In the second week of the Justin Halstenberg arson trial proper, the prosecution’s presentation of testimony and evidence began a transition from an emphasis on establishing the defendant had ignited the Line Fire in Highland on September 5, 2024 to an emphasis on the extent of that conflagration’s destructiveness and cost as well as demonstrating he had a previous history of setting, or attempting to set, wildland fires.
Halstenberg’s defense team, meanwhile, sought to ameliorate the blows sustained by their client, while continuing to lay the foundation of a central theme of their attempt at exculpation, an illustration of the limitation of investigators’ gathering and measure of physical evidence in a way that was prejudiciously calculated to show the suspect’s guilt in such a way that it invalidated the scientific analysis upon which the prosecution is relying.
On Monday morning, Deputy District Attorney Justin Crocker resumed his direct examination of Richard William Scott, a Highland resident who during much of the afternoon of September 5, 2024 was engaged doing plumbing repair work at a home on Sonora Lane in the East Highland district not too distant from where a team of investigators have concluded the Line Fire began in a field north of Baseline Road.
After Scott had finished those repairs and was driving to his residence, which was some mile or so distant west and north, he encountered, while driving westbound on Baseline fledgling fire in the form of a bush that was smoking just a few feet north of Baseline Road. He pulled over “within a car’s distance” of the fire and went a few feet into the brush where he extinguished a fire in a burning tumbleweed,
As he approached the tumbleweed, which Scott said was about “three or four feet” into the field from the side of the road, he saw a piece of yellow lined Steno paper that he described as “smoldering in the bushes” and near the top of a burning tumbleweed. He said he “grabbed the paper and put it out” and then dropped it onto the street before returning his attention to the still burning tumbleweed.” He said he did not uproot the tumbleweed or try to remove it from its surroundings but eradicated the fire on the spot.
“I left it in place and crushed it with my shoes and my hands,” he said. He used his hands to deal with the “glowing embers” that consisted of “dried flower heads glowing red.” Any burning of his hands, Scott said, “wasn’t that substantial. I didn’t burn my fingers. I’m sure they had soot all over them.”
In his cross examination of Scott, Halstenberg’s attorney, Luke Byward, focused on the yellow lined Steno paper Scott encountered. The prosecution considers the presence of yellow blue-lined paper near what fire investigators say are three separate fires that were lit in Highland at approximately 4:11 p.m., followed by another at 4:26 p.m. and a third at 5:45 p.m., the later of which grew into the 43,978-acre Line Fire, to be crucial pieces of evidence It is the prosecution’s theory that Halstenberg used yellow paper with blue lines, a pad of which was found in his vehicle, to form crude but which turned out to be effective incendiary devices. According to the prosecution and the arson investigators who looked into the origin of the Line Fire and the two other fires that took place earlier in the day in Highland on September 5, 2024 but which were snuffed out or burned out on their own before they spread, Halstenberg wrapped or folded that yellow paper around coins, fastening it in some fashion perhaps using heavy duty industrial staples, creating a weighted package, then twisted one or both ends of the paper and lit it or them, whereupon he flung the burning object out the open passenger side of his truck as far out into the fields filled with parched chaparral to the side of the road as he could as he drove by.
Byward sought to get, and succeeded in extracting, from Scott information during his cross examination that may be of use in the defense he and his co-defense council, Justin Ewaniszyk, are attempting to construct for Halstenberg. Scott, while cooperating with California Division of Forestry and Fire Protection and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department investigators, had refused to speak with investigators working for the San Bernardino County Public Defender’s Office when they sought information from him previously. When Byward asked him why he had balked at speaking with the defense’s investigator but had subjected to questioning by those affiliated with the fire department, law enforcement and the prosecution, Scott indicated that he had already given videotaped statements to the fire division and law enforcement investigators and that this his son-in-law, a lawyer with whom he had consulted, advised him to tell the defense investigator he considered those statements to be sufficient and the defense investigator could watch those videos.
Byward then attempted to zero in on why Scott had chosen to consult with a lawyer and not cooperate with the defense investigator. Scott disputed the suggestion that he was being uncooperative, stating that “I had nothing further to say” and he merely “wanted to put this whole thing behind” him. “I didn’t ask to be there,” he said.
On Monday on the witness stand, however, Scott was unable to avoid being questioned. In particular, Byward drove at the yellow lined paper the good Samaritan had come across in or on the burning tumbleweed.
Scott said that upon pulling out of or away from the tumbleweed, he “took it out into the street and stomped it out and went back into the bushes.” At one point, Scott said, he paid close attention to the paper, as he thought it might provide an indication with regard to the fire or its origin. “It crossed my mind to see if it had any information on it.” Scott said he “picked it up to see if there was any identifying information on it.” He said he unfolded it but that when he saw nothing on it he dropped it on the ground behind him at the spot where he was dealing with the burning tumbleweed.
Byward asked him about the paper’s condition. Scott said he “unfolded it…” and that “It looked like it had been randomly folded. It was creased. It wasn’t wadded up.”
