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[Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm excited cuz hopefully I think it's the maybe it's the 14th that uh Cobra
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cast season 2 comes out oh yeah yeah the old Cobra Guai I've not seen season one
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I've heard very good things though I I enjoyed it a lot it's definitely not true crime or maybe it is because
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they're teaching like teenagers to fight maybe there's some crime element there defend
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themselves well it depends on what team you're on right this week we have an unfortunate
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anniversary it is uh the it's our 50 show well now we're remembering the five students that were killed in an arson
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fire near the Ohio State University campus this took place on April 13th 2003 and it was big news here at the
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time because it was a unfortunate tragic event that was of course ruled in arson
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just within days of the Blaze and this was a fire that took place at well I mean you could you could argue you here
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or there whether it was campus or not campus technically they want to the papers say off- campus housing which I
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mean you could you could toss a football from the campus to where this house was
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located and this was a house that they were hosting a birthday party for that evening and it was a multi- kager that
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Spilled Out into the yard this was a warm night back in 2003 what street was that on this was was the house okay was
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located at 64 East 17th Avenue and it was technically rented to 12 college students at the time is that
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nuts it's a a house is rented to 12 students yeah nuts yeah this is one of those cases when when I looked into it
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it really helps to they did post like a diagram of the the actual home in the newspapers back then and that really
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helped to kind of visualize the unfortunate events that took place that night they estimate that there was like
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80 approximately 80 people that were in and out through the course of that evening this was a birthday party 21st
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birthday party for one of The house's residents and what took place Captain was around 4: in the morning there was
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an anonymous 911 call that came in the caller was a woman we still don't know to this day who it was but she she said
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that she was passing by the house when she saw half of the house lit up in Flames the firefighters rushed to the
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house and they found what they later categorized as a fast-moving intense Blaze amounting to a three alarm fire
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right which was one of the larger ones in recent memory apparently this fire spread very quickly throughout the house
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some of the kids were still awake when the six smoke detectors I want to make sure we point out here their smoke
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detectors were working right in the house so some of the kids were awake and some were sleeping when the smoke
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detectors went off several of them were able to escape three people John Chambers Lindsay shenberg and Tom
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seagull were in the basement and they were able to get out on their own but as the fire department is arriving they
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figure out they're going to have to start pulling some of these people out and this is a difficult situation too
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because as we said this house is big enough for 12 students to live there so you're showing up to this this campus
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house yeah you don't know how many people were in there they don't know that there was a party that night well
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again these houses are strange so even to have 12 people living there you know or or is there 15 or is there or is
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there five I mean it's really hard to tell from the outside of the building but back to the person that called
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there's no suspicion that she was involved this is just a somebody walking by well you know
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that's that's interesting that you point that out because I think there should be some suspicion I don't know that if
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police were able to identify this woman right as far as the news reports go there's no mention of her of her name at
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any time so when I say an anonymous caller it may just be anonymous to us because there were some individuals that
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say that they saw a person of interest maybe in the area at that time and we'll get into that here in a minute but uh in
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in the end we have this multi- floor multilevel house where we there's technically bedrooms in the on the
