Casefile True Crime - 327: Case 280: The Stockton Arsonist
Episode Date: April 20, 2024*** Content warnings: Animal cruelty *** On a hot summer’s day in 1989, a father and son travelling through Stockton, California, discover a VHS tape left by the side of a road. When they take it ...home and decide to watch it, they make a disturbing discovery. The tape contains footage of a house burning to the ground and was apparently filmed by the arsonist who lit the fire. When investigators looking into the tape hit a series of dead ends, they enlist the help of popular television series Unsolved Mysteries, and the case becomes known as that of the infamous Stockton Arsonist. --- Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Erin Munro Creative direction – Milly Raso Production and music – Mike Migas Music – Andrew D.B. Joslyn Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium Spotify Premium Patreon For all credits and sources, please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-280-the-stockton-arsonist
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Tuesday, August 15, 1989 was a very hot summer's day in California's Central Valley. Joseph Villa, not his real name, was driving near the 205 Highway in Stockton with his
wife and son when their car overheated. Joseph pulled over on a
quiet side road and propped up the car's bonnet to inspect the damage. Realising it was too severe
to fix without assistance, Joseph decided he and his son would walk to the nearest payphone to
call for help while his wife waited at the car. As the father and son headed down the dusty road in
search of a phone, the boy noticed an old military fatigue jacket in a camouflage print crumpled on
the ground. A military-style unit patch was crudely sewn on it. He kicked at the jacket and revealed
an unmarked VHS cassette tape bundled underneath. Curious about what might
be on there, he and his dad took it with them to watch later. At home, the Villa family inserted
the videotape into their VCR and hit play. They gathered around the television.
It appeared to contain footage of a home movie. Whoever had shot it
had done so outside at night. Most of their surroundings were shrouded in darkness,
but in the centre of the screen, a short distance away from the cameraman was a single-storey
ranch house. The entire building was on fire. Crackling sounds could be heard as the blaze
overwhelmed the house's timber frame. The person behind the camera was clearly eager to record
every second of the building's destruction. A male voice appeared in the background,
seemingly narrating the unfolding disaster.
His voice was hushed and his tone excited. My domain, my hell, I call hell.
My hell, the whole sky is black with smoke.
It is the fire that I will destroy.
And burn, or so up.
There's joy and pain.
I saw love and tears that I believed in. It seemed as though the person who had filmed the fire was also the one responsible for starting it.
He began addressing somebody he called Omar.
Soon sirens could be heard as firefighters rushed to the scene.
Their loud, wailing noise seemed to prompt neighbourhood coyotes to howl in reply. The unseen narrator behind the camera continued The tape then shifted to footage from the horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street, recorded
straight off a televised airing.
It wasn't clear if the Inferno footage had been taped over the movie or edited in for a reason.
The Villa family were shocked and wasted no time in passing the tape along to the authorities.
Arson investigators at California's Department of Forestry took responsibility for the case.
One of them went back to where the Villas had found the tape.
The fatigued jacket was still there. Wrapped up inside the garment were a few audio cassettes
featuring heavy metal music. Lying nearby was a single glove in the same camouflage print as the jacket.
The investigator also discovered a small ceramic skull and a wooden pestle of the type used to grind and crush herbs.
As it was 1989, investigators suspected these latter two items suggested some kind of occult connection. Throughout the 1980s and early 90s,
many law enforcement agencies in the United States were swept up in what later became known
as the Satanic Panic, a fear that groups of people who worshipped the Christian figure of the devil
were committing crimes around the country. The investigators responsible for looking into the Stockton
arsonist tape had noted the arsonists frequent references to hell and evil. They suspected the
ceramic skull was some kind of demonic talisman and the pestle might have been used in satanic
rituals. Investigators just weren't sure why the videotape had been left with the other
items by the side of the road. Maybe the perpetrator had stashed them there and intended to return,
or perhaps he felt a thrill at the thought of his work being discovered and wanted it to be found.
The best hope investigators had of getting to the bottom of the case was to review the tape for evidence.
The fact that the arsonist often spoke in a stage whisper made it difficult to understand
much of what he said, so investigators watched the tape over and over again and painstakingly
crafted a transcript
of the audio.
The repeated references to someone called Omar caught their attention.
They theorised that maybe Omar was the arsonist's term for the devil, or perhaps he even used
it as slang for the police.
The idea that the arsonist could actually be saying Omar, the German word for
grandmother, was also floated. But the most popular theories were that Omar was someone's name,
possibly the owner of the house shown burning on the film. Investigators noted that on the left
side of the screen there was a white trailer by a neighbouring
property.
This suggested that the ranch house set alight had actually been under construction at the
time.
Maybe Omar was the head of the building crew and the arsonist was one of his labourers.
If the arsonist had been fired by Omar then that could point to a motive of revenge.
What they really needed to uncover was the property's location.