Deliberately in intent, yet seeking to be casual in approach, Byward inquired about the size of the paper, somewhat obliquely referencing that when he had been on the witness stand the previous Thursday testifying under direct examination by Crocker, when the paper was referenced he had “corrected” the prosecutor by noting that the paper was not “legal” size – 8.5 inches by 14 inches – or “letter” size – 8.5 inches by 14 inches – but rather that of a stenographers pad – 6 inches by nine inches.
“That happened, yes,” Scott said.
The paper was, Scott said, “not the legal pad size. It was a steno pad. When I grabbed the paper and put it on the street, I was looking for writing on the paper, any sort of information, I physically unfolded the paper, so I noticed it was much smaller than full size. It struck me it was not a full-size piece of paper.”
Scott said he was thoroughly familiar with what he was talking about, insofar that his wife, a certified public accountant had steno pads lying all over their house.
Scott’s testimony on this score is potentially helpful to the defense and problematic for the prosecution. The pad of blue-lined yellow paper found in Halstenberg’s truck appears to be, based on photos already introduced into evidence by the prosecution, to be letter size, that is, 8.5 by 11 inches. It is paper from that pad that the prosecution has implied the makeshift incendiary devices that Halstenberg constructed and used to start the three fires in Highland on September 5, 2024, one of which mushroomed into the Line Fire were fashioned from. Previously, in testimony from arson investigators working the Line Fire case, including pointed exchanges between [Byward/Ewaniszyk] and Fire Captain Michael Franklin, who took the lead on investigating the Line Fire’s origin, the certainty that the fire had been touched off by the coin-wrapped yellow steno pad paper device was asserted, making that an indelible element of the prosecution’s theory of Halstenberg’s guilt.
Another portion of Scott’s testimony had a bearing on that element of the prosecution’s case relating to the incendiary devices Halstenberg is accused of using in starting the three fires on September 5, 2024.
At the scene of the so-called Bacon Fire, which took place just west of where Bacon Lane makes a 90-degree turn at or near 4:11 p.m. that day and the Line Fire itself, which was ignited at around 5:45 p.m. give or take a few minutes, there were multiple coins found near the original flash points of those blazes, corresponding with that portion of the prosecution theory with regard to the incendiary device it is alleged Halstenberg was using. On Thursday, April 17, during his first day of testimony, Scott had indicated he found ”pennies” near the burning tumbleweed that he came across and extinguished on September 5, 2024.
During Byward’s cross examination of Scott, however, the witness stated that the earlier reference to his having found “coins” at the location of the fire he put out, which was estimated by Captain Franklin to be roughly 180 feet east on Baseline from the point of origin of the Line Fire, he found and picked up a single penny. According to Scott, he put that penny in his pants pocket, where it was intermixed with multiple other coins. He eventually informed investigators about having found the coin, but unlike the coins found at or near the locations of the two other fires that day, it was not collected by the investigators nor subjected to a forensic analysis, including an examination of trace DNA in an effort to link it to Halstenberg.
Under Crocker’s redirect examination, Scott provided another layer of confirmation in what has become a redundancy of indications that Halstenberg was at or near the scenes, or at the least in the general area, of where the fires began on September 5, 2024 in the hours and/or minutes preceding them.
When he was asked about the traffic on Baseline around the time that he was dousing the fire he came across, Scott recalled that “Traffic was light.” Asked if he remembered seeing any cars parked in the area or passing traffic, Scott said, “The only vehicle I remember passed me was an old white truck.”
Previous testimony established that Halstenberg owned and had driven to Highland that day a white, four-door short-bed Chevrolet pick-up truck. Asked if the white truck he saw was travelling westbound on Baseline, Scott said that it was.
Without lingering on the topic, Crocker brought out during his direct examination of Scott that after extinguishing the blaze, he had not reported the fire. In his cross examination of Scott, Byward dwelt on the implication of that.
Scott’s action on September 5, 2024 might not have come to the attention of investigators or the prosecution had he not made mention of what he had just experienced to the son of his next door neighbor, James Fee, shortly after he got home. Fee, who testified last week, was a witness to at least issues or areas of relevance to the prosecution. Fee, who had himself driven out Baseline Road a bit earlier that day, had seen a white, four-door, short-bed Chevrolet pickup apparently backing out of an off-road trail/unpaved road along Baseline west of where the Line Fire began right in the rough timeframe of when the Line Fire was starting. He had been at his parents’ home earlier that day, during which the high temperature in Highland was at least 108 degrees Fahrenheit, to swim in their pool. After leaving his parents’ home for a business meeting, he had returned to their house, where he encountered Scott. Scott told the younger Fee that “something crazy happened on my way home,” and he related how he had seen the smoking bush while driving out Baseline Road, stopped to put the incipient fire out and had seen the white pickup truck drive by.
In response to Fee’s question, Scott indicated he had not phoned the fire department to report the fire and that he was confident he had completely eradicated the fire. Scott indicated to Fee at that time that what had most likely occurred was someone had carelessly discarded a cigarette along that stretch of the road, inadvertently igniting the brush fire.