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basement level ground level and on the second floor and from my understanding Captain it was a lot of the people that
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were on the second floor that did not make it out right of that house unfortunately and the the firefighters
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the First Responders that that showed up and responded to the blaze they said that on the second floor so there was a
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fire escape that you could access from the second floor and that's how the firefighters went into the second floor
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but by the time they got there now mind you I think it was like the response time was like 3 minutes 4 minutes it was
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not long at all the problem though is like the caller said when she calls in she's calling in a house that is halfway
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on fire right so we got half the house already burned up and by the time the firefighters get to this house they get
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to the second floor they're crawling on their hands and knees trying to navigate
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through and around flames and and there's smoke up above them it's just a smoke filled second floor the the seal
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of the second floor is burning bright red according to these firefighters well some people never even wake up and if
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there's a party or any of these individuals drunk and just didn't hear the alarms and didn't wake up and then
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they normally die from uh inhaling all the smoke right and that and that's exactly how that was the cause of death
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for all five of the individuals it was smoke inhalation or uh carbon monoxide poisoning and the thing though they were
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able to determine through toxicology that all five of the victims they were drinking that night but none of them
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they never considered those levels of intoxication to be that high that they wouldn't have woke up during this
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situation my guess is we have some living you know some some some of the people that were technically victims
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because they were in the home but they made it out right be it dragged out by firefighters or if they got out on their
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own there was at least one of these victims that I think she described the houses you know she's like I was in a
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room that I very likely could have died in very you know very shortly afterwards
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but she's like I woke up and and the room just felt hot to me like not hot to the point where she thought there was a
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fire or anything right so I think with the layout of the house that kind of adds to
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the trouble here with this but well and also if you you know I lived on campus technically I lived there I wasn't I
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wasn't a resident there but I basically stayed up there for at least two years of my life mhm and a lot of these houses
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would have bedrooms that they they blocked off into two rooms instead of one they take
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a addict and turn that into a bedroom so a lot of those types of room rooms or houses it was you know you go to the
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bathroom upstairs and you get lost yeah so is it possible that some of these victims just weren't able to find their
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way out and also there obviously there's more confusion cuz there's smoke and there's fire but I mean you have two two
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females that are 19 one that's 20 and then two males that are 21 I remember like what it felt like
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or or imagine I can remember what it feels like to be 21 but you know when you look at these
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victims it's very sad because when you see their picture 21 looks very young now MH maybe
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that's just me getting really old but they look I mean they look like babies well and as you said the layout of the
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house could be confusing especially in a panic situation and three of the victims did not live
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there Christine Wilson Andrea Dennis and Aaron DeMarco were not residents of that
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home they were actually students at at OU at Ohio University that drove up just to attend the party the party and so two
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of the victims I believe were residents I know Alan schles sesman sorry was one of the victims he was not only somebody
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that lived there but it was his birthday party that was the purpose of the celebration that day yeah and his his
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good friend Kyle Roland um did live in the house as well so this as said was determined to be a arson and why why is
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that cuz it varies in each case but well so the the thing here is that's one part that I think is kind
