Murder tops list of charges; arson dropped
By Tim Bragg
Fresno Bee
Copyright 2006 McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
PORTERVILLE, Calif. — A judge ruled Monday that a Tulare man will stand trial on charges of starting several wildland fires that led to the deaths of two airborne firefighters.
The judge said that while evidence showed the man was reckless, there were no signs that his motivation in starting the fires was arson.
Superior Court Judge Glade Roper ordered Patrick Ryan Courtney, 29, to stand trial on two counts of murder and three counts of setting a forest fire in a reckless manner, along with several other special charges.
The Tulare man is accused of setting several small fires during the Labor Day weekend in Mountain Home State Forest.
A California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spotter plane directing fire ground crews battling the fires crashed Sept. 6, killing Visalian Rob Stone, a CDF battalion chief, and contract pilot George “Sandy” Willett of Hanford.
Prosecutor Tim Ward asked Roper to also hold Courtney accountable for arson, but Roper dropped that charge, saying evidence showed Courtney sought to put out the fires.
“There’s no evidence he set the fires with the intent to cause the forest to burn down,” Roper said.
The judge referred to testimony from investigators that Courtney walked into Bear Creek Drainage near Balch Park in the Tulare County mountains Sept. 4 after getting into a fight with his girlfriend.
He spent the night in the canyon, lighting several fires to keep warm, scare away animals and to signal his location, according to statements he gave investigators.
Courtney came across a CDF forest crew camp the following morning and sought assistance. He voluntarily talked to investigators several times before his arrest last month.
Marion Matthews, a special agent with the National Forest Service who assisted the CDF in its investigation, testified that authorities believe Courtney set four fires while in the canyon that night, and that each fire was intentional.
She testified Monday that when Courtney accompanied her and another fire investigator to the canyon, he didn’t tell them about one of the fires he set, even though the three walked by the site of it.
It was only after she and the other investigator noticed a burn area that Courtney acknowledged setting a small fire that grew into the “Sock fire,” she said.
But Courtney’s attorney, John Jackson, asked Matthews whether she had an open mind when she questioned Courtney. He said she and a CDF investigator intimidated Courtney by questioning him at his workplace.
“Isn’t it true that you told Mr. Courtney that you had to have a reason for those fires?” Jackson asked. “You wanted these fires to be intentionally set, didn’t you?”
Matthews answered that she wanted to find the cause of the fires because two people had died.
Ward argued that Courtney’s intentions were not an issue because a ruling in another court case involving a different CDF plane crash stated malicious intent wasn’t needed to convict someone of murder.
He said that ruling was in a case involving the mid-air crash of two air tankers several years ago. It stated that someone can be prosecuted for murder in a fatal forest fire crash if it was foreseeable that a plane would be used to fight the fire and it was foreseeable that a firefighter could die fighting the blaze.
Courtney is scheduled to appear in a Visalia court Jan. 10 to set a date for his trial.