“It was my initial thought when I got out of my van that someone was being irresponsible,” Scott testified.
Perhaps an hour later, according to Scott’s testimony, he was again approached by Fee, who told him there was something that he needed to see outside. Upon walking out of his house toward the end of the cul-de-sac he lives on with Fee, Scott said, he could see the hillside east of his home was ablaze, what was the secondary stage of the Line Fire, after the small fire in the field to the north of Baseline had begun to spread up the slope into the San Bernardino Mountain foothills above Highland.
Fee, who lives in another part of East Highland, the following day told one of his neighbors, Christopher Bertetto about what he and Scott had experienced just prior to the Line Fire, including how both had seen the distinctive white Chevrolet pick-up truck. Christopher Bertetto and his wife, Lorraine Bertetto, are both detectives with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. It appears that Fee’s report to the sheriff’s department with regard to the white Chevrolet pickup truck was either the first reference to Halstenberg in an investigative context with regard to the Line Fire or that it closely paralleled the investigators’ early efforts to determine the identities of those who were in the vicinity of the Line Fire when it began.
In his cross examination of Scott, Byward seemed to be exploring the possibility that there had not been three fires in Highland on September 5, 2024, the third of which became the Line Fire, but only two, and that the fire that Scott had said he put out and which he did not report to the authorities had not been entirely extinguished, reestablishing itself as the Line Fire later that day.
In response to Byward’s inquiry about how seeing the hillside near his home being consumed with fire made him feel, Scot said he was “overwhelmed.”
“Nervous?” Byward asked.
“No,” Scott said.
Byward pressed Scott further about what it was like for him when the following day, after Fee had reported to Bertetto that Scott had the encounter with the fire and had not called the fire department to report it, he was being approached by fire investigators. Byward’s questions implied that the investigators might have come to suspect Scott was the firestarter or at least negligent and irresponsible for not having reported what had occurred to the authorities.
Scott, who was contacted and interviewed by both fire division investigators and arson investigators with the sheriff’s department, testified that he recalled only being interviewed by investigators with the fire agency. When Byward referenced a report written by a sheriff’s detective memorializing his interrogation of Scott, the witness indicated he had not realized that the detective was a sheriff’s department employee and that he thought he was an arson investigator with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which is known by its acronym, Calfire. Scott acknowledged that someone told him he needed to do a video interview. Scott said an investigator did “track me down and might have taken some paper notes.” He said that the investigator “could have been taking some information down,” but that he remembered the interview as the investigator as reaching out to him to “identify where I lived and introduce himself.
According to available documentation and previous testimony, that investigator was Michael Franklin. When Byward asked Scott if he remembered Franklin returning to interview him on September 9, 2024, Scott responded that he was not good at recalling names.
Scott resisted Byward’s questions that implied he had become a suspect, stating that he was voluntarily providing information to the investigators.
“I was trying to give them the information I had,” he said, indicating he was not sure whether they were interested in what he had to say, but that it was up to them to do “whatever they chose to do with it.”
Byward asked about statements Scott had made which could be interpreted as his recognition that he had become a suspect. In particular, Byward asked what Scott meant when he said that telling Fee about what had happened on September 5, 2024 “was my saving grace.”
Byward asked Scott directly, “Did you worry you might get into trouble for not calling 9-1-1?”
“I probably went a day – less than that – 12 hours,” he said, being what he called “pissed,” which he later described to Crocker as being angry with himself. “I was pissed that I wasn’t thorough enough about something I had involved myself in.”
He said he was thinking that that fire he was so sure he had put out had relit and ended up being the Line Fire.
Nevertheless, he insisted, he wasn’t nervous about the case or worried about having to talk to the investigators, and he said he hand no reason not to be open and honest when he was questioned.
“I had nothing to be anxious or nervous about,” he said.
San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Garcia, who in September 2024 worked out of and is still assigned to the Highland Sheriff’s Station, testified that he assisted in attempting to carry outh video surveillance of Halstenberg’s residence at 1394 Detroit Street in Norco in preparation of obtaining a search warrant for that property. He testified that on September 10, 2024, he was among the deputies, detectives and higher ranking officers who executed an arrest warrant for Halstenberg and the search warrant for his residence. During that operation, he testified, he obtained Halstenberg’s phone and provided it to Detective Jacob Hernandez and thereafter on Hernandez’s direction took the phone to the department’s scientific division to do a forensic download of the phone and its contents including extrapolating data from the phone’s text messages, photos and global position system.
The prosecution next called Detective Lorraine Bertetto, whose relationship to the case at this point exists on three distinct levels
Firstly, Lorraine Bertetto and her husband, Christopher, who is also a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department detective, live in Highland on the same cul-de-sac as one of the civilian witnesses in the case, James Fee. The Bertettos were therefore the first law enforcement officers to be alerted, through Fee because of his acquaintance with the couple and close proximity/access to them, of Halstenberg’s relationship or possible relationship to the Line Fire, specifically his presence in the area around the time the fire started. Fee on September 5 told Christopher Bartetto about having to swerve around Halstenberg’s truck as he was headed west on Baseline and the defendant was backing his vehicle out of a dirt road leading into the foothills. Fee also related to Christopher Bertetto what Scott had told him about having put out the brush fire on Baseline the day before and having seen Halstenberg’s pickup truck pass by in the same timeframe.
