Liquid accelerant started fire, investigator says
Editor's note: See related story on the cross examination of Kansas State Fire Marshal Case Manager Wally Roberts.
In day six of the trial of accused murderer Brent Bollinger, a Kansas State Fire Marshal case manager who investigated the scene of the deadly house fire that claimed the life of Brenna Bollinger, Brent's wife, told jurors on Thursday morning that he did not believe the fire was started when a lit cigarette ignited the shirt of the accused.
The statement contradicts what Brent Bollinger allegedly told a paramedic who treated him for burn injuries on Oct. 13, 2011. He is alleged to have said he had gasoline on his shirt and it ignited when he lit a cigarette.
Wally Roberts, state fire marshal investigator, said the fire was started from someone setting fire to a liquid accelerant.
Bollinger is accused of killing his wife, Brenna, by setting their house on fire. Bollinger and his then 2-year-old son, Bryson, survived the house fire at 2166 Grand Road. The body of his wife, Brenna, 23, was found in the house.
Bryson was flown to Shriners Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio with critical burns and was released a month later. Brent Bollinger suffered burns on 69 percent of his body. He was charged with first degree murder, child endangerment and aggravated arson in January 2012.
Bollinger pleaded not guilty to the alleged crimes at his arraignment in September 2012. He is facing charges of murder and arson following the fire that took place at his residence just south of Fort Scott.
Bollinger is represented by his attorney, former Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison. The state is represented by Bourbon County Attorney Terri Johnson and Kristiane Bryant, assistant state attorney general criminal division.
Jurors first heard from Kansas Bureau of Investigation Senior Specialist Agent Brian Carroll, who arrived on the scene at 5 p.m. Oct. 14, worked until about midnight, then returned at 9 a.m. on Oct. 15 and worked until about 12:30 p.m. His assignment was to photograph the area as a crime scene.
Roberts, with the state fire marshal's office in Topeka, was the case manager on the night of the fire. Roberts documented the scene by taking photographs of the exterior and interior of the house. Those photographs were shown to jurors and showed the marks on the west side of the house where smoke and heat had vented out from beneath the eaves. He also photographed a round burn mark in the backyard, which he said he later learned had been burned prior to Oct. 13, 2011.
Photographs from inside the house showed the smoke and heat line in the living room and near the short stairway.
The jury also saw a photo of the northeast bedroom where Brenna's body was found.
The pathologist/coroner was called to examine the body at the scene.
"She had some injuries on her that we weren't sure what those were," Roberts said. "Did something fall on her? Did something hit her on the head? We did not know."
Investigators assisted the pathologist by "slowly digging her out of the debris," Roberts said.
Roberts took photographs of the body as the examination occurred. One photograph showed a portion of her body where investigators saw something that appeared to be a piece of clothing. That item was removed and packaged as evidence.
After Brenna's body was removed from the southeast bedroom, investigators were able to "dig into the scene." That meant they slowly began removing debris, layer by layer, until the bedroom floor was visible. After debris was examined, it was shoveled out the window.
"We're looking for anything, in this particular case, to know how she died. We were looking for knives, guns, baseball bats, sticks. We're looking at lighters, electronic appliances that were on, any debris that's there," Roberts said.
After the debris was removed, a hose was brought in to wash the floor so that investigators could determine if there was a burn pattern on the floor.
"If something was placed on the floor, it's going to pool," Roberts said. "If that's set on fire, it will leave a pattern on the wood."
Jurors saw a photograph, to which Roberts said showed burn patterns on the floor next to where Brenna's body had lain.
"It's consistent with liquid being thrown in a room on the floor and set on fire," Roberts said, and then pointed to where Brenna had lain.
Samples of the carpet and rubber padding had been collected, he said.
He also told Bryant that all of the fire investigators, who are all certified, get together and talk about what they have seen, heard and come up with a decision of what happened and the cause of the fire. Investigators had looked at every possible source of a fire: electric outlets, electric source, cooking, lightning, heater and air conditioner.
