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[Music] our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents if you feel at any
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time you need support please contact your local crisis center for suggested phone numbers for confidential support
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and for a more detailed list of content warnings please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our
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website this episode was originally released on Case Files patreon Apple premium and Spotify Premium feeds as an
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preferred platform Tuesday August 15 1989 was a very hot summers's day in California's Central
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Valley Joseph Villa not his real name was driving near the 205 Highway in Stockton with his wife and son when
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their car overhead it Joseph pulled over on a quiet side road and propped up the
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car's bonnet to inspect the damage realizing it was too severe to fix without assistance Joseph decided he
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and his son would walk to the nearest pay phone to call for help while his wife waited at the
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car as the father and son headed down the dusty road in search of a phone the boy noticed an old military fatigue
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jacket in a camouflage print crumpled on the ground a military style unit patch was crudely sewn on it he kicked at the
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jacket and revealed an unmarked VHS cassette tape bundled underneath curious about what might be
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on there and's dad took it with them to watch later at home The Villa family inserted
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the videotape into their vcr and hit play they gathered around the television it appeared to contained
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footage of a home movie whoever had shot it had done so outside at night most of their surroundings were
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shrouded in darkness but in the center of the screen a short distance away from the cameraman was a single story ranch
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house the entire building was on fire crackling sounds could be heard as the blaze overwhelmed The house's timber
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frame the person behind the camera was clearly eager to record every second of the building's
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destruction and male voice appeared in the background seemingly narrating the unfolding
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disaster his voice was hared and his tone excited look at it look at it look at the
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fire this is my domain my hell I call home m hell the whole sky is black with smoke that I will
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destroy and or soul up the EV [Music] [Music] it seemed as though the person who had
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filmed the fire was also the one responsible for starting it he began addressing somebody he called
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Omar look at it Omar this is what I've been doing on week's vacation I said all done I said all
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done soon Sirens could be heard as firefighters rushed to the scene their loud wailing noise seemed to prompt
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neighborhood coyotes to Howl in reply the Unseen narrator behind the camera continued to narrate the
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scene the fire department's trying to put it out what [Music] go now but remember me good night ladies
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and gentlemen your house is next the tape then shifted to footage from the horror film A Nightmare on Elm
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Street recorded straight off a televised airing it wasn't clear if The Inferno footage had been taped over the movie or
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edit it in for a reason the Villa family were shocked and wasted no time in passing the tape along
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to the authorities arson investigators at California's Department of Forestry took
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responsibility for the case one of them went back to where the Villas had found the tape the fatigue jacket was still
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there wrapped up inside the Garment were a few audio cassettes featuring heavy metal music
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lying nearby was a single glove in the same camouflage print as the jacket the investigator also discovered
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a small ceramic skull and a wooden pesle of the type used to grind and Crush herbs as it was 1989 investigators
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suspected these latter two items suggested some kind of a cult connection throughout the 1980s and
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early '90s many law enforcement agents in the United States were swept up in what later became known as the satanic
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Panic a fear that groups of people who woried the Christian figure of the devil were committing crimes around the
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country the investigators responsible for looking into the Stockton arsonist tape had noted the arsonist's frequent
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references to hell and evil they suspected the ceramic skull was some kind of demonic Talisman and
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the pesle might have been used used in Satanic rituals investigators just weren't sure
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why the videotape had been left with the other items by the side of the road maybe the perpetrator had stashed them
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there and intended to return or perhaps he felt a thrill at the thought of his work being discovered and wanted it to
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be [Music] found the best hope investigators had of getting to the bottom of the case was to
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review the tape for evidence the fact that the arsonist often spoke in a stage whisper made it
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difficult to understand much of what he said so investigators watched the tape over and over again and painstakingly
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crafted a transcript of the audio the repeated references to someone called Omar caught their
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attention they theorized that maybe Omar was the arsonist's ter for the devil or
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perhaps he even used a is slang for the police the idea that the arsonist could actually be saying Omar the German word
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for grandmother was also floated but the most popular theories were that Omar was someone's name
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possibly the owner of the house shown burning on the film investigators noted that on the
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left side of the screen there was a white trailer by a neighboring property this suggested that the ranch house set
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a light had actually been under construction at the time maybe Omar was the head of the building crew and the
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arsonist was one of his laborers if the arsonist had been fired by Omar then that could point to a
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motive of Revenge what they really needed to uncover was the property's location if they could pinpoint a
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specific address then they would be on their way to solving the case investigators tried to zoom in on
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the house house to see if a street name or number was visible but they were unable to spot
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anything the arsonist had filmed the moment that firefighters arrived so the investigators also tried enhancing