Secondly, Lorraine Bertetto was at the Highland Sheriff’s Station on September 10 when Halstenberg was brought there following his arrest that day. She collected the DNA sample from him that was subsequently used as a comparison to the trace DNA from several items believed by investigators and alleged by prosecutors to be components of the incendiary devices used by Halstenberg to light the three fires in Highland on September 5, 2024.
Thirdly, Lorraine Bertetto is at the epicenter of the circumstance and evidence supporting the defense’s contention that investigators and prosecutors loaded the dice in the effort to construct a case against Halstenberg.
Bertetto testified that she removed a a long-stemmed cotton swab from its sealed package and placed it in Halsenberg’s mouth, and swabbed his cheek.
An inference, based on Bertetto’s statements and those of the prosecution and defense, is that Bertetto set a video and audio recording device in a position to capture her interaction with Halstenberg, and that she was able to control the device by means of a switch on her belt. While the video was ostensibly made to document the proper procedure was followed in obtaining the suspect’s DNA, it was thought that Halstenberg while in custody would be more likely to speak with a woman than a man, and for that reason Bertetto was chosen to approach him and pepper him with questions of relevance to the investigation, with the interchange being recorded. Apparently, however, Halstenberg was wary of speaking to any of his captors, and Lorraine Bertetto did not fare any better in that regard than her male colleagues.
In cross examining Bertetto, Byward sought to get her to go beyond her description of having performed the swab of Halstenberg’s internal cheek, but she testified that she only went into the holding room with Halstenberg to get his DNA.
After Lorraine Bertetto was dismissed as a witness and the jury no longer present in the courtroom, sparring between the defense – Byward and Deputy Public Defender Justin Ewaniszyk – and the prosecution – Croker and Deputy District Attorney Andrew Peppler – before Judge Cheryl Kersey relating to the defense’s contention that the prosecution’s witnesses have engaged in misrepresentations and outright perjury while prosecutors have abetted the witnesses to the point of suborning perjury and are themselves seeking to induce the court into admitting into evidence exhibits and testimony in from which facts and information favorable to Halstenberg has been redacted, excise or omitted and evidence damaging and prejudicial to him stands unaltered. Byward seized upon Lorraine Bertetto’s testimony that she had not attempted to extract a statement from Halstenberg. This was “patently untrue,” i.e., tantamount to perjury and provably so, Byward said. Contained on the video Lorraine Bertetto had herself made of her interaction with Halstenberg clearly demonstrated, that she had sought to engage the suspect in a conversation, but that he had shut her down. Thereafter, outside Halstenberg’s presence, Byward said, another member of the sheriff’s department asked her what she had been able to extract from him. Byward quoted Bertetto as saying “I tried this ploy to get him to confess.” Byward said, Bertetto then “repeated back the very words, ‘I want a lawyer.’” According to Byward, another member of the sheriff’s department then could be heard interjecting, “Are you rolling?” At that point, according to Byward, Bertetto turned off her camera.
Crocker did not dispute that the investigators had made misrepresentations, either to Halstenberg or to the court, nor did he deny that the investigators may have withheld or hidden exculpatory evidence while emphasizing inculpatory evidence. Nor did he deny that Bertetto had, essentially, perjured herself or that the investigators have engaged in violations of Halstenberg’s rights. He did assert, however, that it would be improper for the court to allow Byward or Ewaniszyk to represent to the jury that those violations of Halstenberg’s rights had occurred or present to the jury evidence to that effect, given that such abuses having occurred or not had no bearing on the defendant’s guilt or innocence. Crocker said that on April 14, Byward had improperly included in his opening statement to the jury his contention that the investigators interrogating Halstenberg had violated the defendant’s Fifth Amendment right by disregarding his request for a lawyer and continuing to question him. He had objected to Byward’s attempt to influence the jury at that time and he said it would be equally improper in the midst of the trial for Byward to tell approach the jury with regard to that issue. The proper remedy, Crocker told Judge Kersey, would be for Byward and Ewaniszyk to raise the issue with the court and make a motion to allow her to ascertain whether any evidence churned up through the investigators’ use of such tactics would be admissible.
Aside from suggesting that the prosecution’s case was highly suspect if it had been constructed on a foundation of such violations of Halstenberg’s rights, Byward responded by pointing out the degree to which the prosecution was cherry picking the evidence, selectively editing statements made by his client and others to reflect guilt while simultaneously preventing the jury from seeing evidence or statements that contradicted the prosecution’s narrative.
With regard to the videos of Halstenberg’s interrogation or the transcripts of the interrogation, Byward said that what was being presented “did not match” what Halstenberg actually said. “The issue is how the people redact him.”