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of difficult about this case is regarding the the bit of it being arson it was ruled in arson but one
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thing I couldn't find is there was there's like there's different information put
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out there from different sources some of them say that an accelerant was used and
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others do not say that mhm and the reason why I say that uh that that there's it's tricky to state that it's
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arson is years later some of the deciding factors that would determine an arson has they have
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become almost like junk science where I don't think it's a definitive answer every single time the the problem with
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this case is was there an accelerant used if there was then it has to be an arson right right but the the belief
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is or at least what they released to the papers the they were able to determine that the
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fire started on The house's front porch now you know I know that a lot of those houses up there have couches on the
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front porch yeah and so well they used to not So Much Anymore yeah but but this is 2003 this is
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probably I was up there probably 2000 2001 kind of started dwindling hanging out down there about 2002 so this but
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around that time there was I mean it was like notorious to have a a couch on your
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front porch mhm the weird thing too when looking back at this there was a surprising number of arson in the
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area around that time period as well now well there was a lot of arson from you know 2000 2001 2002 there's a lot of
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little mini riots after football games and and were lighting it became a very common thing
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to light a dumpster on fire right and I think a lot of times when you have people moving out like let's say uh
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winter break or whatever there's some people that are actually dropping out of school so they throw away a crummy
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mattress or whatever and sometimes I wondered is somebody start in a fire or is is it a situation where you have
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Furniture that's in a dumpster you have maybe some leftover alcohol and somebody's flicking a cigarette or
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something and it it's eventually causing a fire well yeah yeah I mean not arson in the sense of somebody trying to cause
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bodally harm or burn someone's property down right a lot of this is just straight up can be can be you know
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chocked up to goofing around yeah you know drunk college kids things on fire do you know if there was a actual couch
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on their front porch um I believe there was and that is believed to be the start of the fire of
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of where it all came from and I 17th that's around the that's 17 East East 17th so this is kind of around the
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area that they also have some uh sororities for ities that's not too far off the reason why I bring this up is I
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lived on Indiana Avenue or stayed on Indiana Avenue and for we end up putting up um some Christmas lights I think they
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were purple you went up there several times to party with us mhm and we end up putting up purple
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lights like on the porch and the the reason why I bring up the story is 2 o'clock in the morning 3
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o'clock in the morning something like that I just hear some banging and some noises
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going on front porch but now I'd probably like look through the peephole or look through the
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window but it was so common that somebody could just be messing with your property that you just open the door so
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I opened up the door and it was this rugby guys from the rugby team that lived I don't know seven houses down
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from us and they were taking our lights and mashing them on the front porch oh nice and then I nice I was like what are
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you doing and the guy's like we're smashing your lights what are you going to do about it you know mhm and I was
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like nothing I don't like the purple lights enjoy just uh clean up the mess when you're done right you know and then
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I went back to bed and then of course in the morning I woke up and they didn't clean up the mess they smashed all the
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lights point being is this is at 4:00 in the morning this is bars are closing about two people are
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walking home people are dropping people off you have a lot of drunk individuals is this a situation where somebody's
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just trying to be a jerk and it's not um purposeful as far as you're not trying to hurt somebody but oh let's