"This fire was an incendiary fire," Roberts said. "This fire was caused by somebody introducing a liquid accelerant and setting it on fire."
"We've heard in this case some testimony that fire was caused by somebody lighting a cigarette," Bryant said.
"We discussed that," Roberts said. "Somebody walking in with a cigarette. That's not a real good probability. It would not have occurred the way it did."
He said the idea that gasoline fumes might have been ignited was discounted during the investigation.
He said it was determined the fire started just inside the door of the bedroom.
Rose Rosmiarek, Kansas State Fire Marshal's Office chief investigator and certified K-9 handler, testified prior to Roberts. Her dog, Tanna, has been trained to sniff out liquid accelerants.
Rosmiarek acquired Tanna in Maine and spent five weeks there becoming a certified handler.
Rosmiarek said there are nine classifications of ignitable liquids and each one of those liquids has its own level of classification. Gasoline, which is a "light type of accelerant," has a different classification than kerosene or diesel, she said.
"The dog cannot tell me the difference between gasoline or diesel fuel or kerosene," Rosmiarek said, adding that determination is made by sending a sample to a laboratory.
The K-9 is a tool for investigators, Rosmiarek said.
"They reduce our time on a scene where a liquid accelerant might be," Rosmiarek said.
When Tanna "alerts" to the presence of a liquid accelerant, Rosmiarek said the dog will firmly sit and not move until she is fed, as Tanna is a food-reward dog. Rosmiarek said the only time Tanna gets fed is when she is working.
"We are training every day because she has to eat," Rosmiarek said.
Sometimes Tanna will spend more time sniffing an area of interest and not sit, which could mean Tanna is picking up a stronger scent from elsewhere in the room, or something has caught her attention.
As is normal practice, Rosmiarek first entered the Bollinger house alone to do a safety overview so she can identify areas that would potentially be dangerous for her dog or herself. She found one such location in the Bollinger house, which was a hole burned through the floor near a wall in the northeast bedroom.
The safety overview also gives Rosmiarek an idea of where she wants to focus the search, she said.
Rosmiarek received a call from the Kansas Highway Patrol dispatch center at about 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 13, 2011 asking for assistance in investigating a fire that had one fatality and also injuries. Because the agent assigned to the jurisdiction that includes Bourbon County was on vacation, Rosmiarek sent Jeff Davis, who works in another jurisdiction. He contacted her early in the morning to update her on the investigation and requested the assistance of the K-9 unit.
"He also advised me of the circumstances of the parties involved," Rosmiarek said. "Being that Jeff used to be the fire chief of Fort Scott, and due to the possibility of conflict of interest, and not to show any improprieties or anything, I went ahead and assigned another agent as the case manager for that case."
Wally Roberts, who is based out of Topeka with the Fire Marshal's Office, became the case manager.
Rosmiarek arrived on the scene at 9 a.m. on Oct. 14, 2011. A search warrant had been obtained, Rosmiarek said.
"We are focusing on the origin of the cause of the fire," Rosmiarek said.
Investigators look at the damage, or lack of damage, and will focus on content when it's a content fire and look at the fuel that might have caused it. She said evidence is not taken from each area the dog alerts because the focus is on the area of origin.
The search begins with the area of least damage and works toward the most damaged area because that's where the fire typically starts. Items in that location are examined to determine if the fire is incendiary.
"There are some cases we cannot make that determination," Rosmiarek said.
She explained an incendiary fire is one that was intentionally set, but it may not be arson. A child playing with matches could start an incendiary fire.
"Children can set something on fire with matches," Rosmiarek said. "That is incendiary because the fire was intentionally set, but not necessarily an arson fire because they did not intend to harm or defraud insurance companies. So there's a difference."
At the Bollinger residence, Rosmiarek and Tanna started on the front porch, into the living room and up the short staircase, where there was a concentrated sniff.
Full alerts were in center of the bed located in the northwest bedroom where a ceiling fan had been damaged. Tanna also alerted around the hole in the floor of the northeast bedroom, and also in three different places immediately around Brenna's body.