Byward said of some of the statements Halstenberg made when he was being interrogated, “I had my issues,” meaning, apparently, they might be or are problematic for the defense. At the same time, he said, the manner in which the investigators proceeded was highly improper and an outright violation of the Fifth Amendment and the Constitution law enforcement officers are sworn to uphold. “My feeling is if that is going to come in, I want to introduce the rest of that. I don’t want this to be admitted. But if it is going to be admitted, I want the whole thing in.”
He said that if the jury is instructed, presumably by Judge Kersey on Fifth Amendment case law, what the jurors will hear during Halstenberg’s interrogation repeatedly “goes to their [the investigators’] overall character for truthfulness. That taints the entire investigation.”
Byward said the courts have ruled that law enforcement officers can essentially ignore suspects making equivocal requests for a lawyer such as “I think I need a lawyer” or “I should have a lawyer.” Buy upon hearing someone in police custody say, “I want a lawyer,” Byward said, the interrogation “is supposed to be done.”
Byward said his concern was that Judge Kersey would allow the prosecution to “play the portion [of the video of the interrogation] they want” and keep the jury from seeing or knowing what it had engaged in while extracting the statements it obtained from Halstenberg.
While Judge Kersey indicated that she agreed with Crocker that the defense should not be allowed to indict the prosecution and the investigators for their Constitutional violations, she acknowledged “There is an issue of credibility in how law enforcement handled the interview. She twice used the term “shady” in characterizing the interrogators’/investigators’ tactics.
In closing out the discussion, Judge Kersey responded positively to the prosecution’s request that the court not allow the defense to make a direct argument regarding the Fifth Amendment violations Halstenberg had been subject to, but she warned Crocker and Peppler, “They [the investigators] did some shady stuff and they [Byward and Ewaniszyk] want to get that in. I get it.”
Edward Purcell, the surveillance manager at San Manuel Band of Mission Indians’ Yaamava Casino and Resort in Highland, testified with regard to videos and video frames entered as exhibits in the case
That evidence showed what was said to be Halstenberg’s truck coming into one of the casino’s parking structures at 12:04 p.m., i.e., four minutes after noon. Another portion of video footage Purcell pronounced to be accurate were moving images taken at 12:05 p.m. of Halstenberg parking his truck in the parking structure, backing in and straightening his vehicle out, getting out of truck and walking toward and then out of the video camera’s field of view toward, according to Purcell, a bridge walkway to the casino. His head is shaved and he is wearing a light blue shirt, tan pants and brown shoes.
A fourth video snippet played for the jury showed an internal gaming room near the casino’s rotunda at the opposite end of the bridge walkway. Halstenberg is seen entering into the rotunda from the walkway.
He is seen in a video inside the casino at 12:18 p.m.
Another video certified as accurate by Purcell shows Halstenberg getting money out of an automated teller machine at 1:29p.m.
At 1:31 p.m. a video near the bridge walkway shows Halstenberg leaving with his hands in pockets and appearing to be somewhat dejected.
Another video shows Halstenberg walking through parking structure toward his truck. Another video passage shows Halstenberg leaving in his truck at 1:34 p.m.
Video taken later that evening on the grounds of San Manuel Village, which is situated on the corner of Highland Avenue and Boulder Avenue near Highway 330, was also attested to as accurate by Purcell.
In those video passages, which cover the periods from 10:54 p.m. to 10:57 p.m., the video camera’s field shows the parking lot and a near background of the 330 Freeway to the east and beyond the 330, the Line Fire glowing in the dark. Some of the San Manuel Village structures are visible at the periphery of the video’s frame. What appears to be Halstenberg’s truck can be seen in the video driving around the parking lot.
In his cross examination of Purcell, Ewaniszyk sought to determine from Purcell if he could see smoke rising up from the undercarriage of Halstenberg’s truck. Purcell said he could not see what Ewanizyk was referencing.
Purcell testified that the casino has on its premises license plate readers. Asked if he could read the license plate number on the truck visible in a still from one of the videos, Purcess said it was a bit grainy but that he could make out BD61802.
The next prosecution witness was Calfire Captain Andrew Arthen.
An investigator who was present at Halstenberg’s residence on Detroit Street in Norco when the search of that location was carried out, Arthen also processed Halstenberg’s pickup, which he identified as a 2007 Chevy Silverado four-door with black handles and a black-lined truck bed.
Arthen said he did an inventory of the truck’s contents before it was to be towed into impound for future processing and examination. While Arthen insisted he “did not get involved in the interior of the because there was to be a processing” of it later by others, he did visually inspect it from the outside, looking into the cab through its windows.
According to Arthen, in looking through the vehicle’s back window “I noticed a yellow legal pad,” from which, he said “pages had been ripped out.” He also, Arthen testified, “noticed some assorted change on the center console.”
A photo of a yellow legal pad was displayed for the jury on the courtroom’s display screens. Arthen described what was on display, saying that “what were left behind were jagged pages wher you could tell something was torn from them.”
In one of the photos was a pair of binoculars on what looked to be the passenger side seat, which he was asked about. Arthen said that he had not seen the binoculars on September 10, 2024, but that he could see them in the photo that was being displayed.