If they could pinpoint a specific address, then they would be on their way to solving
the case.
Investigators tried to zoom in on the house to see if a street name or number was visible,
but they were unable to spot anything.
The arsonist had filmed the moment that firefighters arrived, so the investigators also tried enhancing footage of their truck. Perhaps they could see some kind of identification
number or county name emblazoned on the vehicle. Once again, they had no success.
Once again, they had no success. The property was a single-storey ranch house with two chimneys, and it appeared to have been under construction at the time it was burnt. Investigators combed
through reports of house fires in the region to see if anything fit the bill, but found no matches.
They began to wonder whether the blaze had even taken place in California.
The 205 highway was just a few yards from where the tape was found,
and it linked to several other major highways that stretched out across the country.
Investigators began to worry that they might never find the person responsible for what they had
dubbed the Omar fire. This thought concerned more than one of them. Frank Curry, a fire captain at
the California Department of Forestry, had been so disturbed by the footage of the tape that he'd
struggled to sleep after first watching it. Doug Allen, a law enforcement coordinator at the
department, feared that the person responsible could go on to commit further, more violent crimes.
He was well aware that some criminals, such as New York serial killer Son of Sam, had started
their crime sprees with arson before moving on to murder. Doug Allen quote,
I think the person who made this videotape and is responsible for the fire will, without a doubt in
my mind, continue to set fires. And the person needs to be apprehended and stopped before his
fires become more destructive.
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Investigators spent a year trying to figure out the location of the fire, but finally
accepted that they had hit a dead end.
Realising that the media might be one way they could generate some leads,
they approached the producers of the primetime television program, Unsolved Mysteries.
As well as featuring stories about missing persons and unexplained paranormal phenomena,
the series explored unsolved crimes. Viewers
at home were encouraged to call in to the show's hotline with any information they might have.
The show's producers were keen to cover the Omar fire. Some of the case investigators,
including Doug Allen and Frank Currie, appeared on camera to discuss their concerns.
The show also depicted a reenactment of how the mysterious and disturbing videotape was
found.
The episode aired on the night of Wednesday, September 19, 1990.
As Ed Tarantino sat in his Redwood City home approximately 80 miles west of where the Villa
family had found the tape, a wave of shock washed over him. The house shown burning on his television
screen was the very same one that sat behind his own. It had been under construction when the fire spread more than two years earlier on August 15 1988 and was
subsequently rebuilt. Although Ed had been aware of the destructive blaze, the existence of a
creepy video of the entire thing came as a disturbing surprise. He called the unsolved
mysteries hotline. Ed wasn't the only viewer who recognised the property.
Bill Otterly was a contractor who'd struggled with constructing a house back in the summer of 1988.
The residence he had been building was a 4200 square foot home in Redwood City's
Emerald Lake Hills neighbourhood. It was an expensive undertaking, with the house
valued at $850,000. Just after the home's plywood walls were put up, the entire thing was burned
down under the cover of night. When Bill discovered what had happened, He had sat by the destroyed shell of a house and cried.
The house was rebuilt and during the second attempt at construction, Bill had paid an
employee to stand guard over it at night.
As Bill watched Unsolved Mysteries air footage of the fire that had stumped arson investigators
over in Stockton, he recognised the house being destroyed
by flames. He was watching his own property burn to the ground. In the days after the episode aired,
the team at Unsolved Mysteries received a record-breaking 1,600 phone calls.
Some offered theories about where the patch sewn on the fatigue jacket had originated from
or what it signified. Others called in from all over the country to report house fires they
thought matched the one on the Stockton Arsonist tape. But it was the calls from the San Mateo County area that fascinated
investigators the most. Three years earlier, in the summer of 1987, the Emerald Lake Hills neighborhood
near Redwood City began experiencing a spate of fires. All were started from gasoline and Molotov cocktails, and as many as 30 blazes were thought
to be connected to the attacks.
Most of them burned out naturally before causing significant damage, but several had destroyed
new homes that were under construction, including one belonging to Bill Otterly.
San Mateo County investigators had a theory. They believed the arsonist was angry
at the development of what had been a rural area. A couple of years earlier, San Mateo County had
received federal funding for a new sewer system, which led to increased residential construction.
It had come at the perfect time. The county was in the
heart of Silicon Valley which was rapidly growing alongside the technology companies based there.
As more people moved to the area for work, more homes were needed and the region began to change.
San Franciscans in search of space started to relocate to the quieter Redwood
City and to Emerald Lake Hills. In November 1988, a 100-year-old cabin that was in the
process of being turned into a luxurious house was burned down. Investigators discovered
that the arsonist had scrawled a message on a wall inside.
Neighbours revolt.
Please, no more new houses.
Because the attacks had taken place across a five square mile area, authorities struggled
to pinpoint a suspect.
But now, several years after the fires began, it seemed that other investigators in a neighbouring
county had found proof of the arsonist in the form of a disturbing video tape.
