Preliminary hearing for man accused of setting Clayton fire gets under way
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Thursday, the Clearlake man charged with setting 16 fires around Lake County – including the August 2016 Clayton fire – returned to court for his preliminary hearing.
Damin Anthony Pashilk, 43, appeared before Lake County Superior Court Judge Andrew Blum for the proceeding.
Pashilk is facing 23 charges and three special allegations for setting a total of 16 fires – and trying to set another small fire that extinguished on its own – between July 2015 and August 2016 in the Clearlake, Clearlake Oaks and Lower Lake areas.
Prosecutors say Pashilk set two small roadside fires on the morning of July 2, 2015 – the Judge fires No. 1 and 2 – leading to larger incidents, including the three-acre Arrowhead fire on Aug. 25, 2015, in the city of Clearlake and the five-acre Morgan fire on Morgan Valley Road on July 21, 2016.
After the Morgan fire, Pashilk is alleged to have set seven more fires before, on Aug. 13, 2016, it’s alleged that he set the Clayton fire new Lower Lake, which burned more than 3,900 acres and 300 structures, including just over 200 homes.
Pashilk, who by the time of the Clayton fire had been under surveillance by Cal Fire for a year, was arrested two days after the Clayton fire began. He’s remained in custody ever since, with bail set at $5 million.
He entered not guilty pleas to all of the charges in September 2016.
Pashilk, who for his safety has been kept at an out-of-county facility for most of his time in custody, was returned to Lake County this week for the preliminary hearing. On the first day, four bailiffs were present in the courtroom.
When Pashilk came to court on Thursday, his appearance had notably changed. Rather than long hair and a beard, he was clean shaven, with his dark hair cut short. He wore a green and white jail jumpsuit, and Judge Blum said that his wrist and ankle shackles could be removed for the proceedings.
While most preliminary hearings run only a few hours, or sometimes as long as a day, Pashilk’s is anticipated to run over the course of up to seven court days spaced over several weeks, extending into early March.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff, who is prosecuting the case, said he originally had anticipated as many as 12 days, but now thinks he can present it in half that time.
Hinchcliff explained that the length of the preliminary hearing is a matter of the case’s complexity as well as its age. He said he believes it’s one of the most complicated and challenging cases to ever be tried in Lake County.
Representing Pashilk is veteran local defense attorney Mitchell Hauptman, who has a record of navigating difficult cases and getting acquittals.
He was not Pashilk’s original attorney. That was J. David Markham, who a year ago became a Lake County Superior Court judge, necessitating finding a new attorney for Pashilk.
Calling the case’s first witnesses
Beginning on Thursday morning and continuing after a lunch break until mid afternoon, Hinchcliff presented his first series of witnesses, all of them Cal Fire employees.
They included Capt. Kelly Blue of the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit; Battalion Chief Sims Hawkins, who also is a Cal Fire peace officer out of Butte County; Engineer Cameron McFadden of the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit; Robert Little, a state urban forester; Capt. Charlie Laird of the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit’s Fire Prevention Bureau, also a law enforcement officer with the agency; and Capt. Kyle Steis, also a peace officer.
Besides being Cal Fire staff, all of them had been involved in investigating or responding to the fires that Pashilk is alleged to have set.
During the several hours of testimony, Hinchcliff questioned each of them as he laid the case foundation, seeking to show through the evidence and their conclusions that Pashilk is a serial arsonist.
Capt. Kelly Blue, working at Cal Fire’s Wilbur Springs station, responded to both the Judge fire No. 1 and No. 2 on the morning of July 2, 2015.
He got the call on the first fire just after 7:30 a.m., getting there by 7:45 a.m. to discover a roadside spot that was about a tenth of an acre in size burning on the north side of a fence on the north side of Highway 20. He said two pedestrians – one with a shovel, the other using his foot – were trying to put it out.
That fire burned annual grasses, not brush, and was set about 30 feet off the highway, off a dirt turnout. Blue said they used a hose lay to control it.
While on scene, he was notified by a passing female motorist of the second fire, located off Walker Ridge Road to the west of the first fire, and the bigger of the two blazes. Blue said that fire also burned in grass, and he said it would have spread uphill had there been wind on it and if it had occurred later in the day, when temperatures were higher and humidity lower. He said early morning was an odd time for a fire.
Blue said the Judge fire No. 2 was about 50 yards down Walker Ridge Road, on the northside of Highway 20. It also was about a tenth of an acre, although he said it was bigger than the first. The second fire, located near a dirt lot that Caltrans uses for staging, also was controlled with a hose lay.
Blue – who conducted the preliminary investigation, with Steis doing the final investigation – said the area where the second fire occurred was not visible from Highway 20 due to an embankment and a wooded hill.
During cross-examination, Hauptman asked about ignition sources.
“Sometimes the ignition source is very obvious,” said Blue.
He said he couldn’t exclude the fire having been caused by a vehicle due to tire tracks and close proximity to the roadway. “In my estimation, it wouldn't be a very likely source but I couldn't exclude it.”
Blue said the dirt lot where the Judge fire No. 2 occurred had a lot of garbage accumulation. But in his preliminary investigation he found no obvious arson or ignition devices.