After the inventory was taken, the truck was towed, Arthen said, and secured and sealed so it would be known later whether the truck or its contents were tampered with, such that it would be left in its actual state until the time it was processed.
Arthen testified that he had conducted part of the search of 1394 Detroit Street, pursuant to the search warrant. He went through a gate into the backyard, past a grass area, where there were several buildings unattached to the house. Some were “buildings that were lived in,” Arthen said.
In addtion, he said, “toward the back of the property” was a “work shed” that was “not completely closed off” which he said had “tools tools and work equipment. After sheriff’s deputies dealt with the people who were living in the outbuildings on the property, Arthen said, he began to sift through the contents of the shed.
Among the items of interest he came across, said Arthen were “large construction staples” in a toolbox. Photos of the staples were displayed for the jurors on the courtroom’s display screens. The staples were somewhat similar but not exact matches to an industrial staple photographed on he ground near the point of origin of the Bacon Fire that took place on September 5, 2024, prior to the Line Fire. That photo had been displayed to the jury last week.
In his testimony, Arthen stated that the staples found in the work shed were not the type of staples used to fasten paper.
Arthen also testified that investigators had gone to Hooked On Towing, a tow operation that had towed Halstenberg’s truck in the early morning of September 5, after it had ceased to be operational.
Arthen testified that images of the truck on captured by the Hooked On Towing tow truck that towed Halstenberg’s truck shortly after the midnight hour – at 12:22 a.m. – on September 6.
Despite the truck needing a tow on September 6, Arthen said the truck was again running on September 10.
On Thursday, April 24, Monica Sanchez, a staff services manager for Calfire, gave an overview of how the State of California disburses its funding to Caltrans, with a particular emphasis on how funding for normal daily operations as opposed to emergency operations.
Calfire is budgeted to carry out normal firefighting activity, Sanchez said, but that funding is not available to cover the cost of operations, she said “after the initial attack or beyond 24 hours. Our budget is only for the initial attack.” At that point, she said, the department taps into its emergency fund and disbursements must be accounted for, and the unit she oversees performs that function. Billing against the emergency “wildfire fund,” she said, extends to “unplanned overtime… state and local personnel who had assisted with the suppression… invoices, receipts, contracts [for] hired equipment… supply… transport… agreements with local and state partners.” She said expenses include paying for overnight accommodations – motels or hotels – for for firefighters brought in from out of the area and offices for the firefighting management team to occupy and function from and “any resources to assist in the fire suppression.”
Patrick Aguada, a battalion chief with Calfire who had extensive operational experience as a firefighter and promoted up the chain of command and is now functioning as a finance section chief on one of the department’s management teams, testified next.
In his function he tracks expenditures for personnel and hired equipment during emergency operations, matching cost estimates with actual incoming invoices and ensuring that claims are processed according to state regulations and the costs, actual expenditures and estimates are in line with one another, he said.
Utilizing spreadsheets and other line item and by-date documentation which was displayed on the courtroom’s overhead video/graphic display screens, he laid out in total what the expenditures were for the firefighting effort against the Line Fire during the roughly three weeks he was assigned to overseeing those expenditures, including payments for aircraft resources, water tenders, equipment, machinery, bulldozers, vehicles, supplies, personnel, support, facilities, added logistics and management personnel.
He offered his cost estimates for the Line Fire, saying that $23,601,294 was the estimated total cost from September 5 through September 14.
On the first day of the efforts to bring the Line Fire under control and before the state’s emergency fund was tapped into, Aguada said, Calfire and the City of Highland spent $438,640.
He said the estimated Calfire base costs from September 5 through September 14 ran to $2,847,413. Beyond that, he said, the estimated amount of money paid for the firefighting efforts through the state’s emergency fund ran to $20,755,881.
The cost of the air attack on the fire – the use of aircraft – during the first ten days came to $5,746,303, Aguada said.
In addition to the $438,640 spent on the ground attack the first day, Aguada said, firefighting efforts for September 6 cost $2.1 million; $1.3 million on September 7; $1.8 million on September 8; $2.8 million on September 9; $3.78 million on September 10; $3.6 million on September 11; $3.8 million on September 12; $3.8 million on September 13.
On September 15, the one day cost of operations had reached $7.6 million.
On September 19, the fire’s cost had leapt to $59,520,419, according to Aguada.
By September 27, when it appeared the fire was dying down and it was projected that the fire was to soon be contained, at which point Aguada went on to another assignment, the total cost had reached $100,641,539.
When Aguada discontinued his oversight of the financials connected to the fire, some 37,392 acres had been charred.
Within a day after his departure to oversee other emergency responses, winds kicked up and the fire again began to spread.
Next testifying was Jack Franklin, a battalion chief with Calfire, who like Aguada functions as a finance section chief overseeing management-related issues relating to the department’s special service/emergency response teams.
Franklin testified that he made an estimate of Calfire expenditures on the Line Fire, using one set of ledgers covering October 1 through October 14 and then another ledger covering October 13 through October 22, at which point the fire was largely contained and Calfire was released from responsibility with regard to response to it.