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light light this off on somebody's porch right I I just think in this situation especially with it being on campus it
00:16:02
just is likely like that that would happen well that means an interesting thing for the investigation in my
00:16:09
opinion because now you have a situation where you have five deaths five homicides to deal with and you have a
00:16:19
situation where you have a party that was going on at that residence that night about 80 or so people in and out
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through the course of the evening so from an investigator standpoint you have a lot of people to interview a lot of
00:16:33
people to figure out does did anyone in this group have a a grudge against these
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uh anybody that lived there surprising to me that there's nobody you know on the front porch
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smoking a cigarette or something at 400 a.m. because parties didn't quit you know like we didn't shut shut up shop at
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at 2:00 mhm so it's surprising to me that there wasn't somebody left over from the party from the original 80 some
00:17:05
people that were at the party that was still up and drinking a beer on the front porch yeah we have no one to say
00:17:12
that they saw the fire get started or that they witnessed the fire start it's the only accounts that we have coming
00:17:21
from outside of the house would be the anonymous caller who who notified 911 and then later are a couple people that
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say that they saw an individual in the area that was wearing like a a Snoop Dog style
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jacket a Snoop Dog style jacket yeah it was it was described as a denim jacket with a Snoop Dog logo on it yeah cuz
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that you know that's always really gangster when you wear a a jacket with some other
00:17:51
dude's name on it that makes never understood that well I mean Snoop Dogg obviously sold these and
00:17:59
people people obviously bought him at least this guy um but but I just think it's hilarious I'm I'm tough man I got
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Snoop Dog's name on my jacket so the what they do is this Snoop Dog jacket seems to be like their main
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lead when it comes to trying to figure out who could have possibly set this fire but again what's his motive I mean
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is just just s you know lights a fire to light a fire well that that's the that's a the big
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question here that's the $644,000 question what was the motive for this whole tragic event yeah and that's why I
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said it's interesting from an investigator standpoint you have 80 partygoers there that night was it
00:18:46
somebody that attended the party that set the fire was it somebody that lived across the street was it somebody
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driving in from out of town you know it it could have been any number of people we still don't know this is I mean this
00:18:58
is Cold Case today and the reason why we're talking about it here today is that this pops up in our local news
00:19:05
every time this year because we're we're what less than a week away from the anniversary so every year they they call
00:19:13
for information for people to come out and and and if they saw anything or if they know anything because the thing is
00:19:20
with something like this you have to wonder a couple things if somebody set this fire for
00:19:28
for Revenge purposes and maybe their intent wasn't to kill anybody maybe it was just as simply to do some property
00:19:35
damage right or it was a prank or whatever or was a prank or it was a total accident I think that the thought is in
00:19:44
this type of situation that this is something that somebody would have spoke about at some point I mean we're talking
00:19:52
16 years later and I really feel like and I think investigators feel like the only way
00:19:59
that they're going to ever solve this thing is if they get someone to come forward and someone to say Hey you know
00:20:07
I know something that you don't know here's this individual that told me that they they started this fire for any
00:20:13
number of reasons be it an accident or revenge or a prank or any number of reasons I know this person that is
00:20:21
struggling to live with what they've done and told me this in confidence and now I'm passing it along to law
00:20:28
enforcement that's what makes me feel like this is more of an accident and and that the person that caused the accident
00:20:36
probably doesn't even know that they caused it mhm and the reason being is that this is a long time to live with
00:20:42
something that would be haunting you like that and so I think if that's the case the person would never come forward
00:20:49
because they don't even know that they're responsible for you it could be so many things right I mean again I mean
00:20:57
can you go over the evidence of a little bit again just as as far as why they think it's an arson and not
00:21:05
just an accident well I don't have any specific evidence to point to that all I have is the the statements that were
00:21:13
given we have uh fire Captain Rick Saltzman who says we know it was an arson this was not an accidental fire so
00:21:23
basically what these articles are saying what these news articles and news reports are saying is that according to
00:21:32
the fire investigators who combed through the house thoroughly they were able to
00:21:38
determine according to their statement they were able to rule out any accidental causes for fire you know they
00:21:46
they would have been checking things like electrical lines leading to and from the house gas lines right things of
00:21:52
