Identification Positive on Killer of Arson Investigator

K.C. Janulaitis has been positively identified as the gunman who killed Dennis J. Donelson, an Orange County Fire Department investigator, and wounded a woman in her San Juan Capistrano apartment Oct. 4, authorities said Tuesday.

Ballistics experts have matched two bullets found at victim Barbara Clark’s home with those of a Ruger .357 magnum that Janulaitis had in his possession when he was shot and killed by U.S. Customs officers in a gun battle at a Mexican border checkpoint on Oct. 5, Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said Tuesday.

Clark, 31, who was shot in the side, was released from Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo on Monday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Clark told her neighbors immediately after the shooting that Janulaitis, 42, had fired at her and Donelson, 46. Donelson died during surgery for an abdominal gunshot wound.

Authorities then broadcast an all-points bulletin to law enforcement agencies warning that Janulaitis was a suspect.

Janulaitis, a self-employed computer programmer from San Clemente, was shot to death the following day--after he opened fire on customs officers as he tried to return to the United States from Mexico at the San Ysidro border crossing.

Olson said detectives have questioned Clark, who works at a Brass Bed for Less shop in Mission Viejo. He said the case is still under investigation, but there is no question that Janulaitis killed Donelson, an arson investigator who had worked for nearly two decades as a firefighter and then battalion chief.

Janulaitis was suspected of intentionally starting a July 26 fire at a San Juan Capistrano condominium where Clark lived, authorities said. The fire destroyed $70,000 in property, they said. They said that Donelson was investigating that case and that he was on duty at the time he was shot in Clark’s apartment.