Closing Statements in Raymond Lee Oyler Arson Murder Trial

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After its first full day of deliberations Friday at the Riverside County, California Hall of Justice the jury hearing the murder-arson case against Raymond Lee Oyler, charged with setting a 2006 wildfire that took the lives of five firefighters, has gone home for the weekend.

It was on Thursday, January 22nd when the jury of nine women and three men was seated and first heard testimony against the 38-year old former auto mechanic from Beaumont in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge W. Charles Morgan.

During the trial the prosecution presented witness after witness including credentialed arson investigators who linked Oyler to a number of previous wildland fires in the area near his home. Even members of Oyler's family, who heard him say on several occasions he was responsible for some of the numerous fires he's charged with setting, were put on the witness stand.

There was evidence including photographs of stick matches wrapped with a rubber band recovered from area arson sites and Oyler's DNA found on a certain brand of cigarettes of which Oyler was known to use. The prosecution called many of these "time delayed arson devices."

They also introduced surveillance video purportedly showing Oyler standing in a gas station looking across a freeway at the biggest wildland fire he's been charged with setting, the deadly Esperanza Fire.

On Thursday, during his final statements, Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin told jury members, "You decide what happened on that mountain," referring to the October 26, 2006 blaze that took the lives of five U.S Forest Service firefighters.

The prosecutor claimed Oyler had spent all night looking for "just the right place to start a fire that would create absolute destruction." Said Hestrin of Oyler, "He wanted to feel in charge, he wanted those fires to be big." Hestrin also told the jury, "These five brave men were killed by man. Hold him accountable for that."

In his final statements to the jury Oyler's Defense attorney, Mark McDonald, termed the prosecution's barrage of evidence, "Theoretical, just theory, theory." He claimed, "Emotion is powering this trial, not facts."

Time and time again McDonald attempted to tear down the prosecution's statements againt Oyler claiming, "They were not accurate."

The defense questioned a certain period of time that, the prosecution claimed, put Oyler in the brushy hills above Cabazon minutes before the Esperanza Fire was reported. McDonald termed that scenario as "making no sense."

McDonald did, however, admit that "Oyler could have set some other fires in the Beaumont-Banning area before the Esperanza Fire."

If convicted of the murder charges, the jury could recommend death in the penalty phase of the trial.

Jurors are expected to resume deliberations Monday morning.