Murder Suspect Opened Way for Own Arrest : Crime: A man accused of killing his wife gave investigators X-rays that helped identify her charred body.

A La Canada Flintridge man who was arrested this week for allegedly murdering his wife and setting her body on fire may have unwittingly provided the key to his own arrest, authorities said Thursday.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials said they had no clues to the identity of the charred body found in the desert three weeks ago until Don Miralle, 46, contacted the county coroner last week.

X-rays provided by Miralle were used to identify the body of Tessie Miralle, 49, a prominent businesswoman who disappeared Sept. 12 after visiting her husband’s office in Pasadena.

The body was found Sept. 13 but was not identified until after Don Miralle called the coroner on Sept. 25. Without Miralle’s help, identifying the body and finding a suspect “more than likely would have been very difficult,” said Detective Pierre Ingersoll of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Miralle, a civil engineer, was arrested late Wednesday by San Bernardino authorities after he returned home from his wife’s funeral. An arrest warrant had been issued earlier in the day.

Ingersoll said Miralle “was very calm and showed no emotion” when he was arrested in front of his three distraught children, a college-age daughter and two teen-age sons. The children pleaded that their father was innocent, Ingersoll said.

Miralle is being held without bail at the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino. Arraignment is scheduled for today in Victorville Municipal Court.

Detectives said tire prints found near the body were traced to a vehicle owned by Miralle. Ingersoll said Miralle had a new set of tires put on his 1990 Chevrolet Suburban in Pasadena two days after the wife’s body was found. He said the tires taken off the vehicle and left at a Pasadena tire dealer matched the prints found in the desert. Evidence also was found at Miralle’s office and home, Ingersoll said. He declined to elaborate.

Detectives and coroner’s investigators said they initially had few clues and little hope of identifying the body, which had been burned beyond recognition. A plume of smoke rising out of a remote desert area caught the attention of a motorist who discovered the still-smoldering body off a dirt road in the El Mirage area, west of Victorville.

A man who described himself as a friend of Miralle said that when he heard that a body had been found, he urged Miralle to call the San Bernardino County coroner, which gave a big boost to the sheriff’s investigation.

The body was positively identified Sept. 28 by forensic dentists who used X-rays supplied to investigators by Don Miralle.

The friend, who asked not to be identified, said he was shocked when he learned Miralle had been arrested. “I still can’t believe it,” he said.

Police said they have not found a motive, although they learned that the couple had talked about divorce for years. Tessie Miralle had hired a private detective last spring to determine if her husband was being unfaithful, police said.

Friends said Miralle cried at times and appeared emotionally stricken during the funeral Wednesday at St. Bede’s Roman Catholic Church in La Canada Flintridge.

More than 700 people attended a funeral Mass on Tuesday evening at the church, where the Miralle family has been active. Tessie Miralle was buried Wednesday at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills. More than 300 people, many of them community leaders, attended a funeral reception Wednesday afternoon at a private club in La Canada Flintridge.