by Ann Rule
Peck explained how he made his rounds, sometimes taking the stairways, sometimes the elevators. He didn’t think it was unusual that all the arson and assault incidents had taken place on the nights he was on duty.
Jack Hickam was a master at interrogation. He had a friendly face and a big grin, and by the time suspects realized that he’d led them down the garden path, trapping them in their own lies, it was too late.
But Rodger Peck wasn’t fazed by Hickam’s approach. Even as Hickam pointed out all the discrepancies in Peck’s version of his actions on the nights in question, Peck continued to insist that he had just seemed to know where the fires were.
“Is there someone mad at you?” Inspector Hickam asked easily.
“I hope not. I hope I don’t have an enemy within three thousand miles of here.”
“Well,” Hickam continued, “I mean it looks like maybe you are finding an awful lot of stuff happening when you are there. Or is there someone mad at you who is trying to make you look bad?”
“Not that I know of. I figured the only reason I find it is because I am there more than the rest of them, but everything has happened when I am there, except that they received one bomb threat when I wasn’t there. That should be in the report.”
Peck fell easily into the role of an innocent man. He added more and more details that no one but the arsonist should have known. He professed willingness, at first, to take a lie detector test, but then seemed concerned that secrets of his personal life would be revealed.
Hickam assured him that only questions about the fires would be asked. They didn’t care at all about the rest of his life. Even so, the ex–security guard began to perspire.
Everything fit. Yet, as with other detectives who face frustration after frustration in bringing a circumstantial case to court, the arson unit investigators were told that, unless they could come up with physical evidence, charges against Peck would not be filed. It was a crushing blow after weeks of work. More than that, they feared a recurrence. The thought of Rodger Peck was uppermost in their minds.
But their hands were tied.
* * *
It was almost a year later, on January 29, 1976, when arson inspectors’ fears were realized.
After being fired by the security company, Rodger Peck had returned to hospital work. He was currently employed as an orderly in the Coronary Care Unit of Providence Hospital on “Pill Hill,” in downtown Seattle.
The charge nurse on duty on the evening of January 29 took a break in the lounge of 5 West. She asked Peck to answer a call light in room 506. Peck nodded obligingly and walked down the hall toward that room.
Minutes later, another attendant smelled smoke. This was, of course, an ominous situation in a ward where oxygen tanks abound. The orderly walked down the hall, sniffing the air so he could locate any fire. When he traced the smell to room 509, he was horrified to find the bed there enveloped in flames. Fortunately, there were no patients in the room at the time.
And there was a hero who rushed in to fight the fire. That hero was none other than Rodger Peck. Peck took over efficiently, extinguishing the fire on the bed before it could reach nearby oxygen tanks, and closing other patients’ doors.
Bill Hoppe was working the night shift for Marshal 5 that night, and he left the unit’s station near Pioneer Square and was up the hill at Providence in no time.
He quickly deemed the hospital bed fire as arson. He did a test burn on a similar bed linen drape and found that a handheld flame would ignite the spread in one minute and forty seconds. In talking to the nurses and orderlies on 5 West, Hoppe learned that was exactly the period when no one saw Rodger Peck before the fire bloomed in room 509.
There were no injuries, and the damage to the bedspread and mattress was no more than a hundred dollars. But it could have been a holocaust, in the worst possible location. Helpless patients, many too ill to be moved, dozens of oxygen tanks—and fire.
But again, this was a circumstantial case. No one had seen Rodger Peck in room 509 before the fire.
Although the arson team was sure that Peck was responsible for the bed fire, he was viewed as a hero around Providence Hospital’s 5 West.
On March 10, 1976, Rodger Peck was at work on 2 West. In room 230, a patient recovering from abdominal surgery waited for a doctor and nurse to remove stitches from the wound.
As the nurse headed for 230, she didn’t know that the patient had unexpectedly gone to have X-rays done.
She opened the door—and was shocked to see that the patient’s bed was entirely engulfed in flames. The nurse rushed to the bed, unaware that the patient was no longer in the room. She fought through the flames trying to find the patient and yelling “Fire!” When she finally realized that the bed was empty and the patient was nowhere in the room, she left and closed the door behind her.
The fire alarm box was in room 234 and she pulled the alarm. Then she returned to the room where the fire was.
It was no longer empty, and the fire was only flickering along charred edges of sheets and pillows.
Once again, Rodger Peck had “sensed” just where the fire was when he heard the nurse scream. That was remarkable, of course, because there had been neither flames nor smoke outside the room.
Once again, it was the hero: Rodger Peck. He had somehow reached room 230 and managed to spray the fire extinguisher over the bed until the fire was almost out.
There were many, many rooms on 2 West, but Peck had gone unerringly to room 230. He had finally run himself out of luck. This time there would be no pats on the back, no compliments on his quick thinking.
The arson investigators determined that the cause of the fire was arson. Someone had lit paper from a crossword puzzle book with a match and then held that paper to the drapes around the bed. With the fire burning fiercely, that “someone” had left the door ajar enough so that the flames could gather momentum.
