Wilsonville Spokesman Online

Wilsonville arson case dismissed

District attorney dismisses case, but sheriff''s office wants to keep investigation open

• By: Michelle Te  
• Published: 1/29/2010 9:44:34 AM

Arson suspect
The arson case against Thomas Edward Porter Jr., 29, was dismissed by the district attorney's office this month after prosecutors said they couldn't prove beyond reasonable doubt of Porter's guilt.

The case against a Wilsonville man arrested and charged with first-degree arson after his apartment caught fire last November has been dismissed.

Michael Wu, an assistant district attorney with Clackamas County, said  last week the state could not prove  beyond a reasonable doubt that Thomas Edward Porter, 29, was responsible for setting the fire on his third-floor apartment on Nov. 4, 2009.

“Even though there was a good amount of circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime, there was not enough to prove that he committed the crime,” Wu said.

The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, Tualatin Fire and Rescue and  Oregon State Police investigated the fire that occurred on the morning of Nov. 4, 2009, at Sundial Apartments, 7925 S.W. Vlahos Drive, Wilsonville.

At that time, Porter had been home with his wife and infant child. A teen-age girl passed by on her way to school, ostensibly just after the fire had started. She noticed the fire and ran up the stairs to help. Within minutes, rescue crews arrived and extinguished the fire which had substantially damaged Porter’s apartment.

Porter, his family, and residents of a neighboring apartment were rescued by climbing down a fire ladder outside the apartment.

A search warrant was issued for Porter two weeks later and he turned himself on Friday, Nov. 20. He was charged with first-degree arson, a Measure 11 offense which carries a mandated seven-year, six-month sentence.

Porter was arraigned in Clackamas County Circuit Court, then released on bail.But once the evidence was turned in to the district attorney’s office, the case changed.

“He was arrested by the Clackamas County Sheriff’s office, they believed and I agreed with them that there was sufficient probable cause to arrest him for arson,” Wu said. After reviewing the evidence, Wu concluded “there was not enough to prove that he committed the crime.”

The case was not presented to the grand jury and was dismissed.

However, both the sheriff’s office and the fire district say the case is still an open investigation.
“The case remains open at this time,” said Det. Jim Strovink, spokesman for the sheriff’s office. “No records are going to be made available publicly as the sheriff’s office is still pursuing investigative leads.
Wu said it’s a question of looking at the evidence at hand and hoping that more evidence will come forward.

“Obviously things can change,” he said. “More witnesses can come forward. But at this point, the investigation as far as I know is concluded.”

Arson cases, said Strovink, are very difficult to prove.

“It’s something like less than 12 percent of those cases are prosecuted, and are difficult to prove,” he said. “Someone ignites it, then they’re gone. It is a very difficult task to investigate arson.”

Kate Stoller, Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue assistant fire marshall, said prosecuting an intentionally set fire is a “tedious process.”

Neither police or fire officials would release details on how or where the Nov. 4 started.

“We respect the D.A.’s decision and remain guarded in speaking about the details of this incident due to the possibility that this case may go to trial in the future,” she said.

While fire investigators determine the “cause and origin of a fire by discovering, processing and reviewing the physical evidence and interviews,” it is the duty of law enforcement in determining whether to prosecute, said Stoller.

National overview
Nationally, 62,807 arson offenses were reported by 14,011 law enforcement agencies that provided 1-12 months of arson data in 2008, according to the U.S. Fire Administration, a division of FEMA. Of those agencies, 13,980 provided expanded offense data concerning 56,972 arsons.

Arsons involving structures (residential, storage, public, etc.) accounted for 43.4 percent of the total number of arson offenses; arsons involving mobile property accounted for 28.9 percent; and other types of property (such as crops, timber, fences, etc.) accounted for 27.7 percent of reported arsons.

The average dollar loss per arson offense was $16,015.
In the United States in 2008, arson offenses decreased 3.6 percent when compared with the 2007 number.
 

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