that nature so according to their statements they were able to rule out any any caused by accident that this
00:22:00
would have this house would have burnt down now so I guess by process of elimination
00:22:07
maybe that's what they're left with was is arson the problem though for us on the outside looking in on this thing is
00:22:16
they may know more than that you know they may know exactly what caused this fire and because they don't have a whole
00:22:24
lot to go off of that might be the thing that they have to hold hold on to to arrest the appropriate person well like
00:22:34
I said it makes it a lot more difficult because also there's a lot of houses that look
00:22:40
similar up there is this a situation where somebody was trying to cause harm to somebody but they got the wrong house
00:22:46
they got the wrong Street you know again was it did they mean uh for it to be a prank
00:22:55
mhm you know did these did the person that did this even know the individuals and I think that's what makes it way
00:23:03
more difficult but it's one of those cases where it's hard to even speculate because you don't even know what what
00:23:09
the firefighters know right and and again it's one of those things where I wish that they would come out and
00:23:15
definitively say if they know that there was an accelerant used I want to point out a a couple things though of Interest
00:23:23
here so I know when they were looking through the home and looking at the home because it took them a few days to come
00:23:30
to the conclusion of arson I believe it was three days maybe four days after that they announced that it was in their
00:23:37
opinion an arson and not an accidental fire but they were looking at typical things that you would expect to see at a
00:23:44
campus house charcoal grill kerosene tiki torches you know any you mentioned lights and things like that so you could
00:23:54
have decorations anything up there like that and then on top of that charcoal grill I mean you could also
00:24:01
have a situation where somebody for whatever reason decided they wanted to light this fire and they use stuff that
00:24:07
they found at the home or on the front porch itself as the accelerant now I couldn't find any local
00:24:15
newspaper articles that were saying 100% that an accelerant was used and what that accelerant was however this was
00:24:23
featured on America's Most Wanted I think it was a few months maybe six months after the
00:24:30
fire and they did say on America's Most Wanted that an accelerant was used now I
00:24:36
don't know if that was you know some kind of creative license that they took there and decided to include that and it
00:24:42
and it's truthful or if they just added that to the story did you ever go to any
00:24:47
of our uh Christmas parties U I don't think so so what would do is what we what we realized was since
00:24:56
we since we were in college but were all in college where our families were from
00:25:02
right so Mo some of our friends would go back home but what we realized was normally uh Christmas Eve you'd have
00:25:10
some stuff with your family and then Christmas day you would normally go eat with your family hang out with your
00:25:15
family whatever but Christmas night got nothing to do mhm most of the time people were done by four or five
00:25:25
o'clock so we decided to start having a Christmas party and it was a Christmas barbecue but I'm sure you went to one of
00:25:34
the parties where we hung out uh in the back and not the front yeah yeah but we we always had a fire pick going so a lot
00:25:42
of these campus houses you got a grill and you got some sort of fire pit so I just
00:25:51
wonder was this stuff on their front porch um but I don't I don't know I again I I wish we
00:26:03
had more information from the firefighters because it kind of gives you nowhere to go other than there was a
00:26:10
suspicious guy wearing a Snoop Dog jacket well so the thing is their two leads were one there was some kind of
00:26:20
disagreement at the party that night okay so this would have been around like 3:00 in the morning there was like a
00:26:27
shouting match between two of the men and this included one member that lived at the house and the other man was a
00:26:35
guest and I guess somebody was messing with the refrigerator on a dare I don't know if they were trying to lift it up
00:26:40
or move it or something like that but somebody that lived there is like hey man leave the refrigerator alone and
00:26:48
there were some people some party go goers that pointed to police and said hey this could be what you're looking
00:26:53
for that maybe there was some kind of fight and somebody later returned to the house and set the couch on fire maybe
00:27:00
their intent was to burn down the house maybe their intent was just to light something on fire on the front porch
00:27:06
right as a as a you know but what police would ultimately say about that situation is that while it was an
00:27:15
interesting lead for them after talking to everybody that witnessed this altercation they were
00:27:21
like this was not really a fight this was not this was you know a couple guys like shouting at each other to call a
00:27:28
fight is an injustice to fights everywhere you yeah I understand that but then it becomes difficult because
00:27:34
let's say this guy's drinking and he's trying to lift up the refrigerator and they're like hey put it down and he's
00:27:41
like ah you know me I'm a little crazy you know and and then like people kind of talk a little [ __ ] and then you go n
00:27:48
I'm going to light their couch on fire just to show them mhm as a joke and I think that's a very good possibility
00:27:57
that somebody did it not to harm not to kill anybody but to basically go ah I got you
00:28:05
guys and all the evidence would you know show that somebody did it on purpose but
00:28:11
then when you're being questioned if you're at the party you're being questioned with the idea that we
00:28:18
have five people dead right you see what I mean so it's it it changes the scenario real quick
00:28:26
