The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Sunnyvale favorite target for arsonist

City hit four times in a series of 14 break-in fires in county

By Justin Berton

Sunnyvale has been hit by a serial burglar-arsonist four times in the past nine months, making the city a favorite target for a suspect who is believed to be responsible for touching off a ring of fire in Santa Clara County.

Investigators have made no arrests after first going public with the manhunt two weeks ago, after the suspect left the familiar fingerprints of his work on a Mountain View fire.

Sunnyvale fire marshal Byron Pipkin said the arsonist could be responsible for as many as 14 blazes and burglaries in six different cities and up to $250,000 worth of damage and stolen property.

Three of the blazes took place in central Sunnyvale, and the fourth happened on the west edge of town on Acalanes Drive.

"We have to catch this guy before he hurts anyone," Pipkin said.

Pipkin said a consortium of local agencies has been assembled to track down several leads the task force has received.

"Is this a burglar who his setting fires to cover his tracks, or is this primarily an arsonist who is taking things that happen to be there? We don't know," Pipkin said.

Pipkin confirmed that investigators suspect an April 16 Sunnyvale fire that occurred at the Fair Oaks West apartment complex was the work of the arsonist. Authorities originally reported that the blaze began accidentally when an iron was left on.

"At the time, after talking with the owner, the fire looked like it began where an iron was plugged in," Pipkin said. "It turned out later that after going through his things, he noticed that property was missing, too."

Fire damage to the tri-level apartment building topped $111,000 according to Sunnyvale Safety Capt. Doug Lamar. The resident lost $15,000 worth of personal items.

A Sunnyvale investigator working on the Fair Oaks fire found similarities to another blaze-burglary, which led local authorities to believe that the blazes were all linked.

"From the method of getting into the apartment and the things taken, we knew he had a pattern," Pipkin said.

Police said the serial arsonist usually strikes during late-morning or early-afternoon hours and on weekdays, while residents are at work. In many cases the suspect has pried his way in through a window or walked through the front door.

The suspect, police added, hits apartments in high-density complexes. At Fair Oaks, an apartment complex with multiple buildings, the fire was reported at 12:59 p.m.

Other burglary-fires have broken out in San Jose, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Palo Alto and Fremont.

But the Fair Oaks blaze wasn't the first or the last time the elusive arsonist hit Sunnyvale, police believe.

The first blaze credited to the serial arsonist, police said, was in Sept. 1997, when a blaze gutted an apartment at the 600 block of Morse Avenue. Just 11 days after the Fair Oaks fire, another apartment went up in flames in the 1000 block of Morse Avenue. And on May 20, flames engulfed an apartment on the 100 block of Acalanes Drive.

Pipkin declined to give any details of the ongoing investigation.

"It's a big effort we're making," Pipkin said. "We want the word to get out because someone could get seriously injured."

Police are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect and have set up a hotline, 730-7110, at the Sunnyvale Department of Safety. Anyone witnessing suspicious behavior in an apartment complex should call 911.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 10, 1998.
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