Los Altos Town Crier » Reward for leads on church fire rises to $21,000

By Linda Taaffe

Image from article Reward for leads on church fire rises to $21,000

Photo by Joe Hu, Town Crier

The sequence of events

4:45 a.m., April 7:

A motorist on his way to work notices flames coming from the Antiochian Orthodox Church of the Redeemer at 380 Magdalena Ave. and calls 911.

4:50 a.m., April 7:

Santa Clara County firefighters from the Loyola Station arrive at the scene just before the church’s roof collapses and the whole building explodes into flames. Firefighters call for a second and a third alarm. Firefighters contact the ATF as a standard practice in all church fires.

6:29 a.m., April 7:

Emergency crews extinguish the fire, which guts the sanctuary, causing about $1 million in damages. The entire church campus is roped off as a crime scene.

April 7:

The ATF agents begin a preliminary investigation.

April 10:

Investigators rule the fire arson.

April 16:

The reward to find the arsonist who torched a Los Altos church April 7 continues to grow daily. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to contribute $10,000 from its contingency reserve to the fund early last week, pushing the pot above $21,000, said Marti McKee, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the federal agency that is investigating the case.

The ATF contributed the initial $5,000 to the fund, and U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo donated an additional $5,000 for information that will lead to the arrest of the person or persons who set the three-alarm fire at the Antiochian Orthodox Church of the Redeemer in unincorporated Los Altos, causing $1 million in damages. Crime Stoppers is offering a $1,000 reward for any anonymous tips, she said.

McKee called the reward money unusually large with the potential to get bigger due to the devastation of the fire on the church with a predominantly Middle Eastern congregation.

McKee said investigators still had no leads, motive or suspect last Wednesday. Some residents have expressed fear that the fire could have been a hate crime fueled by tensions in the Middle East.

Investigators from five county, state and federal agencies determined that the early morning fire that destroyed the sanctuary of the Antiochian church on Magdalena Avenue was deliberately set. After four days of sifting through layers of charred church ruins, investigators announced that someone had poured flammable liquid inside the church. The team included certified fire investigators, a canine team and chemists.

McKee said she was hopeful the large reward would generate a lead. “I think we would all really like to see a reward that would shake out a suspect,” she said.

Even a reward of this size, however, might not be enough to guarantee any leads, she added. “It all depends on who did it. Without any evidence or a possible motive, it’s hard to predict the impact of a reward,” she said.

McKee said investigators were continuing to look to the public for information.

Anyone with information about the fire should contact the ATF’s San Jose office at (408) 535-5015; the county fire department at (408) 341-4401; or Crime Stoppers at (408) 947-7867.