Fire Obsession Drove Orr, Psychiatrist Says

Pleading for John Orr’s life, his lawyers Monday called a psychiatrist who said the former Glendale arson investigator, who faces a possible death sentence for murder, was driven to torch buildings by an obsession he was powerless to control.

Prosecutors, urging jurors to recommend that Orr be executed, countered that leaving him alive with a life sentence would give Orr years to savor the memory of his murders.

Defense lawyers Peter Giannini and Edward Rucker called UCLA forensic psychiatrist Ronald Markman, who testified that Orr suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder and a form of pyromania that compelled him to set fires to alleviate anxiety.

Markman, who interviewed the 17-year veteran firefighter three times in the past year, also told jurors that the 49-year-old father of two had a history “with a significant amount of match playing,” and called his proclivity to light fires “an unresolved medical conflict.”

“It’s not a matter of picking and choosing if he had anxiety that was intolerable,” Markman said. “Ultimately, he would have to set a fire.”

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But Deputy Dist. Attys. Sandra Flannery and Michael Cabral told jurors that the former Glendale fire captain, once a nationally recognized arson investigator, was a calculating, power-hungry man who derived such satisfaction from his crimes that a life sentence without the possibility of parole would allow him to mentally replay the deaths of his victims “again and again for the rest of his life.”

Orr was convicted last week on 20 counts of arson and four counts of murder for setting a fire in a South Pasadena hardware store in 1984 that killed two employees, a 2-year-old boy and the boy’s grandmother. He was previously convicted of six federal arson charges and prosecutors contend he set many fires for which he did not stand trial.

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Prosecutors added that Orr betrayed “a special trust” with the victims and the public by using secret knowledge, accumulated as an arson investigator, to spark numerous blazes using a slow-burning incendiary device.

Carrie Orr Sinnes, 27, one of Orr’s two daughters, testified that Orr was aware of fire dangers and protected his family by urging them to have fire extinguishers and plan escape routes.

Orr’s father and mother, Joe and Leora Orr of Highland Park, tearfully pleaded with the jury to sentence their son to life in state prison without the possibility of parole. They testified that as a youngster Orr got good grades, did his chores and when he turned 17, asked them to sign a waiver allowing him to join the Air Force.

Despite the family testimony, Flannery reminded jurors that “Orr was keenly aware of the fire dangers and chose to exploit them.” Cabral added that Orr was asking jurors “to give him what he denied to his victims”--the right to go on living.