Marilee Strong: "Despite what Scott Peterson's defense attorneys wanted us to believe, we need not live in fear of mysterious men in vans or homeless people or satanic cults. Young women, and especially pregnant women, are most in danger from the men they love."
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"Fire Lover" is a true crime story by Joseph Wambaugh, notes from blog post January 8, 2009
Although Wambaugh does not use the word "homeless", there is "...a longhair living in a vacant apartment house who had accidentally started a fire while attempting to keep warm." He was described as "...a certifiable head case who was probably just trying to roast some wienies he'd boosted from a 7-Eleven store."
Another man, suspected of setting a fire at a Thrifty drugstore, was charged with "arson of an uninhabited building." When asked why he smelled of smoke, he said "...I was burning newspapers in that old abandoned hotel down on Ventura." When asked why, he said, "To keep warm...There's no heat in an abandoned hotel, you know. And there's no lights. No room service either." Thus the man was most likely another homeless person.
In 1991 fires set on the same day at Thrifty's in Wilmington and San Pedro. There was also a fire at a Thrifty on Aviation Blvd.
My first regular job when I moved to California was part time servicing Thrifty drug stores. I also had one of two other jobs doing store resets. I serviced a Thrifty on Aviation Blvd. When promoted to supervisor, fulltime, also had did stores in Hollywood, Los Angeles and nearby cities. When I read the book, I wondered if any of those Thrifty's were ones that I serviced.
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It was a dumb job, but kept a roof over my head. Too bad I could not say the same about keeping a car on the road.
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