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footage of their truck perhaps they could see some kind of identification number or County name emblazoned on the
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vehicle once again they had no success the property was a single story ranch house with two chimneys and it
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appeared to have been under construction at the time it was burnt investigators combed through
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reports of house fires in the region to see if anything fit the bill but found no
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matches they began to wonder whether the blaze had even taken place in California the 205 Highway was just a
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few yards from where the tape was found and it linked to several other major highways that stretched out across the
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country investigators began to worry that they might never find the person responsible
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for what they had dubbed the Omar fire this thought concerned more than one of them Frank Curry a fire captain at the
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California Department of Forestry had been so disturbed by the footage of the tape that he'd struggled to sleep after
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first watching it Doug Allen a law enforcement coordinator at the department feared
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that the person responsible could go on to commit further more violent crimes he
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was well aware that some criminals such as New York serial killer Son of Sam had
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started their crime sprees with Arsen before moving on to murder Doug Allen quote I think the person who made this
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videotape and is responsible for the fire will without a doubt in my mind continue to set fires and the person
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needs to be apprehended and stopped before these fires become more [Music] destructive investigators spent a year
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trying to figure out the location of the fire but finally accepted that they had
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hit a dead end realizing that the media might be one way they could generate some leads
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they approached the producers of the Prime Time television program Unsolved Mysteries as well as featuring story
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about missing persons and unexplained paranormal phenomena the series explored unsolved
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crimes viewers at home were encouraged to call in to the show's hotline with any information they might
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have the show's producers were Keen to cover the Omar fire some of the case investigators including Doug Allen and
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Frank Curry appeared on camera to discuss their concerns the show also depicted a
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reenactment of how the the mysterious and disturbing videotape was found the episode aired on the night of
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Wednesday September 19th 1990 as Zed Tarantino sat in his Redwood City Home approximately 80 Mi west of
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where the Villa family had found the tape a wave of shock washed over him the house shown burning on his
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television screen was the very same one that sat behind his own it had been under construction when the
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fire spread more than 2 years earlier on August 15 1988 and was subsequently rebuilt although Ed had been aware of
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the destructive Blaze the existence of a creepy video of the entire thing came as
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a disturbing surprise he called the Unsolved Mysteries hotline Ed wasn't the only viewer who
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recognized the property bill otterly was a contractor who'd struggled with constructing a
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house back in the summer of 1988 the residents here had been building was a 4200 ft home in Redwood
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City's Emerald Lake Hills neighborhood it was an expensive undertaking with the house valued at
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$850,000 just after the home's plywood walls were put up the entire thing was burned down
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under the cover of night when Bill discovered what had happened he had sat by the destroyed shell of a
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house and cried the house was rebuilt and during the second attempt at Construction Bill
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had paid an employee to stand guard over it at night as Bill watched Unsolved Mysteries
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air footage of the fire that had stomped arson investigators over in Stockton he
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recognized the house being destroyed by Flames he was watching his own property burn to the
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ground in the days after the episode aired the team at Unsolved Mysteries received a record breaking 1600 phone
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calls some offered theories about where the patch sewn on the fatigue jacket had
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originated from or what it signified others called in from all over the country to report house fires they
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thought matched the one on the Stockton arsonist tape but it was the calls from the San
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Mato County area that fascinated investigators the most 3 years earlier in the summer of
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1987 the Emerald Lake Hills neighborhood near Redwood City began experiencing a spade of
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fires all was started from gasoline and Molotov cocktails and as many as 30 Blazers were thought to be connected to
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the attacks most of them burned out naturally before causing significant damage but several
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had destroyed new homes that were under construction including one belonging to Bill
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otterly Sano County investigators had a theory they believed the arsonist was angry at the development of what had
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been a rural area a couple of years earlier Sano County had received Federal funding for
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a new sew system which led to increased residential construction it had come at the perfect
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time the county was in the heart of Silicon Valley which was rapidly growing alongside the technology companies based
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there as more people moved to the area for work more homes were needed and the region began to
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change San franciscans in search of space started to relocate to the quieter Redwood City and to Emerald Lake Hills
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in November 1988 a 100-year-old cabin that was in the process of being turned into a luxurious house was burnt
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down investigators discovered that the arsonist had scrolled a message on a wall
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inside neighbors Revolt please no more new houses because the attacks had taken place across a 5 square mile area
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authori struggled to pinpoint a suspect but now several years after the fires began it seemed that other
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investigators in a neighboring County had found proof of the arsonist in the form of a disturbing
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videotape as it happened investigators in San Mato County also had footage of the blaze that had destroyed Bill 's
