No DNA ties Esperanza fire to client, attorney says

Riverside County prosecutors have no DNA evidence linking arson suspect Raymond Lee Oyler of Beaumont to the 40,000-acre wildfire that killed five federal firefighters in October, his attorney said Friday.

Oyler’s lawyer, Mark McDonald, said the DNA lab results were among an initial 1,500 pages of discovery provided by prosecutors -- about a quarter of the documents he expects to receive on the case. He spoke to reporters after his client appeared in Riverside County Superior Court for a status hearing.

The test results showed that investigators were unable to collect DNA evidence from an incendiary device found at the point of origin of the deadly Esperanza fire, McDonald said.

Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael A. Hestrin, who is prosecuting Oyler, said Friday that he could not comment on the evidence.

In a court affidavit filed Oct. 31, fire investigators said they had DNA evidence linking Oyler to similar fires that were set June 9 and 10 in the San Gorgonio Pass area west of Palm Springs, he same area where the Esperanza fire started. Those blazes and the Esperanza fire were set with similar devices -- six or seven wood-stick matches and a cigarette, the affidavit stated.

Oyler, 36, voluntarily gave a DNA sample when authorities questioned him the day after the Esperanza fire began.

McDonald accused prosecutors of “jumping the gun” when they charged his client with arson and the murders of the five U.S. Forest Service firefighters a week after the fire began.

He said that anyone who investigates arson would know that a cigarette-and-match device “is probably the most commonly used method” for lighting such fires.

McDonald also said investigators did not appear to have vigorously pursued other potential suspects, including several unidentified men who were seen briskly walking away from brush where the fire began shortly after 1 a.m. on Oct. 26.

“This was a case of act now, ask questions later,” McDonald said. “The question becomes: What links Mr. Oyler to Esperanza? ... [It’s] certainly not scientific evidence or eyewitness accounts.”

McDonald also challenged news reports that investigators were unable to confirm Oyler’s account of his whereabouts that night. Oyler told investigators he had gone shopping, visited a casino and stopped at a gas station, but authorities who reviewed surveillance tapes at those locations said they could not verify his alibi.

McDonald said that on the night the fire began, Oyler said he picked up his girlfriend, Crystal Breazile, from work at a Sizzler restaurant about 11:15 p.m., with his 7-month-old baby in tow. After spending about an hour at home, Breazile took the couple’s Chevy Malibu to a Wal-Mart about 12:30 a.m. to buy baby supplies while Oyler stayed home with their daughter.

When the fire started shortly after 1 a.m., Oyler was at home with the baby and without a car, his attorney said. Phone records show that several calls were made from the couple’s apartment while Breazile was at the store, he said.

McDonald said Oyler had phoned his sister’s home several times about 1:30 p.m. because he was concerned that Breazile’s errands were taking a long time and thought she might have stopped there on the way home.

McDonald said that Wal-Mart surveillance cameras confirm that the Malibu was parked in the parking lot and that Breazile was in the store from 12:50 to 2:10 a.m.

He said Oyler’s other vehicle, a Ford Taurus, was parked overnight at the mechanic’s shop where Oyler worked. Investigators told Oyler that the Taurus was captured on surveillance cameras near the site of an Oct. 22 arson fire in Mias Canyon, his attorney said.

After Breazile returned home, Oyler left about 3 a.m. for the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa. He spent $7 on penny slots and then stopped for cigarettes at a Shell gas station on his way home, McDonald said. Oyler also went by a friend’s house -- at some point stopping to watch the Esperanza fire running up the mountainside, he said.

McDonald said Oyler may have been confused about times when he first spoke to investigators and that he was in the process of obtaining surveillance tapes from the locations Oyler visited.

Investigators confiscated a black wig and a slingshot from Oyler’s cars, which McDonald said were toys that Oyler and his girlfriend had taken from his nephews and their friends. Sheriff’s officials also took a gas can from one of Oyler’s cars and cigarette butts and boots from his home.

Oyler’s girlfriend, mother and other relatives filled the front row of the courtroom at his hearing, where the defendant appeared in a light-blue button-down shirt and blue-and-silver tie with his wrists cuffed to a chain belt.

Nearly a dozen relatives from the firefighters’ families filled the two rows behind Oyler’s family.

Along with five counts of first-degree murder, Oyler has been charged with 11 counts of arson and 10 counts of possession of materials to commit arson.

maeve.reston@latimes.com