Jury Deadlocks on Sentence for Arsonist

Jurors who convicted former Glendale Fire Capt. John Leonard Orr of igniting a fatal South Pasadena hardware store blaze deadlocked Thursday on what penalty to impose after voting 8 to 4 in favor of sentencing him to death.

As he had throughout the trial, Orr, 49, sat stoically, although he appeared to relax slightly as Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry informed the nearly empty courtroom that the jury could not reach a decision.

Afterward, prosecutors declined to say whether they would retry the penalty phase of the case with a new jury in an effort to secure a death sentence or accept a term of life in prison without parole.

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said any such decision would have to be made before Orr’s Sept. 17 sentencing hearing.

Looking back at the five-week trial, Deputy Dist. Attys. Michael Cabral and Sandra Flannery said they found no joy in pursuing the case against Orr, who had become a widely respected arson investigator while secretly pursuing a career as an arsonist, torching dozens of buildings. He was “someone who had a lot of things going for him, . . . but threw it all away for a few seconds of pleasure,” Cabral said.

Orr was found guilty last month of two dozen offenses, including four counts of first-degree murder for setting a 1984 blaze that swept through Ole’s Home Center in South Pasadena, killing two employees, a 2-year-old boy and the boy’s grandmother.

Key evidence against him was the manuscript of his unpublished novel, in which the protagonist, a firefighter-turned-arsonist, torches a Pasadena hardware store, killing a small boy and store employees.

The jury also determined that Orr set a string of fires in Glendale and La Canada Flintridge in 1990-91, including a massive brush fire that damaged or destroyed 67 homes.

“It was a difficult case, and whenever someone’s life is at stake, it’s a very serious matter,” said jury forewoman Patricia Tubert Stewart. “The jurors who voted against death believed that a life sentence without the possibility of parole was a sufficient penalty, although they didn’t articulate the reasons why.”

“I think the notoriety of the case put the jurors in an usually visible position,” said Orr’s defense lawyer Peter Giannini. “I was gratified that some of them thought it wasn’t an appropriate case for the death penalty.”

But Luis Cetina, whose brother Jimmy died in 1984 as a result of Orr’s crimes, disagreed. “With all due respect to those jurors who voted against capital punishment, Orr committed a crime of terror, malice and destruction and beat the system,” Cetina said. “He didn’t have to pay for a crime that sentenced the families of the victims to a life of pain.”

Kim Troidl, whose son and mother died in the hardware store fire, added: “The fact that he gets to enjoy visits from his family is an abomination. He showed no remorse about the whole thing.”