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house after setting up the command post and dispatching firefighters to put out the Flames the fire captain had set up a
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video camera to film the entire thing for investigative and training purposes the recent outbreak of arson
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attacks had meant capturing one on tape was more important than ever investigators were able to compare
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the footage from the fire Captain's video to that on the cassette found by The Villa
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family it confirmed that not only were they both of the same Blaze but that the firefighters had been standing just 50
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ft away from the arsonist as he filmed his handiwork as well as helping pinpoint
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the fire's location the involvement of Unsolved Mysteries led to another crucial
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clue a woman named Doris Lance had also watched the episode as it de she too lived close to Bill 's house and she
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remembered the fire well but that was wasn't the only thing that stood out to her about the creepy
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footage the arsonists repeated references to someone called Omar caught Doris's attention she had a neighbor named
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Omar he was a 17-year-old boy who lived with his family and had gotten into trouble on more than one
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occasion Doris placed a call to investigators when the teenager was chased down and interviewed he quickly
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broke down under questioning Omar explained that he had a friend who was 2 years older than him
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the two of them had lit the fire together and filmed the entire thing Omar had remained silent as the
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camcorder recorded everything his friend was the one who had narrated The Blaze Jason not his real name was 19
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years old by the time he was brought to investigator's attention they placed him under
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surveillance During the period when they were observing Jason the garage of his home happened to catch on fire and burnt
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down as investigators combed through the rubble they found several interesting things there were knives and soars that
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appeared to be stained with blood some mutilated animal remains a table where items had clearly being cut up and a
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mask featuring the face of Freddy Krueger the villain from A Nightmare on Elm Street in the film The Spirit of Krueger
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seeks revenge on a group of teenagers after their parents kill him by burning him alive in a boiler room they light
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the fire with Molotov cocktails armed with the disturbing evidence recovered from Jason's garage
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just over a week after the episode of Unsolved Mystery had investigators hauled the 19-year-old in for
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[Music] questioning just like Omar Jason soon admitted to everything he confirmed that
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he was behind the fire on the videotape and had filmed the entire thing to investigators Jason appeared to
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be a very troubled young man at times he was Sullen and withdrawn but then he would start crying as he spoke about
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what he had done armed with a search warrant investigators returned to Jason's home
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in search of further Evidence they discovered that the tape found in Stockton wasn't the only one he
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had made further tapes recovered from Jason's residence indicated he had followed news coverage of his
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fires he had filmed a series of newspaper clippings that covered the arson attacks and pinned the Articles to
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a wall there was also footage of black spray paint on a wall that read please no more
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houses this was reminiscent of similar graffiti found at the 100-year-old cabin burnt down in November
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1988 there were also more home movies that he'd made with Omar one showed Jason being filmed by
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Omar from behind he had pulled his T-shirt up around the back of his neck to make it
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look like he had a back and he curled his hands to resemble claws as Jason turned around to face the
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camera he revealed that he was wearing a vampire mask he had painted an upside down cross
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on his forehead and he snarled at the camera in a different clip Jason wielded a knife at a dummy which he addressed as
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father after asking how the dummy was he said I hope you're doing real good then he stabbed it in the chest and used
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the knife to slice off its head dressed as Dracula he gave a theatrical performance to the
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camera I'm hungry tonight CU tonight is a night where all evil and satanic War shippers come where Satan rises again
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and fulfills the destiny of hatred and evil and S another video showed Jason and Omar
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playing violent War style games in a rural area presumably the Emerald Lake Hills
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neighborhood while some investigators have said that the two had no motive for the fires they lit others have
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speculated that they were upset by the development of a region they clearly enjoyed spending time in
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authorities linked Jason and Omar to the burning of 11 buildings and 15 separate
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grassfires in total their actions had caused more than $2 million in damage both suspects were tried as
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minors due to their respective ages at the time of the fires Omar was sentenced to serve time
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in a Juvenile Detention Facility while Jason was sent to a mental health hospital in the hopes he would receive
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help and Rehabilitation their identities have never been released by authorities or
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the media and it is not publicly known what became of them after their sentencing in the years since the
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episode of Unsolved Mysteries made the Stockton arsonist case Infamous it has continued to generate discussion online
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thanks mostly to the unsettling footage of the fire according to online sleuths who
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allegedly discovered Jason's true identity he died in January 2017 at the age of
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45 Jason had been walking along a highway in San Mato County when he tripped and stumbled onto the
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road he was struck by a passing car and pronounced dead at the [Music] scene although the young man's fires
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took place almost 90 M away from Stockton in an entirely different part of Cali California the case has remained
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associated with the location where the tape was discovered it remains unclear how Jason
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and Omar's tape ended up in a place so far away from their homes [Music] [Music]
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[Music]