As it happened, investigators in San Mateo County also had footage of the blaze that had destroyed
Bill Otterly's house. After setting up the command post and dispatching firefighters to put out the
flames, the fire captain had set up a video camera to film the entire thing for investigative and
training purposes. The recent outbreak of arson attacks had meant capturing one on tape was more
important than ever. Investigators were able to compare the footage from the fire captain's video to that on
the cassette found by the Villa family. It confirmed that not only were they both of the same blaze,
but that the firefighters had been standing just 50 feet away from the arsonist as he filmed his his handy work.
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As well as helping pinpoint the fire's location, the involvement of unsolved mysteries led to another crucial clue.
A woman named Doris Lance had also watched the episode as it aired. She too lived close to Bill
Otterly's house and she remembered the fire well. But that wasn't the only thing that stood out to
her about the creepy footage. The arsonists' repeated references to
someone called Omar caught Doris' attention. She had a neighbour named Omar. He was a 17-year-old
boy who lived with his family and had gotten into trouble on more than one occasion. Doris
placed a call to investigators. When the teenager was chased down and interviewed,
he quickly broke down under questioning. Omar explained that he had a friend who was two years
older than him. The two of them had lit the fire together and filmed the entire thing. Omar had remained silent as the camcorder recorded
everything. His friend was the one who had narrated the blaze.
Jason, not his real name, was 19 years old by the time he was brought to investigators'
attention. They placed him under surveillance. During the period when they were
observing Jason, the garage of his home happened to catch on fire and burnt down.
As investigators combed through the rubble, they found several interesting things. There were
knives and saws that appeared to be stained with blood, some mutilated animal remains,
a table where items had clearly been cut up, and a mask featuring the face of Freddy Krueger,
the villain from A Nightmare on Elm Street. In the film, the spirit of Krueger seeks revenge
on a group of teenagers after their parents kill him by burning him alive in a boiler room.
They light the fire with Molotov cocktails.
Armed with the disturbing evidence recovered from Jason's garage just over a week after the episode of Unsolved Mysteries aired,
investigators hauled the 19-year-old in for questioning.
Investigators hauled the 19-year-old in for questioning.
Just like Omar, Jason soon admitted to everything. He confirmed that he was behind the fire on the videotape and had filmed the entire thing. To investigators, Jason appeared to be a very
troubled young man. At times he was sullen and withdrawn, but then he would start
crying as he spoke about what he had done. Armed with a search warrant, investigators returned
to Jason's home in search of further evidence. They discovered that the tape found in Stockton
wasn't the only one he had made. Further tapes recovered from Jason's residence indicated
he had followed news coverage of his fires. He had filmed a series of newspaper clippings that
covered the arson attacks and pinned the articles to a wall. There was also footage of black spray
paint on a wall that read, please no more houses. This was reminiscent of similar graffiti
found at the 100-year-old cabin burnt down in November 1988. There were also more home movies
that he'd made with Omar. One showed Jason being filmed by Omar from behind. He had pulled his t-shirt up around the back of
his neck to make it look like he had a hunchback, and he curled his hands to resemble claws.
As Jason turned around to face the camera, he revealed that he was wearing a vampire mask.
He had painted an upside down cross on his forehead and he snarled at the camera.
In a different clip, Jason wielded a knife at a dummy which he addressed as father.
After asking how the dummy was, he said,
I hope you're doing real good. Then he stabbed it in the chest and used the knife to slice off its head.
Dressed as Dracula, he gave a theatrical performance to the camera. Another video showed Jason and Omar playing violent war-style games in a rural area, presumably
the Emerald Lake Hills neighbourhood.
While some investigators have said that the two had no motive for the fires they lit,
others have speculated that they were upset by the development of a region they clearly enjoyed spending time in. Authorities linked to Jason and Omar to the burning of 11 buildings and 15 separate grassfires.
In total, their actions had caused more than $2 million in damage.
Both suspects were tried as minors due to their respective ages at the time of the fires.
Omar was sentenced to serve time in a juvenile detention facility, while Jason was sent
to a mental health hospital in the hopes he would receive help and rehabilitation. Their identities
have never been released by authorities or the media, and it is not publicly known what became
of them after their sentencing. In the years since the episode of Unsolved Mysteries made the Stockton
Arsonist case infamous, it has continued to generate discussion online, thanks mostly to
the unsettling footage of the fire. According to online sleuths who allegedly discovered Jason's true identity, he died in January 2017 at the age of 45. Jason had been walking along
a highway in San Mateo County when he tripped and stumbled onto the road. He was struck by a passing
car and pronounced dead at the scene. Although the young man's fires took place almost 90 miles away from Stockton in an entirely
different part of California, the case has remained associated with the location where
the tape was discovered.
It remains unclear how Jason and Omar's tape ended up in a place so far away from their
homes. you