Trial Begins for Woman Accused in Beach Arsons

For seven months in 1992 and 1993, a string of early morning arson fires terrorized the sleepy beach community of Silver Strand near Oxnard.

Burning trash cans, cars, boats and the interior of one family’s home created a frightening scene for homeowners and a chore for fire investigators bent on stopping the rash of suburban blazes.

Eventually, the fires were labeled the work of the Silver Strand Arsonist, a mystery figure who eluded authorities for years because there were no witnesses to the crimes.

It was not until last year, when Oxnard police arrested 43-year-old dockworker Rhonda Denise Erving, that authorities concluded they had found the fire starter.

Erving’s trial began in Ventura County Superior Court on Wednesday as attorneys presented contrasting images of the single mother, who has pleaded not guilty to seven felony arson and related charges.

In his opening statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Simon said Erving has left a charred trail of mysterious arsons in every neighborhood in which she has lived.

“You have heard that this is the Silver Strand Arsonist case, but it is more than that,” Simon said. “This case goes back.”

Simon said there were numerous fires in Erving’s home when she was growing up in Oxnard, most notably in her father’s closet. When confronted, Erving denied setting the fires.

After the confrontation, however, the fires stopped, Simon told the jury. “This is a pattern we will see again,” he said.

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In the early 1990s, Erving and her teenage son, Charles, were living in the Orange County city of Artesia when a series of early morning fires flared in that neighborhood.

The Artesia fires mirror those set in Silver Strand after Erving and her son moved to Ventura County in 1992, Simon said. In both cases, he said, the blazes terrified local residents, many of whom are expected to testify.

“A community that was once a quiet beach community became a community suspicious of everyone,” Simon said. “This was a community living in fear.”

Simon also said he would call witnesses who say they saw Erving running from the scene of a fire on H Street in Oxnard--near where Erving had moved after leaving Silver Strand--in 1995.

But in his opening remarks, Erving’s attorney tried to discredit those two witnesses and pointed to a lack of hard evidence in the case. He told jurors that his client was innocent.

“Somebody was convinced that this lady was the Silver Strand Arsonist,” William Maxwell said. “But they can’t prove it.”

Maxwell argued that his client, who is black, was the subject of racial discrimination when she moved into the predominantly white Silver Strand neighborhood.

“It may not be significant to you,” he told the nearly all-white jury, “but it has become a factor of significance for her.”

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Looking relaxed in a bright blue outfit, Erving rested her elbows on the defense table and watched her attorney as he gave a 35-minute oration. Erving is free on a $20,000 bond.

Absent from the courtroom were residents of Silver Strand, many of whom say they are still haunted by the arson season of 1992-93.

“It is still something in the back of your mind,” said Bill Higgins, who lives on Moorpark Avenue, where the fires originated. “It doesn’t go away even though intellectually you know that it has stopped.”

Roy Rowland, who is expected to testify, said the fires are seared in his memory as well.

“People were in a state of shock,” Rowland said in a recent interview. “They didn’t know what was going on or what was happening.”

The fires began the morning of Aug. 10, 1992. Rowland had awakened early to go fishing. When he walked out of his house onto narrow Moorpark Avenue, he saw a smoldering pile of trash propped against his neighbor’s front door. The door was badly burned.

At the time, Rowland said he did not gave the sputtering fire much thought. But today, he remembers it as the first in a series of blazes attributed to the Silver Strand Arsonist.

The second fire also occurred on Moorpark Avenue, though later fires were documented on other streets in Silver Strand, a collection of beach homes clustered on a spit of land between Channel Islands and Port Hueneme harbors.

On Oct. 11, Danielle White had left her house for the evening to go out with friends, dropping her young daughter off with a baby sitter. Her parents, who also lived in the house, were gone for the weekend.

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When she returned home, the house had been gutted by two fires. Investigators ruled it arson.

“I walked into the house and I couldn’t believe what I saw,” said Danielle’s father, Dave White, who rushed home from his weekend vacation. “We lost absolutely everything.”

In addition to the family’s furniture, pictures and clothes, Danielle White’s cat perished in the fire. Another family cat was badly burned.

“My first thought was, ‘What have I done to someone to deserve this,’ ” Dave White said, who lived next door to Erving.

As the fires continued, Rowland and his neighbors organized a neighborhood watch team that took shifts patrolling the narrow streets at night. They used a motor home parked in Rowland’s driveway as a quasi-command post.

Erving, he said, did not participate in the patrols.

Suspicious about Erving, the group focused on her comings and goings, even videotaping her and keeping a written log--actions that Erving’s attorney said Wednesday point to the discrimination against her.

In his opening statement, Maxwell said those tapes favor his client, since they never captured her setting a fire.

Rowland and other Silver Strand residents hope Erving is convicted, which would help them resolve bad memories.

“It will disappoint people if she is not convicted,” Rowland said. “There is a lot of circumstantial evidence. But it does all point in her direction.”

Maxwell says the evidence is too thin to point to anything.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he concluded Wednesday, “I think the evidence in this case is probably not only going to convince you of reasonable doubt. I think she is going to walk out of here with you convinced she didn’t do it.”