 2: said he was innocent. When she was growing up with
Speaker 2: an abusive stepfather, her dad was a place of refuge.
Speaker 2: He was the good guy. That's why she never believed
Speaker 2: the charges. But what was on this videotape felt less
Speaker 2: like evidence and more like proof.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't make any sense why he would have
Speaker 1: recorded that beforehand unless he was the one that started
Speaker 1: that fire. So I wrote him a letter and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to feel like you did these things. I
Speaker 1: really need you to tell me and convince me that
Speaker 1: you didn't, or else I'm done with you. I expected
Speaker 1: him to reply with a pleading statement for me to
Speaker 1: believe that he wouldn't do something like that. That's fully
Speaker 1: what I expected, that's what I wanted. And he wrote
Speaker 1: back to me and said when I get out of jail,
Speaker 1: you'll know how innocent I am.
Speaker 2: For the first time in her life, Laurie believed her
Speaker 2: dad was guilty. His letter was the final confirmation.
Speaker 1: I decided I did not need him and his manipulation
Speaker 1: in my life anymore. He did horrible things, and I
Speaker 1: don't need to have this horrible man in my life.
Speaker 2: The man who had set these fires and watched them
Speaker 2: burn felt like a complete stranger.
Speaker 1: You start to second guess everything your whole life.
Speaker 2: She flipped through childhood memories, trying to find anything that
Speaker 2: could have been a warning sign, but she kept coming
Speaker 2: up empty.
Speaker 1: He was always very, very cautious with fire. He always
Speaker 1: made sure our smoke detectors were working. He would always
Speaker 1: be careful with the campfire when we were camping, just
Speaker 1: like you would expected a fireman to be. There was
Speaker 1: never anything related to fire or my dad's relationship to
Speaker 1: fire that would have given me any indication that he
Speaker 1: would do something like this.
Speaker 2: Being a firefighter and an arson investigator was so central
Speaker 2: to John's identity. It was his passion his community and
Speaker 2: to his kids. It was what made him a hero.
Speaker 2: If that was all a lie, was anything about him real.
Speaker 1: Did he really even love me? You know, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I came across a picture of him holding me when
Speaker 1: I was a baby, and I thought, oh, he did
Speaker 1: love me at some point. You know. That's kind of
Speaker 1: how I felt about it afterwards, that everything was just
Speaker 1: a lie.
Speaker 2: She thought back to the time that her dad had
Speaker 2: made her and her sister hide in the car while
Speaker 2: he arrested someone, how he had pulled out his gun
Speaker 2: and stepped out onto the side of the highway. Had
Speaker 2: he really arrested someone or had something else happened? Everything
Speaker 2: was murkier now. As hard as it was to face
Speaker 2: the truth about her dad, Laurie wanted to see the
Speaker 2: full picture of him, so she finished reading his novel,
Speaker 2: and what she read made her sick.
Speaker 1: In his book went into heavy detail about how the
Speaker 1: firefighter who was lighting the fires was sexually aroused by fire. So,
Speaker 1: of course, when I'm reading this book, I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: my dad being that character and being aroused by fire.
Speaker 1: It just was pretty disgusting, really to think about that way.
Speaker 2: For some arsonists, like John, there is a sexual component
Speaker 2: to their crimes.
Speaker 1: I also learned in the interviews with him his ex wives,
Speaker 1: there definitely was sexually deviant behavior in his past that
Speaker 1: fits the arsonist role.
Speaker 2: Some of John's behavior seems almost contradictory in some ways.
Speaker 2: He appears to be proud of his crimes. He filmed them,
Speaker 2: wrote about them, insisted as an investigator that these were
Speaker 2: not accidental fires. He wanted everyone to know this was
Speaker 2: arson But once he was caught, he never admitted to
Speaker 2: what he had done.
Speaker 1: He's been in prison thirty five years now, but he
Speaker 1: still says he's innocent.
Speaker 2: Here's what Laurie thinks about this.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a cat and mouse game for him,
Speaker 1: I could do this and not get caught type of thing,
Speaker 1: and him writing the book was yet just another example
Speaker 1: of that, putting it in their face that he did
Speaker 1: those but isn't getting caught.
Speaker 2: Over the course of thirty years, John Orr set an
Speaker 2: estimated two thousand fires across California. He burned down countless
Speaker 2: homes and devastated ecosystems. He caused millions of dollars in
Speaker 2: property damage, and worst of all, his fires took four lives.