Franklin totaled those costs at $10,218,320, of which, he said, $7,801,039 was covered by the state’s wildland fire emergency fund. One of the documents he presented to the jury on the overhead display screens showed that 43,978 acres had been burned as of October 22.
Next testifying was prosecution witness Jose Hernandez, who at 25 years age has worked as a full-time firefighter/paramedic for Calfire since December 2022,
Hernandez testified that he works locally in San Bernardino County and Riverside County as a firefighter, but that on September 5, he was on a mutual aid firefighting assignment in Central California. When the intensity of the Line Fire became apparent, he said, sometime around September 7 or September 9, he and others based in Southern California were pulled away from the Central California assignment, which he called “diverting our resources” to return to the San Bernardino Mountains and operations there. Upon getting to San Bernardino, the unit he was with, Hernandez said, “formed up and went straight up the mountain to get to work.” There initial assignment, he said, which involved five engine companies and a senior officer overseeing them was to an area just outside the town of Running Springs where they “started to lay hoses as a wraparound to make sure the fire didn’t put those homes in danger.” That effort was successful, he said, as was a subsequent “strategic burn” which eradicated the fuel supply in a portion of the forest, which cut off the fire’s path and prevented it from roaring up to and through a more heavily populated area of Running Springs.
Hernandez testified that on September 11, he had returned with a team to the Running Springs neighborhood “to do mop ups,” at which point they encountered a “specific structure,” that had a wooden porch, which the team was going to dismantle to eliminate the potential it would be ignited by embers. As he was walking across ground with “unstable footing,” to one of the fire engines with, he said, “purpose and pep in my step” to get a pry bar, Hernandez said, he “took a bad step, felt a pop in my ankle and couldn’t get back up” when he fell. This occurred, Hernandez said, despite his work boots providing strong ankle support. His foot was originally numb, Hernandez said, which made him believe he could “walk it off” and get back to work, but he found his ankle would not support any weight. When other paramedics arrived and he got his boot off, Hernandez said, his ankle was “red and purple.”
Hernandez testified that it turned out he had suffered an “avulsion fracture, due to ligaments tearing a piece of bone off.” He said x-rays and an MRI showed he had a “bone floating.” The numbness eventually gave way to “some degree of pain,” he said. He was, he said, “on crutches for four weeks.” With the assistance of Tylenol, he said, he was able to ‘walk down the aisle” for his wedding which occurred in October. He was kept off work until early December he said, and still feels pain in his lower leg when he must stand or walk for an extended period of time or put excessive weight on his leg.
The next witness was Nick Schroeder, an arson investigator with the Office of the State Fire Marshall. The Office of the State Fire Marshall’s office is that division of Calfire concerned with fire prevention.
Schroeder, who has been employed as an arson investigator sicne 2021, testified that on June 27, 2023 he was on his way home on the 60 Freeway traveling East after having been in Los Angeles, when he saw “several smoke columns” on the north side of the freeway near Rubidoux in Riverside County. He said he decided to “check it out and call it in over the radio,” the radio being his work device.
He testified that he exited the freeway around 6 p.m. to look at what he estimated in retrospect were “six to seven columns separated over a half mile or so” of “puffy black smoke coming up from the ground.” He said they were just off a road running paralleling the freeway and running along the hillside in an area identified during later testimony at “Granite Hill.”
He had seen some flames, he said, and testified that he was the first fire service employee to arrive and that he “stayed on the scene” until the first on-duty fire prevention officers arrived, at which time he said, “I went home.”
The investigator from the
Jason Fairfax a fire captain with Calfire stationed in Riverside County was one of the responders, Schroeder said, and he told him what he saw before he departed.
Ewaniszyk, on cross examination asked Schroeder if he had written a report about the incident. Schroeder said he had not. “It wasn’t my jurisdiction,” Schroeder said. He also told Ewaniszyk that he was not wearing a bodyworn camera.
Though they are firefighting professionals employed with Calfire, neither Schroeder nor the following witness, Fairfax, were directly involved with the Line Fire.
Their relevance to the Halstenberg case is that there were incendiary devices, consisting of cigarette boxes that contained weighted objects, including coins, and paper as well as paper towels which predate the Line Fire that, prosecutors say, contain DNA matching Halstenberg.
There are also other fires, which occurred on July 1 and July 9 that involved what investigators say are incendiary devices that the prosecution believes may be tied to Halstenberg. The DNA analysis on those items has not yet been completed, prosecutors say.
The last witness to testify this week was Jason Fairfax, who is a sworn peace officer and fire investigator with Calfire, having previously been employed as a paramedic, firefighter/paramedic, fire captain and apparatus engineer, hazardous materials response captain and crew captain. He worked in the capacity of an arson investigator from 2019 until last year, at which point he went out on an injury leave. He remains employed with Calfire, but is contemplating retirement. He has investigated over 500 fires, he said, and was the lead investigator on more than 300.
He testified that he responded to and investigated the origins of the June 27 grass fire now referred to as the Granite Fire just north of 60 east of Quartz Hill Road and west of Pyrite Street. He testified that he collected nine different items of evidence in and around the scene of the fire, during which the wind was blowing generally north and to the east.
