In all my time as an arson investigator,
I'd never worked on anything like the Empress fire.
Rescue captain 325 has issued a Mayday.
He has fallen through the roof of 335 Yonge street.
When I heard that Mayday call, my stomach dropped.
One of the captains had fallen in through
the roof of the building.
I could hear the fear in that captain's voice.
Can you confirm when you see my position?
Are they gonna get me out in time?
What are they going to say to my family?
Who's gonna be the one knocking on the door?
Someone out there had set this building on fire.
This is someone who had gone leaps and bounds
beyond that typical arsonist.
There was an evil side of him
who wanted to watch people burn...
watch people die...
because he got a thrill out of it.
- Sync and corrections by ByDem - - www.addic7ed.com -
I was a detective at the time within the
Criminal Investigative Bureau.
Part of my job description was to be the arson investigator
within the division.
The Empress was a huge fire that threatened
the entire downtown core.
Three blocks away I could see flames.
This was on a corner with buildings on either side
in the heart of Toronto, a six-alarm fire.
I'm looking at the sheer magnitude of the fire.
I'm hoping in my heart that this wasn't someone
who's intentionally set this.
The captain was now out.
Seeing him like that and what he went through, it shook me.
Mike.
Anyone else inside?
We don't know yet.
The building's in really bad shape.
About a year ago, a wall collapsed,
and it's been sitting empty ever since.
We're not gonna know until we get in there.
Mike Ross was an investigator
with the office of the Fire Marshall.
It was his job to find out how the fire started.
This could be bad, Debbie.
What do we know so far?
Call came in at 4 AM. Spread quickly.
120 firefighters. 30 trucks.
And they still don't know
if they've got it under control yet.
Any word on how it started?
Nah, it looks like it started on the third floor.
But there's no utilities running up there.
No gas, no electricity.
Anyway, give me two, all right?
Often, fires are started by electrical,
but there were no utilities within this building.
In my mind, it had to be someone who did it.
Debbie!
We had to hit the ground running.
You guys just get here?
If this thing gets out of control,
we're looking at a disaster.
You and I are going to look to see
if we can find any security footage.
One of the businesses around here's gotta have cameras
that cover the Empress.
Mark? I want you to check to see if there's been
any unusual fire activity lately.
Anything. Nothing's too small.
Go right to the fire department if you have to.
Got it.
Oh, and check the call log,
every number that reported the fire.
I wanted Mark to start looking into fires in that area,
see if he could find any patterns.
I needed to get the investigation going
as quickly as possible.
I walked around the back of the building,
and I was looking to see
if there was any surveillance cameras.
I knew there was only certain areas that you could get
into the building, so those were the primary areas
that I was focussing on.
In the back alley behind this place,
I found what I was looking for.
I could see whether or not someone gained entry
into that building.
Is that the laneway behind the Empress?
Best view we've got.
Wait. Stop.
Play it forward.
Time code says it's about 14 minutes
before the first reports of the fire came in.
I'll let the officers on site know to be on the lookout
for this guy if he comes back to the scene.
What's in that alcove?
It's a gate, it leads you to a stairwell
that goes up to the Empress.
It's usually chained up.
Except a couple of days ago, it was open.
Open like the chain was broken, or...
It was unlocked.
Someone had come and unlocked that gate prior to the fire.
Whoever it was had knowledge of where that gate was,
and had a key to unlock it, because the bolt wasn't cut.
That's when I went from possibly accidental
to more than likely intentional.
In arson, the first thing we do is look for motive.
There are two general categories of suspects:
fire for gain, or fire for thrill.
I had to determine which one it was.
Piece-by-piece, demolition crews are tearing down what's left of
the burned heritage building at Yonge and Gould.
The area is now a crime scene.
We're now in the process again of removing debris
and the four investigators that are here uh,
are sifting through the debris to look for evidence.
The building has been a mainstay
on Toronto's busiest street since 1888.
Last year, the owners of the property, the Lalani Group,
had refused money from the city to help restore the building.
The group wanted to develop an office tower instead,
but the city refused permission, citing its heritage status.
Then, under the cover of darkness Monday morning,
it went up in flames and three firefighters were hurt.
We're just happy that nobody was killed.
And are the firefighters OK?
They're alive.
But... what they went through.
When did your family buy the building?
Uh, about 25 years ago.
We leased it before that.
And I understand it was unoccupied.
Is that correct?
Uh, just recently.
There was an accident a few months ago.
The wall that collapsed.
Had you started any repairs?
Was there any construction equipment inside?
Anything like that?