Speaker 2: John Orr is widely considered to be the most prolific
Speaker 2: arsonist in American history.
Speaker 1: After he was arrested the number of fires in Glendale
Speaker 1: and the surrounding cities went down by seventy five percent.
Speaker 1: That's pretty telling.
Speaker 2: In an area like southern California, where one rogue match
Speaker 2: can cause large scale, irreversible damage, that number is especially chilling.
Speaker 1: I can't even put into words what it's like to
Speaker 1: hear that my dad is considered the most prolific serial
Speaker 1: arsonists of all time. It's disgusting, it's horrible, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: He betrayed the fire industry, He betrayed his friends, his family,
Speaker 1: He betrayed everyone by letting us think that he was
Speaker 1: one person, this hero, respected firefighter, arson investigator who rose
Speaker 1: through the ranks to being a monster that started all
Speaker 1: of these fires in which people have died.
Speaker 2: As to how investigators finally figured out that it was
Speaker 2: John lighting these fires, it started with a fingerprint. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, firefighters found a fire starting device. It
Speaker 2: was made from a cigarette matches and notebook paper, and
Speaker 2: on the notebook paper was a fingerprint. But it would
Speaker 2: take a few years for fingerprinting technology to evolve enough
Speaker 2: for investigators to tie that fingerprint to John. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: something strange was happening. A series of fires was breaking
Speaker 2: out across California, with a bizarre element tying them together.
Speaker 2: They all broke out near arson investigation conferences. Cross referencing
Speaker 2: lists of attendees to these conferences generated a list of
Speaker 2: key suspects, and among them was John. Finally, in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one, new fingerprint technology was available and investigators were
Speaker 2: able to trace the fingerprint from the notebook paper back
Speaker 2: to John Orr. But the fingerprint still wasn't enough. Maybe
Speaker 2: John had just mishandled the evidence. They needed more proof,
Speaker 2: so they placed a tracking device in his car, and
Speaker 2: then John's car was tracked to a location of an
Speaker 2: arson fire and he was arrested. The investigation revealed eerie
Speaker 2: warning signs from John's childhood.
Speaker 1: He was lighting fires as young as eight years old.
Speaker 1: My dad, in my mind, was troubled since birth.
Speaker 2: Laurie has been forced to rewrite the entire story of
Speaker 2: who her father is, but John himself has never admitted
Speaker 2: the truth.
Speaker 1: It is something that haunts me, and I pray that
Speaker 1: he will leave a note or a letter or something
Speaker 1: when he is on his deathbed that puts closure to it.
Speaker 2: To come to terms with her dad's actions, Laurie went
Speaker 2: to therapy.
Speaker 1: The therapist looked at me and he said, your dad's
Speaker 1: a sociopath and you need to grieve him like he's dead.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I did. I grieved him like
Speaker 1: he was dead and put him out of mind, out
Speaker 1: of sight, and I let that part of my life go.
Speaker 2: When Laurie was thirty five, she had a heart attack.
Speaker 2: She had to take time away from work to recover.
Speaker 1: Once I went on disability, I had a really challenging time,
Speaker 1: and so I somehow got the idea to write a book,
Speaker 1: and that's just what I needed At that moment.
Speaker 2: Laurie reached out to Frank Girardo, a journalist who'd covered
Speaker 2: her dad's crimes. She asked him if you would be
Speaker 2: interested in co authoring the book.
Speaker 1: With her back when my dad was arrested, Frank interviewed
Speaker 1: my dad and with his familiarity with the case, he
Speaker 1: was the perfect person to do this with me.
Speaker 2: While researching and writing the book, she decided to get
Speaker 2: in touch with the mother of the child who died
Speaker 2: in the fire at the hardware store.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get that family off my mind. The fact
Speaker 1: that she lost her mom and her son in the
Speaker 1: same fire that day. I just felt compelled that I
Speaker 1: had to apologize on his behalf. She did tell me
Speaker 1: that she was able to move on and find joy
Speaker 1: in her life and now she has grank kids and
Speaker 1: you know, things like that, and she recommended that I
Speaker 1: do the same, to move on from the tragedy that
Speaker 1: was my life and to make the best out of
Speaker 1: my life that I can.
Speaker 2: The process of writing the book was a way for
Speaker 2: Lorie to reckon with her part in the story.