No one on the floor could remember where Rodger Peck was just before the fire started. He was running true to form—he’d been the invisible man before the fire, and then the indispensable hero.
Damage was limited to the mattress, bedding, and the nurse’s call indicator. Rodger Peck was like a sniper firing wildly into a crowd, neither knowing nor caring how many might die.
This time, he had pushed his luck too far. On March 11—exactly one year to the day since the last fire at the University Towers Hotel—Inspector Fowler and Seattle police detective Bill Berg arrested Rodger Peck and booked him on five counts of arson. His bail was set at ten thousand dollars.
He went on trial May 25. It is a difficult task to convict someone on arson charges. Peck’s first trial resulted in a hung jury. He remained in custody until his second trial on September 3.
By now, Rodger Peck had grown cocky and he seemed to enjoy his time on the witness stand. He was the center of attention, something he had long aspired to. Perhaps he simply could not resist talking about fire. As his defense attorney turned pale and the jury members exchanged glances, Peck regaled the jurors with accounts of the many fires he had witnessed. As he warmed to the subject, he seemed at ease in the witness chair; he apparently saw himself as the definitive expert on fire.
He was so caught up with the sound of his own voice that he convicted himself. After only two hours of deliberation, the jury found Peck guilty on four of the arson counts. On September 27, Rodger Leon Peck, twenty-nine, alias Rodger Bridges alias Rodger Williams alias Leon Rodgers, was sentenced to four life sentences—to run concurrently.
With that sentencing, the Seattle Fire Department’s Marshal 5 team heaved a sigh of relief. Peck had backed himself into a corner. They were always sure that this serial arsonist would be arrested and convicted one day.
But they feared that many innocents might die before that happened.
Rodger Peck was elusive, but he was not particularly clever. His case is an example of how difficult it is for detectives and prosecutors to bring an arsonist to trial. There are many ineq
uities in the system. But with the advent of computers, Internet communication, and security cameras, fire-starters are being tracked and identified much more effectively than ever before.
Rodger Peck has served his sentence and hasn’t come to the attention of the Seattle Fire Department’s arson unit since he was paroled. But any potential arsonist in the city of Seattle should be forewarned that he is facing one of the most sophisticated and efficient fire departments in the world. Inevitably, all arsonists leave patterns, with the same MOs used again and again.
They also leave behind ashes that are full of evidence to an experienced arson investigator.
* * *
FIRE!
* * *
The University Towers Hotel’s fire belches smoke and flames as Seattle firefighters scale ladders on two sides of the building, trying to reach anxious guests who stand in their windows. Arson investigators soon found that this was not an accidental fire, and they questioned a number of possible suspects.
Marshal 5 investigator Bill Hoppe of the Seattle Fire Department. Hoppe was the first on the scene to probe the rapidly burning fire at the University Towers Hotel.
(Ann Rule)
AN OBSESSION
WITH BLONDES
The Candy Store was a neighborhood tavern, and the two young Portland, Oregon, women had been there often; in 1975 it seemed as safe as going to a local drugstore for a Coke. The pretty blondes had a beer or two, talked with friends, and played the pinball machine. They watched and kibitzed with the pool players.
There were a few strangers in the place—one a tall, good-looking man in jeans and a plaid shirt. He seemed to be attracted to twenty-three-year-old Marci Brunswick* and made small talk with her while she played pinball. He offered to buy her a beer, but she refused because she had to get home and she didn’t really know him. She assumed, however, that others in the tavern knew him because she’d seen him playing pool with some of the regulars.
Shortly after 1 A.M., Marci left alone and walked to her car, which was parked in the lot behind the Candy Store. She’d had a bad cold for a week and she was tired. As she backed her car from its parking space, she heard someone call to her from the rear door of the tavern.
It was the man she’d talked to earlier. She rolled down the driver’s window and waited to hear what he wanted, and then her car stalled. She tried to get it started again as he walked toward her, but the starter gave only a few halfhearted grunts and then died.
“You’ve probably just flooded it,” the man said easily. “Slide over and let me try.”
He seemed okay and she was in a jam. Marci slid over. He turned the key and floored the accelerator pedal but the starter barely beeped.
“Looks like you’re stuck,” the stranger said. “Tell you what, I’ll push it back into the parking space and I’ll give you a ride home.”
She studied his face. He looked harmless enough, and he didn’t seem at all intoxicated. It was either accept his offer of a ride home, or go through the hassle of trying to get her car started and probably ending up having to take a cab.
Marci accepted his offer and waited while he pushed her car backward into a space against a nearby building. Then she followed him to the red El Camino pickup truck he pointed to.
She was barely seated before she had reason to regret her decision. The man hadn’t seemed drunk at all, but now he was pulling his vehicle out onto a one-way street—and going the wrong way. For three blocks, he raced down the street as she pleaded with him to turn off. She was certain they were due for a head-on collision.
