A Town Terrorized--4 Murders, String of Fires Haunt Residents

It began with the brutal and shocking murder of a family of four, shot to death and then left inside their burning home.

Since then, there have been five more deliberately set fires--but no more injuries--in restaurants and public buildings of this Mendocino County coastal town. Authorities are not certain that the subsequent fires are linked to the murders, but the cumulative effect of the wave of violence and arson has been to ignite fear, anger and suspicion in this community of largely wood-frame buildings.

Gary Milliman, city administrator here for nine years, said the fires “have been an awakening for the community that these types of events are not the exclusive domain of urban areas.”

A waitress at a local delicatessen reflected some of the anger in the community when she said, “When they find the guy who did this they ought to hang him in the town square and burn him.”

That may not be a typical sentiment here, but as Joe Mayberry, the 60-year-old police chief put it, “Everybody in town is scared, and rightfully so. I’m nervous. We don’t know what to expect next.”

The fires all were started in the middle of the night by someone pouring flammable liquid throughout the structures then torching them.

Both the state fire marshal’s office and the elite National Response Team from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are assisting in the investigation. As many as 35 federal agents, some from as far away as Alaska and Alabama, have been sifting through the ruins, interviewing people and chasing down leads. So far, however, there have been no arrests.

A Cry for Help

“We’re just overwhelmed. I called for help because our community is so small we can’t handle the investigation ourselves,” said Bob Ramage, 46, chief of Fort Bragg’s 45-member volunteer fire department.

The wave of fires began on the night of Oct. 6, 1986, when William Grondalski, 33, his wife, Patricia, and their children, Nolan, 7, and Dallas, 5, were shot. The house was drenched with gasoline and torched. The charred bodies of the family were found in the smoldering ruins.

Mendocino Middle School’s gymnasium and cafeteria 15 miles to the south were set ablaze and destroyed in the same manner Dec. 11.

Flammable liquid was used to start a small fire in the Cliff House restaurant July 18. On Aug. 4, the arsonist or arsonists returned and completed the job.

“It was like a bomb. The restaurant blew up, shattering all the windows then was destroyed in the resulting fire. No one was in the building at the time,” recalled Fire Chief Ramage.

Then at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 20 the town was rocked with another explosion and fire when the 75-year-old Redwood Library went up in flames. Flames spread to the adjoining courthouse.

Eight minutes after firemen arrived at the library and courthouse another flammable-liquid fire erupted at the other end of town at the century-old Piedmont Hotel.

Everything in the library was lost, including more than 30,000 books and irreplaceable memorabilia dating from the 1850s. The district attorney’s office and Mendocino County sheriff’s substation in the courthouse were also destroyed.

No one was in the courthouse, library or the Piedmont Hotel at the time. The Piedmont had been converted into a bar and restaurant several years ago and had been a popular meeting place for service clubs.

The latest incident was Oct. 18 when the Waterfront Restaurant was broken into at night and flammable liquid was poured on carpeting throughout. This time, however, the perpetrator apparently fled before torching the building, although no one knows why. The restaurant is still strong with the odor of gasoline fumes. All the carpeting has been removed and the damage is being repaired.

“Everybody in town is asking which restaurant will be hit next,” mused Bill Siminton, 70, owner of a small reprinting store.

Fort Bragg, population 5,500, an hour from the nearest four-lane highway, is a quaint oceanfront town with a lumber mill and the largest fishing fleet between San Francisco and Eureka. The town’s several-block business section is made up almost entirely of turn-of-the-century one- and two-story frame buildings jammed together.

“What’s really scary is the danger here that the whole downtown area is a potential fire trap. A fire on a windy night downtown could be a terrible catastrophe,” said Mike Cimolino, 28, heavy equipment operator for the Public Works Department.

Merchants and their employees have been taking turns patrolling downtown from midnight to sunup since the courthouse and library burned. Townspeople are leery of newcomers. The Police Department is called daily about this stranger or that stranger.

“We’re checking every possible angle,” said Police Chief Mayberry, who has assigned one of his officers, Les Pierce, 32, full time as investigator in charge of the command center established at the fire station after the library and courthouse burned.

Owners and employees of the three restaurants have been given polygraph tests.

Also posted throughout the town is an enlarged color photograph of a sandy-haired man wearing glasses in his late 30s or early 40s with a caption that reads: “WHO IS THIS MAN?”

Someone snapped the picture the night of the library and courthouse fire, when the stranger showed up to help fight the flames. Authorities say they aren’t certain whether he is a Good Samaritan or a potential suspect, but they’d like to talk to him.

Both the fire chief, police chief and outside investigators believe the murders and torching of the Grondalski home are probably unrelated to the other fires.

“Grondalski moved up here recently from Martinez in the Bay Area to break away from the Hells Angels. We believe his murder and that of his family is Hells Angels-related,” Mayberry said. Grondalski worked as a tow truck operator in Fort Bragg.

Ramage said rumors are all over town about other buildings on a hit list by the arsonist. “My job lately is trying to chase down the rumors and run the Fire Department at the same time. I have a list of 21 other places that will be burned according to rumor circulating.”

Meanwhile, the library has reopened in temporary quarters in the last building of old Fort Bragg, a small 1857 frame structure. Many local residents have donated books from personal collections to the library. The Mendocino County Library has lent the town one of its bookmobiles.

Librarian Sylvia Kozak-Budd estimates that it will cost $700,000 to replace the more than 30,000 volumes and other material burned and $300,000 to rebuild the structure. She is uncertain how much of the loss will be covered by insurance. Already several fund-raising events--ranging from a pancake breakfast to a Halloween ball--have brought in more than $30,000 for the library rebuilding fund.

Another $33,765 has been raised by townspeople as a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the fires.

And the determination to rebound is evident at the Cliff House restaurant, where owners Dominic Affinito, 50, and his son, Mario, 25, have painted a sign on a standing wall of the ruins: “Hold On to Your Appetites. Thank You for Your Support. We Will Be Back. The Cliff House Gang.”