Speaker 1: I wanted people to know that I now think he's guilty.
Speaker 1: If he's telling you he's innocent, he's not, let me
Speaker 1: assure you he's not, and in some way to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that I probably had no business testifying so he wouldn't
Speaker 1: get the death penalty. That was important for me to
Speaker 1: put out there and have people know, because I only
Speaker 1: knew what I knew at the time, and I felt
Speaker 1: really guilty for doing that and sparing his life. He
Speaker 1: should have never put me on the stand. He should
Speaker 1: have never allowed his kids to do that or go
Speaker 1: through that.
Speaker 2: Lourie's book is called Burned Murder and a Daughter's Nightmare.
Speaker 2: Her father's crimes will always be a part of her story,
Speaker 2: but they are not the whole story.
Speaker 1: Only with maturity, do you see all the ways that
Speaker 1: your life was shaped. I've had lots of issues in
Speaker 1: my life that probably stem from having issues with my
Speaker 1: dad and not having him there to protect me or
Speaker 1: be a role model to me. But I will never
Speaker 1: stop trying to be happy no matter what, till the
Speaker 1: day I die. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 2: Laurie has built a beautiful life for herself.
Speaker 1: What I'm doing now is just going through life raising
Speaker 1: my kids, trying to be as happy as I possibly
Speaker 1: can be in the time that I have. I have
Speaker 1: absolutely wonderful kids. I have four of them, three are adults.
Speaker 1: One I'm still raising.
Speaker 2: Laurie's chosen to be honest with them about who their
Speaker 2: grandfather is.
Speaker 1: As young as they were saying mom, where's your dad
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, I would answer it age appropriately.
Speaker 2: When Laurie's son was in high school, his teacher announced
Speaker 2: that their next assignment was to write a paper about
Speaker 2: the serial arsonist John Orr.
Speaker 1: He raised his hand and said, teacher, that's my grandfather.
Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, well, you don't have to do this.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do the work, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. He's a stranger to me. I'll do it.
Speaker 1: And I told his teacher if she wanted me to
Speaker 1: answer any questions for them, that I'd be happy to
Speaker 1: do that, And so she emailed me questions from the
Speaker 1: students and then I emailed it back to them.
Speaker 2: We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
Speaker 2: do you want to share your story.
Speaker 1: When all this went down with my dad? The fire
Speaker 1: community is very close knit and takes care of each other.
Speaker 1: Not one person ever asked how we were doing, if
Speaker 1: we were okay, we needed anything, So it always made
Speaker 1: me feel like we were guilty by association. And I
Speaker 1: want people to know that we're victims too. I don't
Speaker 1: want to take the place of the actual victims, but
Speaker 1: we are victims that were affected by that crime, and
Speaker 1: my dad was taken away immediately from me, just as
Speaker 1: if he had died. I don't know why I keep
Speaker 1: doing this. After I do it, when we hang up,
Speaker 1: then I go, oh, I think I did a good job.
Speaker 1: I think I conveyed the messages that I wanted to convey.
Speaker 1: But I didn't sleep well last night and I won't
Speaker 1: sleep well tonight because this is in my brain. That's
Speaker 1: why I have to very strategically put it out of
Speaker 1: my mind and my head because it does affect me
Speaker 1: when I go back and visit it. But I do
Speaker 1: think there's important messages that I'm putting out there.
Speaker 2: This is our last Betrayal Weekly episode for a little while.
Speaker 2: We'll be back in January with a whole new season
Speaker 2: of Betrayal. It'll be one story told over multiple weeks,
Speaker 2: and after that we have more Betrayal Weekly episodes coming.
Speaker 2: Right now, we're actively working on news stories, so if
Speaker 2: you have a story you'd like to share on the podcast,
Speaker 2: write to us at betrayalpod at gmail dot com. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, we hope you enjoy your holiday season. We'll
Speaker 2: see you in the new year. To access our newsletter,
Speaker 2: view additional content, and connect with the Betrayal community, join
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Speaker 2: to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a
Speaker 2: long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.
Speaker 2: Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
Speaker 2: Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show
Speaker 2: is exact secutive, produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason,
Speaker 2: hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning. This episode was
Speaker 2: written and produced by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Leboard, with
Speaker 2: additional production from Ben Fetterman, casting support from Curry Richmond.
Speaker 2: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
Speaker 2: editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional audio editing by
Speaker 2: Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
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