Cabral

Michael Cabral, who was preparing to try Orr on the most serious charges yet: Four counts of murder for the fire that had killed Ole’s employees Carolyn Kraus and Jimmy Cetina, along with customer Ada Deal and her grandson, Matthew Troidl.

“I said, ‘He just pled into our case,’” Cabral told The Times.

The defense argued that faulty wiring, not arson, had caused the fire, and Cabral had to explain how the Sheriff’s Department had gotten it so wrong in 1984.

Cabral focused on passages in “Points of Origin” that paralleled the Ole’s fire scene.

Cabral believes Orr set “probably in excess of 2,000” fires, and thinks he wrote the book in a bid for notoriety.