and could somebody that didn't mean anything by it other than to like startle them or prank them
00:28:33
and have them come running out and you know put the you know dump water on the couch or
00:28:40
whatever could somebody live with this and not say anything I think it's possible well yeah I mean anything's I
00:28:49
mean of course that's possible that's your deepest darkest secret if you're that person right but I but that's
00:28:55
that's all police have to go off of now is saying that they believe that their only chance of solving this is likely
00:29:04
someone coming forward and saying I know something you don't know but this doesn't make any sense either somebody
00:29:09
told me this this doesn't make any sense either there's a there's let's say it's
00:29:13
not a fight right it's just kind of a don't do that right mhm don't do that anymore at 3:00 in the
00:29:23
morning and then the fire happens at 4: mhm so to me the there's people up and who was
00:29:31
up still at the house who was still partying mhm there had to be somebody and again that could be information that
00:29:39
the firefighters know and we don't so I don't know it's it's tough too and sometimes with these cases it's
00:29:47
really frustrating to me cuz you go well you can you know every anniversary you can say hey we want some information can
00:29:54
you guys give us some information well you're probably not going to get it cuz there is no new new information that
00:29:58
you're giving and if if You released a couple things well we know a b c and d that that might spark conversation
00:30:08
with somebody that was at the party these people have thought about this probably every day of their
00:30:14
life uh even the ones you know even people that were just at the party mhm and and weren't there when the fire
00:30:24
happened but maybe you know left at midnight probably think about this often so I think that gets difficult because
00:30:34
you have to start releasing information I think if you want to have any chances of getting any new information
00:30:41
back it's not just going to be like well let's put it in the papers every year and hope somebody uh decides to change
00:30:49
their mind it's it's heat sometimes you know and no pun intended but it's like sometimes you have to put the heat on
00:30:57
individuals by releasing information you start releasing that information people get nervous M and
00:31:05
when people get nervous they normally start talking well I mean they did arrest somebody they arrested a um
00:31:11
20-year-old man his name was Robert lucky Patterson and they arrested him and what's a little unclear is one of the
00:31:22
the big tips that they got regarding this case was from a I believe it might have been from a campus police officer
00:31:31
you know the old campus Patrol right and I don't think that well what I should say is until this
00:31:41
until this goes to trial we will never know for certain but we don't know if the tips that were coming in named the
00:31:49
individual specifically or if it was just a description of the individual but what we do know that was was made public
00:31:57
was that uh the tips were about a white man about 5'1 200 lb with Shaggy blonde hair and a dark jacket and then again
00:32:06
some of the newspaper articles reference that Snoop Dog jean jacket with the letters SDC printed on it
00:32:15
now what they did was they were going around and they were showing people pictures of either a similar jacket or
00:32:23
believ to be the same jacket as well as their description they have of this this
00:32:29
man that this person of interest and eventually they catch up with this Robert lucky Patterson who's 20 years
00:32:36
old he was local to the area but did not attend OSU he had worked at a one of the pizza
00:32:45
places nearby right for a long time now his situation was difficult because he was like a known Petty criminal okay
00:32:55
he's got very small charges against him leading up to this and when they talk to
00:33:03
him we have a weird situation because this guy they really believe that this could be their dude this dude's quite
00:33:12
Cooperative in my opinion from what I could see one he he didn't you know run and hide from them he spoke with police
00:33:20
multiple times I believe he passed a lie detector test a polygraph test but what happens is he admits to being in
00:33:30
the general area that night and around about the time they believe that the fire started and they were like well
00:33:38
what what were you doing in the area he's like I was trying to steal car stereos in the parking lot behind East
00:33:44
17th Avenue MH when uh well what stopped you well I got into an altercation with
00:33:50
somebody now I don't know the details of that because what would be interesting to know is could that altercation have
00:33:56
been one either somebody that lived at the home that that was eventually burnt down where we have the five homicides or
00:34:05
was it was it from a different house or was it just a passer by you know somebody that sees somebody doing
00:34:10
something wrong and says hey buddy what the hell you doing you know tries to chase the dude
00:34:16
off so their thought is that whatever happened between between this uh Robert Patterson whatever attempt to scare him
00:34:27
off from trying to steal car stereos from the from behind the East 17th Avenue that he got pissed off and
00:34:34
decided to set this fire now he does admit a couple of things that are tricky one he admits that he has blackout
00:34:43
periods and he has a drug and alcohol problem and that he was on he was using drugs and alcohol that night he also
00:34:52
states that he was carrying matches with him that night now this could be something as simple as you know you got
00:35:00
to kind of put yourself in the in this interrogation room when you when you hear these things these statements given
00:35:07
by what we are told our suspects so we're like oh [ __ ] this guy was in the area around that same time he was
00:35:13
carrying matches looks pretty good to me but in the interrogation room it's not it's not so much that man it's it's uh