He arrived on the scene at 6:09 p.m. that day and began an inquiry into the origin and cause of the fire. Working with him was a trainee, Neil Chapansky, he said.
He said the fire, before it was eradicated, “went into the vegetation 50 feet to 350 or 300 feet. He spoke with Nick Schroeder at the scene, he said. He said that Schroeder “told me he saw multiple fires… that were independent of each other… It was not a continuous line of fire.”
Fairfax said there was still fire suppression equipment showing up when he arrived and as he spoke with Schroeder there was still fire suppression activity going on.
Fairfax said he walked the fire scene to find potential evidence. He testified that he gave numbers to the items he found, which Chapansky photographed. Photographs of all but one of those items were displayed on the courtroom display screens at various points in his testimony.
Items one two and three were a Marlboro Gold cigarette box with a large metal rusted hex nut in it, designated 1; a blue rubber band that did not appear to be weathered, designated 2; and a heavy duty blue paper towel, designated 3.
All three items were in close proximity to one another.
Fairfax testified that “The significance of the metal nut is it has the ability to weigh the object down and then it can be thrown.” The rubber band, he said, “can be used to bind or wrap something together, to hold something together.”
Fairfax stated that the shop towel was in relatively good condition and was “not stained, not weathered and doesn’t look lit has been in any rain” and that it “lies within burned vegetation.”
According to his final determination, Fairfax said, there were five fires in separate areas along the foot of granite hill that day.
The items designated 1, 2 and 3 were found at westernmost lying area of where the fire occurred.
A photo of item 4, a new but partially burned blue shop paper towel, was shown to the jury. Fairfax said it was located slightly east of the items 1, 2 & 3.
The photo of item 6 showed a Marlboro box. The inside of the box was burned at the top.
Fairfax testified that it was submitted to the California Department of Justice Crime Lab in Riverside for testing and processing for scientific evidence.
Fairfax testified that “I believe that item number 6 was a device and it was not involved in the fire I was investigating on June 27, 2023. Notably, there was some new green vegetation that was growing.”
The upshot was, Fairfax suggested, that there had been a previous arson attempt in the area of Granite Hill.
“I believe it was used to start a fire prior to prior to June 27,” he said. “The device was not found whenever that fire occurred.”
Contained in the box, Fairfax said, was “one blue shop towel and one coin.” He said the coin was “used as a weight, so the object can be placed and/or thrown.”
A photo of item 7, a blue shop towel, which Fairfax said appeared to be wrapped around coins was displayed. Fairfax said item 7 was located further east along the foot of Granite Hill.
Item 8, a photo of which was also displayed, was a blue shop towel that was partially burned and appeared to have coins in it.
“What we are seeing in eight, was that used as an incendiary device?” Crocker asked.
“Yes,” Fairfax responded.
A photo of item 9, a partially burned cigarette box was shown to the jury. Fairfax said that surrounding the item was “some water and foam.” Captured in the photo as well were two dimes on the ground, which Fairfax referenced. He said item 9 had been used as an incendiary device and was the item he had collected that was furthest to the east.
Fairfax agreed with Crocker’s statement that the incendiary devices found at the scene “did not just make themselves.”
Fairfax indicated that at least two of the incendiary devices were not involved in the June 27, 2023 fire. This was an indication that there had been other fires started or which were attempted to be started, at the location.
He said there were potentially multiple points of origin to the June 27, 2023 fire.
Under cross examination by Ewaniszyk, Fairfax said that he had taken extensive notes with regard to his investigation of the June 27, 2023 fire, but that he had not assembled those notes into a report until April 12, 2025 in preparation for his testimony in Halstenberg’s trial. He said metadata included in the photographs accurately referenced the time an location of where photos were taken.
In response to Ewaniszyk, Fairfax said that the fire was yet ongoing when he arrived on the scent but that “The active fire was not advancing.”
Fairfax testified that Schroeder had informed him about there being multiple columns of smoke but that this was not necessarily inconsistent with what he observed, since, he said, “You can have one fire that generates multiple smaller fires.”
“So, you could not determine which of the fires came first chronologically?” Ewaniszyk asked.
“No,” Fairfax responded.
Fairfax said he was not outfitted with a bodyworn camera.
He acknowledged there was a significant amount of trash and debris in the area and that all of the ignition sources he recovered were near the roadway “anywhere from three to six feet.”.
When Ewaniszyk asked him if he was unable to determine the specific ignition points and timing of the fires because of insufficient information available to him, Fairfax said that was correct.
To Ewaniszyk’s questions about his collection of the items, Fairfax said he used separate sets of rubber latex gloves to pick up each piece of evidence after it had been photographed, changing them in between to prevent cross-contamination. The items were placed in brown paper bags that were sealed and kept in his vehicle.
To Ewaniszyk’s question about whether he had ever used gloves to store a retrieved item, Fairfax said that he had not but said it was occasionally done and that he had seen an investigator pick up a lighter with a glove, which he then removed using another gloved hand to envelope the item.
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