Also during his testimony, Blue said as he’s thought more about it, he thinks the second fire actually started before the first due to it being slightly bigger. However, he added, “I can't be certain. I wouldn't gamble anything on it.”
He acknowledged having investigated fires where there was no discernable ignition source because the ignition device – such as a lighter – was taken from the scene.
Cal Fire puts Pashilk under surveillance
Battalion Chief Sims Hawkins was involved in the investigation of the Arrowhead fire, which burned three acres on the afternoon of Aug. 25, 2015, in the area of East Lake Drive and Acacia Street in Clearlake.
He said Lake County Fire Protection District Chief Willie Sapeta told him of a couple who lived a few houses down from the fire who had surveillance video which they shared with him.
The cameras had views of Acacia Street. In examining the video, Hawkins spotted an early 1990s green Subaru Legacy four-door station wagon traveling southbound on Acacia with both passenger side windows rolled down. He said it matched the 1991 Subaru that investigators knew had been driven by Pashilk because of other surveillance video.
Earlier in August 2015, Hawkins had become involved in investigating the serial arson case involving Pashilk, with about half a dozen Cal Fire personnel having Pashilk under surveillance at that time and meeting regularly to discuss the surveillance activities, he said.
He said that the video cameras from the couple who lived near the Arrowhead fire had a time stamp of 3:47 p.m., while a GPS tracker that investigators had attached to Pashilk’s vehicle recorded it traveling southbound on Acacia, away from the fire at 3:45 p.m. The two-minute discrepancy was attributed to an incorrect time stamp on the cameras. Hawkins said he couldn’t determine who was driving and couldn’t see passengers on the passenger side, but couldn’t confirm if there was someone sitting behind the driver’s seat.
Hawkins also spoke to a woman who discovered what was believed to be slopover or a spot fire from the Arrowhead fire later in the evening on the same day in August 2015.
Engineer Cameron McFadden was dispatched to the Long fire in the area of New Long Valley Road and Highway 20 just after 8:30 p.m. July 29, 2015. The quarter-acre fire burned at a slow rate of spread up a hill in grasses along a wide turnout just east of New Long Valley Road.
In his investigation, McFadden said he couldn’t eliminate the cause as being a vehicle or arson, and couldn’t identify an ignition source because of general damage to the area, including people going in and out of it.
State Urban Forester Robert Little runs the State Urban Forest Program, supervising seven regional urban foresters and working with grantees, cities and nonprofits, became involved in investigating the series of Lake County fires in 2015.
Little was asked to review video footage from cameras Cal Fire had set up at various areas around Lake County in order to look for a Subaru with a specific license plate number on certain days and in certain time periods.
He spotted that vehicle on footage taken at 7:43 a.m. July 2, 2015; at 8:25 p.m. July 29, 2015; at 1:54 p.m. Aug. 8, 2015; and at 8:04 p.m. Aug. 14, 2015.
Capt. Charlie Laird also was involved in the surveillance of Pashilk, and assisted in the investigation of the Arrowhead fire on Aug. 25, 2015. He said he identified a 6-foot by 6-foot origin area and was able to rule out possible causes including a campfire, debris burning, electrical, equipment, lightning, children playing with fire, smoking/cigarettes, vehicles, spontaneous combustion, glass refraction and shooting.
The following year, on Aug. 15, 2016 – the same day that Pashilk was arrested – Laird assisted with searching and processing evidence from another vehicle Pashilk owned, a Chrysler Sebring.
Items seized and documented from the vehicle that investigators believed could have been used as fuel or ignition sources included a shop towel, paper product, a torch, a paper cup, paper and plastic material, a paper napkin, a lighter, a torn paper cup and burned paper matches.
During his cross-examination, Hauptman asked Laird if he found marijuana joints in the car. Laird said yes. Hauptman then asked if he was aware that joints are often lit with matches, to which Laird also responded in the affirmative.
Hinchcliff countered by asking Laird if, in his training, he’d found that wildland fires are often lit by matches. Laird said yes.
Capt. Kyle Steis was assigned to do the origin and cause investigation of the Judge fire No. 2 near Walker Ridge Road in July 2015 as well as the Morgan fire on Morgan Valley Road in Lower Lake on July 21, 2016. Both fires were set near road turnouts. The Morgan fire was larger, burning five acres.
Steis and another investigator worked on the Morgan fire, identifying an origin area measuring 5 feet by 3 feet that was located 15 feet off of Morgan Valley Road in a gravel turnout.
He said they concluded that fire was caused by arson, and that it had been brought to his attention that a 1997 Chrysler Sebring that had been seen in other parts of Lake County where fires had occurred also had been seen at some point in the area where the Morgan Valley fire burned.
Hauptman asked Steis, “Standing alone, is there anything about that particular fire that led you to believe it was arson” if the idea of a serial arsonist was removed.
Steis said he tested the hypothesis, noting it was near a turnout on a road that isn’t highly traveled.
He also stated during his testimony that there was no evidence of the fire having been started by a vehicle.
Testimony will continue on Friday.
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