Rosmiarek said she exited and told other investigators what was found. A criminal search warrant was requested.
After obtaining the second search warrant at about 8:15 p.m., Rosmiarek and Tanna did a secondary search of the house. Tanna alerted to the edge of a small child's table in the living room. They also did a sniff in the dining room and kitchen. There were no alerts, but an alert was made in the bathroom off the hallway by the sink.
In the basement, Tanna alerted to the area beneath the burn hole, where there was some liquid, Rosmiarek said.
She left the house after the pathologist/coroner arrived to examine the body and remove it. Rosmiarek said the goal of the search is to find the origin of the fire, but she said investigators also wanted to find what container the liquid accelerant was transported in. While that was taking place, Rosmiarek focused her attention on locating a container that might have held the accelerant. Because those items are sometimes thrown away from the scene, Rosmiarek and Tanna searched the property around the Bollinger house and also across the road. No container was located.
After the victim's body was removed, investigators began "digging out the fire scene." That means they removed debris slowly, layer by layer, eventually getting down to the bare floor. Tanna was brought in again and besides alerting to all of the locations she had before, she also alerted to the carpet and threshold of the northeast bedroom.
Morrison showed Rosmiarek a copy of a diagram that showed Tanna's alerts. The investigator who drew and marked the diagram had mistakenly marked the stairs as an alert instead of an interest. He then asked if what is placed on the diagram is at the investigator's discretion.
"What you collect, what you put down on the diagram is all discretion, is it not?" Morrison said.
Rosmiarek admitted that it is, and they could mark all alerts made or none.
Morrison asked why investigators did not collect what Rosmiarek said appeared to be a broken jar on the foot of the bed in the master bedroom, which Tanna had alerted. He said the "jar" was "a heck of a lot closer than up Grand Road and across the road," where Rosmiarek had looked for a container.
"Neither one of those areas had any fire damage to associate with our area of damage," Rosmiarek said.
She said she would refer Morrison's question about why the glass shards were not collected to the team that collected the evidence. When Morrison pointed out that the diagram was erroneous, Rosmiarek said the diagram had one error and it does not have to contain only alerts, but it can also contain areas of interest.
"My point is you absolutely pick and choose not only what you're going to put on your diagram, but what you're going to have analyzed," Morris said.
"When we are looking at our origin of cause, we are going to look at our evidence that helps us determine our origin of cause," Rosmiarek said.
During a redirect with Bryant, Rosmiarek again explained the purpose of the K-9 search was to assist investigators in determining the origin of the cause of the fire.
"We don't collect items that are not associated with the origin of cause," Rosmiarek said.
KBI investigation
Jurors saw several photos of stain splatters that were documented on the concrete area of the driveway, on the driver's side of Brenna's white Chevy Tahoe, and also three stain patterns on the garage floor and on a large plastic child's pedal-type car, a well as near the door knob and on the door that opens into the dining room area of the house.
Brian Carroll, investigator for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, also took photographs near the front door of the house where a golf club was lying, a piece of a door jam, and parts from the door plate. Near the golf club was what Carroll described as something "believed to be skin tissue."
Carroll also took a picture of a piece of wood that he said appeared to be broken from the door jam.
Jurors saw a photograph of a burned area in the basement ceiling. A bedroom that sustained the most fire damage was directly above, Carroll said.
A few stairs leading up to the bedroom area of the home were burned and covered with debris and the television in the master bedroom was badly damaged. Heat melted the blades on the ceiling fan hanging above the bed and Carroll pointed out an area on the bed where one of the globes from the ceiling fan lie broken. He also pointed out a golf tee, which jurors later learned was used as a marker by Rosmiarek.
There also was a remote control, possibly to the television, Carroll said, when questioned by Morrison. There was another item on the bed, but Carroll said he wasn't sure if it was a piece of clothing.
The floor of the east bedroom, where Brenna's body was found, sustained major fire damage, Carroll said. She was found in front of a closet, near the doorway. There were markers placed near where she had been lying.