Finally, he turned a corner, and soon they were on the street where she lived. She pointed out her apartment house.
“There—that driveway,” Marci said. “You can just let me out there at that driveway.”
But the man behind the wheel didn’t slow down at all. He kept going until she insisted that he stop his car. At length, he pulled into a gas station, turned around, and headed back to her apartment. She pointed out the driveway again, but the driver not only didn’t stop, he stomped down harder on the gas pedal.
At first she’d been exasperated. But now a buzz of fear rippled along her nerves and started her adrenaline going. This guy was obviously a “cowboy,” playing childish games with an automobile. He seemed determined to keep her in the car with him. At this point, Marci wasn’t worried about being molested or hurt—except in a car accident.
But she knew she wanted out.
She grabbed the door handle on her side and opened the car door partway, preparing to jump. She vacillated a few moments too long, though, and she saw they were going over fifty miles an hour.
The man in the plaid shirt reached out and grabbed her arm, pinning her inside. He read her mind and said quietly, “That would be suicide, you know.”
Marci looked down at the ground rushing by in a blur and agreed with him on that one point. If she tried to jump, she could very well die.
Now she had no choice but to pretend to go along with his perilous games. She just figured he would drive her around for a while to prove that he had her under his control. Then she believed he would let her go.
But the tall stranger had other things in mind. He drove north to the corner of NE 162nd and Glisan and pulled into a darkened gas station. This time he didn’t turn around. He parked on the south side of the station, where they wouldn’t be visible from the street.
He turned to her and said bluntly: “Take off your clothes.”
Her first reaction was disbelief. She had a crazy random thought. She had a bad cold and it was a frigid early November night. She would freeze if she had to take off her clothes.
Only then did she face the reality of what he meant to do to her.
“I won’t!” she said firmly.
His response was to grab her around the neck. She still had her car keys clutched in her hand, and she thought of scratching him in his eyes with them. But she quickly dismissed that idea, afraid he’d hurt her more if she tried to resist. There were no lights on in the area around them and she realized that probably no one would hear her if she cried out for help.
But she did scream, an ineffective croak because of her laryngitis.
Her captor’s face twisted as his expression showed his rage. “I will hurt you if you scream again or try to fight me.”
Brutally, he pushed her down on the seat of his pickup and pulled her bra and blouse up. He began kissing her breasts, then he yanked off her jeans and fondled her crotch.
Marci Brunswick prayed out loud; there seemed to be no way to get away from him, short of divine intervention. Her prayers irritated the rapist.
“Why do you keep yelling for God?” he asked harshly.
“I hoped maybe there was one,” she whimpered.
“Well, there isn’t. And even if there is one, He’s not going to help you now.”
He continued to kiss her naked body. Perversely, he told her he loved her.
That was too much. Marci hissed, “No, you don’t!”
“How do you know I don’t?” he demanded.
“Because if you did, you wouldn’t be doing this to me.”
The rapist seemed insatiable, and now he demanded that she fellate him, but she protested that she couldn’t, that she’d get sick if he put his penis in her mouth. She was seized by a violent coughing fit, and the man relented on that particular sex act.
Marci Brunswick was a slender five foot six and 118 pounds. She estimated that her attacker was over six feet tall and probably weighed two hundred pounds. If she fought, she believed he would kill her. Of the two evils, she decided she would rather be raped than murdered. So she submitted.
He was offended because she lay passively with gritted teeth while he forced himself on her. He complained that she wasn’t responding to him like he wanted her to. But she couldn’t; it was all she could do to keep from vomiting.
When he ejaculated, his attitude changed radically. He suddenly became apologetic. He tried to explain
away his brutality.
“Being nice to girls doesn’t work.”
He told Marci that he’d been married for five years and learned that women didn’t appreciate kindness in a man, so he had decided to be mean.
“But that doesn’t work, either, does it?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted.
Marci lied to her rapist and said she wouldn’t go to the police. She just wanted to go home and forget about what had happened.
Reassured now, he allowed her to get dressed. She couldn’t find one of her shoes, and he even lit matches to help her look for it inside the pickup. She’d noticed earlier that the ceiling light in the vehicle wasn’t working. She had been able to see him only as they passed under streetlights.
Her shoe mattered little to her; getting away from him was the important thing. As he was busy looking for the shoe, she quietly edged farther and farther away from the El Camino. She wanted to run, but she thought he would chase her if she did, so she forced herself to walk slowly. His moods were so mercurial that he might change his mind about releasing her.
She heard the pickup’s engine start up and was tremendously relieved to see its taillights disappearing down the street.
It was after 1:30 A.M. and she had several blocks to walk to her apartment. She cut through yards and walked in the shadows as much as she could in case he came back looking for her. Only when Marci finally got back to her apartment did she allow herself to break down and cry. And then she called her girlfriend who’d gone to the tavern with her. She told her what had happened, and her friend immediately called the Candy Store and asked them who the man was.