LAKEPORT, Calif. – The investigators in the case against a man accused of setting a series of fires, including the 2016 Clayton fire, continued to describe their methods and findings during a court hearing on Friday.
Damin Anthony Pashilk, 43, of Clearlake returned to Lake County Superior Court on Friday for the fourth day of his preliminary hearing.
The preliminary hear is to determine if he will ultimately stand trial on 23 charges for setting the Clayton fire in August 2016 and 15 other fires between July of 2015 and August of 2016, as well as an attempted start of a 17th that self-extinguished.
In the proceedings so far, the testimony has come from a variety of Cal Fire personnel who were part of investigating the many fires and surveilling Pashilk for more than a year.
Michael Thompson, a battalion chief and law enforcement officer, returned to the stand on Friday after having testified much of Thursday.
Thompson, who had helped track Pashilk, described his interaction with Pashilk after his arrest on Aug. 15, two days after the Clayton fire – the last of the fires he’s accused of setting – began.
After he was taken into custody, Pashilk was taken to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office where a Cal Fire deputy chief and two detectives interviewed him, while Thompson watched the interview via video in another room.
Before that interview started, Thompson said he saw Pashilk reach into his sock, pull out something and swallow it. Pashilk later would admit that it was 2 grams of methamphetamine.
After the interview, Thompson placed Pashilk formally under arrest and searched him, finding a Bic lighter and some change. He then took Pashilk to Sutter Lakeside Hospital to be medically cleared for booking.
Thompson said he was at the hospital with Pashilk about an hour and a half, staying with him in the hospital room. In the room next door was a television newscast discussing the devastation of the Clayton fire. Pashilk heard it.
“His demeanor started to change,” said Thompson. “I witnessed him go from sitting in the upright position to starting to slouch into his chair and start sinking further and further down.”
Pashilk then began to tuck his chin to his shoulder, his shoulders started to bounce like he was crying, and Thompson said he saw tears, but Pashilk never made eye contact with him.
While at the hospital, Thompson said Pashilk asked him if he was religious. “I asked him what was the relevance,” and how it mattered, Thompson said. Pashilk replied, “I guess it doesn’t.”
Pashilk also asked if Thompson was Christian or Catholic. When Thompson responded that he’s a Christian, Pashilk asked about the afterlife, and if there is a heaven and hell. Pashilk then said he used to believe there was a heaven and hell but over the years his beliefs had changed.
At no time did Pashilk admit to setting the fires – throughout his interviews with Thompson he denied the allegations – and he eventually said he wanted to be taken to jail, Thompson said.
The following day, on Aug. 16, 2016, Thompson spoke again to Pashilk, who became upset. Pashilk also had told Thompson he didn’t want to live any more. Thompson said he told Pashilk it was important that people hear his side of the story. Pashilk told Thompson that a man had approached him in jail and said he should do a television interview, which Pashilk refused to do.
“I’m sure they're going to send me away for a long time but I’m going to do everything I can not to. They have a mountain of evidence,” Thompson recalled Pashilk saying, reading from his report on the investigation. Pashilk also told him, “I know I'm not a bad guy,” and Thompson replied that there were people willing to forgive him.
In his cross-examination, defense attorney Mitchell Hauptman asked Thompson about his findings at the scene of the Canyon fire on Aug. 9, 2016, on Seigler Canyon Road in Lower Lake. Thompson had testified on Thursday that he’d concluded that there was no ignition source – that it had been some material that had burned up – and Hauptman asked if it could have been a cigarette.
Thompson said a cigarette causing a fire in that manner and leaving no trace isn’t typical in his experience. “There would still be some remnants of that item there. From my experience, the filters don't completely burn.”
During Hinchcliff’s questioning, Thompson further explained that cigarettes don’t usually light vegetation fires, depending on fuel and humidity. He explained that most modern cigarettes have built in stops, and they're supposed to self extinguish if you’re not drawing on them, a safety fix in response to people falling asleep while smoking.
Thompson said he did find a cigarette filter at the site of a fire on Sulphur Bank Road near Clearlake on July 26, 2016, but determined it wasn’t the cause of that fire.
Following Thompson to the stand was Christopher Van Cor, an assistant chief of Cal Fire’s investigation unit. He also was involved in conducting surveillance of Pashilk in both 2015 and 2016.
In addition to following Pashilk, Van Cor helped place a GPS device tracking device on the Chrysler Sebring Pashilk was known to drive in 2016. Van Cor retrieved hard drives from surveillance cameras that had been set up around Lake County in areas where there had been fire activity. He also reviewed the footage.
On Aug. 13, 2016, Van Cor was one of several team members tracking Pashilk, who was seen going back and forth from his Clearlake home to Twin Pine Casino in Middletown. At 4:50 p.m. that day, he saw Pashilk turn down Clayton Creek Road – where the Clayton fire would begin shortly afterward. Van Cor said he didn’t turn down the road after Pashilk because he didn’t want to be seen. Later that evening, Van Cor saw Pashilk and a woman at Highway 29 and Spruce Grove Road, watching the fire.
Gary Uboldi, another Cal Fire peace officer assigned to Lake County, recounted investigating several of the fires, finding at one of the scenes a Twin Pine Casino matchbook. Pashilk was known to frequent that casino.
Like Van Cor, Uboldi was conducting surveillance of Pashilk on the day the Clayton fire began and he was one of the first people to arrive on the fire scene.
Uboldi investigated the fire’s cause, and in the grass in the origin area – just under 3 feet off the roadway – he found a 5- to 6-inch long and 1-inch wide food-type wrapper. It was clear and had illegible writing on it. One end had been burned and the other had melted but not burned.
He collected it for evidence and concluded it was used as the ignition source due to the fire spread indicators. He said he has seen plastic used as a source of ignition before.
On Aug. 15, 2016, two days after the Clayton fire started, Uboldi helped search Pashilk’s Koloko Street home in Clearlake, finding, packaging and securing numerous items of evidence from the home, the Chrysler and a nearby trailer. The items included a twisted white paper napkin – similar to one that Thompson had found at the scene of the Canyon fire six days earlier – along with numerous Twin Pine Casino matchbooks, a few lighters, a butane torch, a glass pipe, burned matches, more paper napkins and a torn paper cup.
Testimony will continue on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
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Clayton fire preliminary hearing continues; Cal Fire investigators describe findings at scenes
- Elizabeth Larson
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