Man Cuffed Wife to Bed Before Setting Fatal Fire

Before he lay down to die next to her, a Newbury Park man handcuffed his wife to a fold-out bed in a garage office, poured gasoline around the small room as well as a nearby den and lighted a match, sheriff’s officials said Thursday.

The house soon went up in flames Wednesday morning. Shortly after Ventura County firefighters extinguished the blaze in the 3900 block of Elkwood Avenue, they discovered an empty gasoline can and the charred remains of Lee Walter Edson, 39, and his wife and former high school sweetheart, Lenore Marie Edson, 38, said sheriff’s spokesman Eric Nishimoto.

Details of how Lee Edson killed himself and his wife came as medical examiners confirmed from an autopsy that the troubled couple died of smoke inhalation from the fire.

Meanwhile court officials confirmed Thursday that Lee Edson was sentenced to a 15-day work-release program Nov. 14 after pleading guilty to a domestic violence charge, although prosecutors wanted him to spend 30 days in jail.

Nishimoto said detectives have not established a motive for the murder-suicide.

Lenore Edson, who first dated her future husband when they attended Newbury Park High School in the 1970s, was found handcuffed by her wrist to the fold-out bed after the Wednesday fire, Nishimoto said.

Unable to free herself, she suffocated as smoke and flames swept through the small office-bedroom adjacent to a garage, officials said.

Detectives looking for clues late into the night Wednesday and Thursday found no weapon at the scene, Nishimoto said. Senior Deputy Medical Examiner James Baroni said there were no signs of gunshot or stab wounds on the bodies.

“It’s pretty much like in any kind of fire-related death,” Baroni said. “It is smoke inhalation. You can’t breathe and you pass out and die.”

Baroni said medical examiners used dental records to confirm the couple’s identities.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona said prosecutors asked Superior Court Judge Steven Hintz to send Lee Edson to jail for 30 days on Nov. 14.

Edson was arrested on a domestic assault charge in August after he hit his wife, cutting her face. He also was charged with attempting to prevent her from notifying the police after the incident, in which he ripped a telephone wire from a wall in the home they shared with their three children.

After Edson pleaded guilty, Hintz sentenced him to a 15-day work-release program and ordered him to pay a $300 fine, serve three years’ probation and enroll in a domestic violence class.

Hintz was unavailable for comment Thursday.

“It’s tragic that this occurred, but it was not foreseeable,” said Corona, the supervisor of the court’s sexual assault and family protection unit. “When we prosecuted, our information was that this was an isolated first incident and there was no history of domestic violence.”

Corona said Lenore Edson wrote the district attorney’s office asking that her husband not be prosecuted.

Neighbors who knew the couple said it was well known that Lee Edson, in the midst of financial problems and intensely jealous, had occasionally hit her in recent months. He had even threatened to kill his wife and then himself, neighbors said.

Zane Smith, the public defender who represented Edson, said the couple were struggling to mend a marriage that had unraveled in recent months.

But when told that coroners had confirmed the dead couple as the Edsons, Smith expressed surprise.

“Of all the people I deal with, these people would not have been in the top 10,” Smith said. “She was there standing by him the whole time. I talked to her myself. She came for every court appearance.”

Officials at Newbury Park High School have established a fund for the couple’s three children, and the Red Cross has donated vouchers for the purchase of clothes and other items.

Anyone interested in assisting the Edson children should call Rich Intelkofer, a counselor at Newbury Park High School, at (805) 498-3528.