Arsonist Charged With Plotting Detective’s Death

An inmate serving time for setting his Irvine home on fire to collect insurance now faces charges that he plotted to murder the police investigator who caught him, prosecutors said Friday.

Bernard Raymond Pearle Vanpelz, 68, is accused of asking a fellow inmate earlier this year if he knew “how to get a cop killed” and initiated some telephone calls to arrange the slaying of Irvine Detective Gary Cain, Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Fell said.

“It’s a heinous and sinister plan that was devised,” Fell said.

The inmate alerted authorities, who sent a sheriff’s deputy posing as “the contact for the hit” and taped his telephone conversations with Vanpelz, Irvine police Lt. Tom Hume said. Based on those conversations, the district attorney’s office charged Vanpelz with conspiracy and solicitation to murder a police officer.

But attorney Ed Hall, who represents Vanpelz in the case, said the other inmate at the Theo Lacy Branch Jail had approached Vanpelz with the intention of “setting him up” in exchange for a more lenient sentence. That inmate was awaiting trial on felony theft charges, Hall said.

“Vanpelz was in essence taken advantage of,” Hall said. “He’s totally shocked by these ludicrous charges. When he first found out, he said, ‘I’ve been set up.’ ”

Hall said the inmate had gone to Vanpelz claiming he had money and “could have people killed” if he wanted.

But Hall said the inmate then asked Vanpelz to make some calls on his behalf to assist in a law enforcement investigation. The attorney did not elaborate.

“During the calls, he’s discussing what he believed to be an arrangement to help the police,” Hall said.

Investigator Cain, who was not injured, had some clues that led to Vanpelz’s 1997 conviction, police said.

“He’s the sort of detective who, if you give him something, even if it’s just a little piece of information, he’s able to develop a real case from it,” Hume said. “He’s very tenacious.”

On March 18, 1996, Vanpelz’s Grant home was gutted by a fire that began in the master bedroom, causing damages estimated at $225,000. Vanpelz told investigators he was in Denver at the time, but Cain later discovered that Vanpelz had made a cash withdrawal at an automated-teller machine less than an hour before the fire, Fell said. A camera near the ATM captured Vanpelz making the transaction, the prosecutor said.

Further investigation revealed that Vanpelz had flown to Denver but returned to Irvine under an alias the previous evening before the fire erupted, then flew back about three hours after the blaze, Fell said. By the time investigators called Vanpelz at his Denver hotel room, he was there to pick up the phone, Fell said.

But detectives discovered two sets of plane tickets sold to the same person: Vanpelz. At the home, they found “a small torch and what appeared to be several discarded propane cylinders in the closet,” court documents showed.

Vanpelz faces a maximum of eight years in prison for the arson conviction when sentenced. If he is convicted of conspiring to kill a police officer, he could face a maximum of life in prison.

He is scheduled for arraignment on the latter charges Thursday.