00:35:22
do you smoke yes okay well were were you carrying a lighter with you that night I
00:35:27
don't know do you always carry a lighter sometimes I carry matches were you carrying matches with you that night
00:35:35
probably okay well we have this fire okay but I smoke you know I I I light a cigarette from time to time you know
00:35:44
so it's it's one of those things where they have this guy and they go to bring charges against him they arrest him and
00:35:54
there there's some famous pictures of him Loc Al anywhere where they have the you know they have the protective vest
00:36:00
on him while while they're leading him in and out of uh the police department because a lot of people thought somebody
00:36:07
might try to take a shot at this guy and they hold him for a number of days but there's a rule that once you're
00:36:17
arrested they have to be able to bring formal charges against you at some point you can't just hold somebody forever and
00:36:24
sit around while you you know twiddle your thumbs and try to come up with charges against this person yeah so as
00:36:32
the deadline approached for that the prosecutor the central Ohio prosecutor let the guy he released this Patterson
00:36:40
guy and the thing was was he didn't have enough evidence to bring these formal charges against him so we talk about so
00:36:49
many times on this show and we see it so many times in the media and on TV and in
00:36:53
the newspapers where we as Citizens question what information they had you know we we just got done talking about
00:37:02
Adan Sayed for for three or four weeks right here here's a case where we have a prosecutor that says pump the brakes a
00:37:11
little bit we might not have a case here and of course the prosecutor has to keep
00:37:17
in mind that he's got double double jeopardy to worry about at all times but we have somebody that I believe is
00:37:25
doing a good job and says pump the brakes here we can't we can't charge this individual
00:37:29
with this we don't have enough evidence we don't have we don't have a confession
00:37:34
from the guy right we don't have a a bunch of evidence tying him to and you know what public
00:37:40
opinion especially at the time it didn't take long to arrest this dude but public
00:37:45
opinion at the time they were looking for somebody to hang you know five college students five
00:37:53
young young adults killed all in one foul swoop yeah they were looking for somebody to
00:37:59
hang and this and that's why they were putting that vest on on Patterson they thought somebody was going to take a
00:38:04
shot at this guy that's how bad they wanted somebody to to uh face Justice for this horrible horrible incident and
00:38:11
I say incident because I'm kind of left years later wondering if this could have just been a
00:38:18
straight up accident of some sort that like you said somebody somebody flicks a cigarette the wrong way and you got you
00:38:26
got lighter fluid charcoal grill tiki torches you know you or or take or or take Patterson for example and this is
00:38:34
completely hypothetical he he is uh in the area he's trying to break into the cars whatever he's doing right somebody
00:38:41
goes hey get out of here it's one of the friends at the party mhm Patterson comes
00:38:48
around the block notice that you know starts walking around notices hey there's nobody at that party anymore
00:38:55
just light the the sofa on on fire or a chair on fire or whatever just to to kind of be a
00:39:03
nuisance then people end up dead again it's one of those things where it's like what
00:39:12
evidence they don't they're not going to ever have the nail to uh the final nail in
00:39:19
the coffin unless somebody confesses right from we can guess that anyways well yeah no no I I agree with
00:39:31
that 100% but I I also stick by what police have continued to say since 2003 and I would say that this case probably
00:39:39
went cold about a year or so after that's when it seemed to die down that they were going to be able to bring
00:39:45
charges against Patterson but I I do stick by what the thing that they remind the public about every year around this
00:39:53
time of the anniversary is that look so we believe not just the person that started this fire we believe that
00:40:00
somebody else somebody that knows the person that started this fire knows something has been told something or saw
00:40:05
something at some point we are asking you to come forward because we don't believe that the person that set this
00:40:12
fire is going to come forward right right right which I understand so maybe there is
00:40:17
somebody then you got to you know hopefully and I agree with them that's the person that's going to come forward
00:40:23
the person that actually did it whether it's an accident or not they know if if I open up my big mouth I might be going
00:40:33
to jail for Life M and um so so gives you a lot of motivation not to talk yeah so as we talk about this
00:40:45
Captain I'm scrolling through different uh articles because as I said every time
00:40:51
every year around this time they start releasing articles um reminding us about this tragedy and reminding us that
00:40:58
they're still looking for the perpetrator of the fire that led to these five homicides and
00:41:06
so some of the information here says unknown lie detector test results regarding Patterson so I want to be
00:41:13
clear about that I think I said earlier that that I believed he might have passed one but it says unknown lie
00:41:19
detector test results and then also we have a statement this is 2004 so this is April 2004 one year
00:41:30
after the fire where Ron O'Brien Ron O'Brien was the prosecutor at the time that was uh trying to put this case
00:41:38
together and he says a year after the fire that police are still investigating Robert
00:41:46
Patterson among others is his statement so I think we have a situation here where the police really felt like they
00:41:54
had their guy and I think maybe Ron O'Brien the prosecutors is going not so certain not so certain it could still be
00:42:01
somebody else [Applause]