Police Ignored Own Policies in O.C. Arson Case

Police ignored their own missing-person policies that would have brought to light the alibi of a Laguna Beach arson suspect before he was wrongfully charged, a ranking police official acknowledged Thursday.

Capt. Ken Head, who oversees all Fullerton police investigations, said that an internal “breakdown” left county prosecutors, fire officials and police investigators believing that Jose Soto Martinez was a transient with no relatives in the United States, when in fact family members had visited the department twice in three days to report him missing.

Martinez, who was in a nearby cell both times his mother sought assistance at the police station’s front desk, was being held in connection with three small fires he was accused of setting in Fullerton, and was also being questioned about the firestorm that had devastated parts of Laguna Beach.

“This just shouldn’t have happened,” Head said.

Instead of being acted upon promptly, the missing-person report filed by Martinez’s mother “got put on the back burner, and got put on the back burner, and then, several days later, it all came to light.”

There are regular procedures that detectives are supposed to follow any time a missing-person report is filed, Head said. “You just have to go through the steps--A, B, C, D--and we just didn’t do that.”

Even though the family had identified the missing man as Jaime Saille, and he had identified himself to police investigators as Jose Soto Martinez, Head acknowledged that the Fullerton police knew from a criminal history check that Martinez had used both names in the past, and that the two names had been entered almost immediately in the department’s computer.

“We had the names entered in our system,” Head said. “That was our breakdown. If we had run our missing-person report earlier, we could have tied the two names together instantly.”

Unbeknown to police, prosecutors and fire investigators, the mother who was pleading for help in finding her son could have spared them the embarrassment they endured when charges that he ignited the Laguna fire had to be dismissed--charges based on a confession that turned out to be bogus.

After Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi announced at a news conference that Martinez had been formally charged with setting the blaze, the mother came forward with irrefutable evidence that her son was 1,200 miles away in a Mexican prison when the Oct. 27, 1993, fires roared into Laguna Beach.

Until late Thursday, Fullerton Police Chief Patrick McKinley had insisted that the mix-up occurred because “we had one name for him, and he gave us an alias, and it just didn’t click.”

But both Head and Sgt. Mike Maynard told The Times that both names surfaced immediately after his Sept. 16 arrest, when police checked his identity through the state’s Criminal Information Index. They said a clerk at the Fullerton jail entered both names--Martinez and Saille--into the department’s computers that same day.

“If the investigator who was assigned the missing-persons report had made the normal inquiry (to the department’s own computer system), the (alias) would have been a hit, and we would have known right away,” Head said.

In addition to violating their own department procedures, officers may have run afoul of state law.

The first day that Martinez’s mother, Teresa Campos, tried to file a missing-person report, she was told to come back in 72 hours if he had not shown up by then.

A 1988 state law, however, says that “it is the duty of all law enforcement agencies to immediately assist any person who is attempting to make a report of a missing person or runaway.”

Head said the Fullerton department has a policy of declining to accept missing-person reports on adults for the first 72 hours, unless there are “extenuating circumstances.” McKinley explained that those extenuating circumstances might include instances in which the missing person is someone who has a mental problem, is in need of medication or is believed to be the victim of foul play.

By contrast, officials with both the Anaheim and Santa Ana police departments say they accept missing-person reports on anyone immediately, regardless of the circumstances.

When Martinez’s mother returned a second time, on Sept. 19, she told the Fullerton police that her son left her house at 7 a.m. three days before and did not show up for work at Terra Universal, an Anaheim business that manufactures semiconductors.

Campos is quoted in the report as saying her son “has been depressed . . . for unknown reasons. He has never disappeared in the past and he pretty much stays home.”

The detective who mishandled the case--whom Head declined to name--has not been disciplined but “counseled” by a supervisor below the rank of captain.

At the time the missing-person report was added to his workload, Head explained, the detective was handling 30 to 35 other missing-persons reports, as well as homicide, rape, sexual assault and other cases handled by the six-member crimes against persons unit.

“The detective was going through his files, and went through that case, and it didn’t become a priority at the time,” Head said. “It’s a lesson to be learned for our department. We have a whole myriad of cases over here, but missing-persons cases are important. This was an oversight and an uncommon occurrence.”

Although some Fullerton police officials continue to suspect that Martinez was somehow involved in the Laguna fire, and McKinley is still willing to wager six months’ salary on the theory, they acknowledge that charges probably never would have been brought if they had made the connection earlier.

“We could have had the family’s input sooner, and have gone down to Mexico and found out about the prison,” Head said. “If we had done that sooner, a case probably would not have been filed and then dismissed.”

Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Maurice Evans agreed. “We all wish that there had been a connection, and we could have figured out he had a mama in Fullerton,” Evans said Thursday.

Evans said he understood how such an oversight could have been made, but thought the police department may want review its procedures in light of this case.

“I think if I were the Fullerton police chief I would have to say that it’s a scenario we’re going to take a look at,” he said.

Experts in the field of missing persons say that cases involving adults have a lower priority than those involving children.

“With adults there is a far greater likelihood to treat it less seriously and not investigate it immediately unless there is clear evidence of foul play,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Arlington, Va.

Martinez is scheduled to appear in Municipal Court in Fullerton today concerning the three Fullerton fires in which he still faces charges.

On Thursday, his attorneys questioned the reliability of the district attorney’s evidence in the Fullerton case, given the foul-up with the Laguna charge.

“You sure have to wonder about the prosecution’s claims,” said Deputy Public Defender Jim Egar. “I think a good healthy dose of skepticism is in order now.”

Meanwhile, Campos said her son was more relaxed when she visited him Thursday.

He is “a little more tranquil” but remains saddened because of “his personal problems and his fears.”

“The only thing he commented on was . . . this fear, a phobia I guess,” Campos said. “I don’t know from what, he’s afraid to leave and go on the street. I think it’s because of his personal problems.”

As for the pending Fullerton case, she said she avoided discussing it to avoid making him depressed.

“We didn’t talk about the case that much,” she said. “I purposely kept it light, talked of his family here to remind him that we’re supporting him. You know, gave him words of support.”

Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this story.

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