Defense can’t introduce alternative suspect in Esperanza fire, judge rules

The defense in the trial of Raymond Lee Oyler, charged with setting a wildfire that killed five firefighters, suffered a setback Friday when a judge rejected its plan to introduce a different suspect in the blaze.

If convicted, Oyler, a 38-year-old Beaumont auto mechanic, would face the death penalty.

Defense attorneys hoped to raise doubt about his guilt in the Esperanza fire by pointing to Michael McNeil, a former U.S. Forest Service fire prevention technician who had been investigated in connection with numerous arsons that occurred in the San Gorgonio Pass area about the same time Oyler is accused of setting the fatal Oct. 26, 2006, Esperanza fire.

The hearing was held without the jury present so Riverside County Superior Court Judge W. Charles Morgan could decide whether to allow the information as evidence. Oyler’s attorney, Mark McDonald, put retired Forest Service arson investigator Ronald Huxman on the stand.

According to Huxman, McNeil raised suspicions because he often called in fires and was first on the scene to fight them. At the same time, he said, McNeil didn’t seem to know anything about actual fire investigation and was of little or no help to law enforcement. Whenever he was assigned to a new area, such as the Angeles National Forest and later the San Jacinto Mountains region, new fires seemed to break out, Huxman said.

Many of the fires he was suspected of causing were started with incendiary devices that involved wrapping a bundle of stick matches around a cigarette and securing it with a rubber band. The cigarette was lit and would ignite the matches in about 10 minutes. A similar device sparked the Esperanza fire.

Huxman said he began to suspect that McNeil might be a “firefighter-arsonist.”

“The typical firefighter-arsonist lights small fires, reports them and suppresses them and then gets treated like a hero,” he said.

In June 2006, a tracking device was secretly placed on McNeil’s official vehicle so investigators could monitor where he was in relation to fires breaking out.

The criminal investigation of McNeil ended in mid-October 2006 with no hard evidence that he committed arson. But when McNeil was transferred to Lassen National Forest in Northern California, Huxman sent local Forest Service officials a letter, warning them to be on guard.

Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Hestrin said there was no evidence that McNeil set any fires or that he had any connection to the Esperanza fire. He noted that other firefighters had been investigated and had their vehicles monitored after the fire.

Morgan ruled against the defense, saying attorneys had shown no “nexus” between McNeil and the actual crime.

He said that whenever a crime takes place, suspicion falls on those closest to the event -- the husband if a wife is killed, firefighters when there is a fire.

“The Forest Service didn’t like this guy. He was a bad seed everywhere he has been,” the judge said. “But even saying this, they haven’t linked him to any fire.”

McNeil, 34, is being held in lieu of $2.8 million bail in Los Angeles County Jail on unrelated charges of arson and making terrorist threats.

--

david.kelly@latimes.com