No. We were having some problems with the contractors.
So with no work being done, we kept it sealed up.
How many ways in and out?
Just one. You know, around the back through the alley.
We kept it locked.
And would you have any idea why it might be unlocked?
N-No. No idea.
You know, we had big plans for the building.
We wanted to revitalize the whole thing.
Preserve the history, but also give downtown Toronto
something special. A major facelift.
I understand that you wanted to tear the building down
after the wall collapsed. Start fresh.
But the city wasn't very happy about that, were they?
Considering the historical significance of the Empress.
There were many things going through my mind.
The building had collapsed months earlier.
It had been deemed a heritage site,
so they couldn't demolish the building,
even though they'd applied for demolition permits.
They owed people money, and I know that they wanted the
building demolished.
Was this their way of doing it?
So, what's next, now that the building is destroyed?
I have no idea.
A-and the clean-up costs will be immense.
A-a building for which we paid millions is just gone.
We haven't received the money from the insurance company.
And we feel terrible about what happened.
But we're victims too here.
When I'm sitting across the table from Al,
I'm thinking people could have died in that fire.
If they're involved, does he actually think that we're not
going to find out?
It was built in 1893
at the corner of Yonge and Gould,
and opened as the Empress Hotel.
Later, the Edison Hotel.
And until last April when a wall collapsed,
a popular restaurant for students
at neighbouring Ryerson University.
The cause, arson, suspect Toronto fire officials.
The local Councillor agrees.
The building was rather secured, umm,
it-it does look a little suspect.
The first few days of the investigation were intense.
Any word on the firefighters?
They're out of hospital.
Physically they're fine.
But... it's gonna be a little while
before they're ready to come back.
OK, what do we know so far?
Now, from all the evidence we've collected,
it looks like the fire broke out on the third floor here,
southwest quadrant.
Along with the collapsed wall, there was a hole in the roof
that helped ventilate the flames.
Source?
Probably a large pile of discarded construction material,
possibly from an attempted renovation.
There may have been clothes and fabric there as well.
We found a lot of zippers and, and fasteners,
that kind of thing.
So you think it's an arson?
It's unlikely that a fire would spread that quickly
without an accelerant.
What level of expertise are we looking at?
Accelerants like gasoline vaporize quickly.
The fumes lay low to the ground, you end up with a fireball
that'll burn your legs.
If they didn't have a lot of experience,
they could have easily gotten caught inside
without a chance to escape.
I'm thinking we're looking for somebody who's done this before.
Mike Ross determined that this fire wasn't an accident.
It's up to me at that point to find out who it was
who set that fire.
But what makes arson investigation so difficult,
is that most of the evidence gets destroyed.
So any evidence that I find gets me very excited.
Hope you've been taking breaks.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, there's some things you're going to want to see.
I pulled some more footage...
Got a figure walking in at 1:29 A.M.
Leaves at 3:50.
First fire alarm goes off 14 minutes later.
His backpack looks bigger when he arrives,
and smaller when he leaves.
Noticed that.
Could be he had a gas tank or something like that inside.
And here, we have him leaving outside on the street.
Can't see his face in any of the footage.
Could be he knew where the cameras were,
and he was avoiding them.
Planning ahead.
Way ahead.
This is from the night before the fire.
12:21 AM...
leaves at 1:16 AM.
Casing the place.
Did any of the officers on scene report seeing anybody like this
after the fire broke out?
Nuh-uh.
Do we have any footage of the crowd?
Some video from the news.
Not much else really.
Any of our cars' dash cams on?
No. That would have been useful.
OK. Well, we'll deal with what we've got.
Get this footage to the analysts
and we'll get a height and weight estimate.
You got it.
Thanks.
Great work.
We have an unlocked gate.
And we have someone who would've known where the cameras are.
When I was looking at the Lalanis,
there were many things going through my mind.
They owed people money, they're embattled in lawsuits.
At this time in my mind, they're thinking,
cut the losses. Set the fire. Move on.
Well, it looks like your company
is having a bit of trouble, financially.
No, I wouldn't say that.
We make a lot of deals, have a number of properties.
Some work out. Some don't.
Well, I see some missed mortgage payments
from a property in Florida.
Lawsuits from several businesses after the wall collapse
at the Empress.
- Yes, but... - And the construction company
that you hired to fix the wall claim they haven't been paid.
Detective Harris, I hope you're not suggesting
we're involved in this.
I'm just trying to figure out what happened.
What happened was that a very valuable property of ours
has been destroyed.
You said it yourself, there are people who are suing us,
unhappy with us.
Maybe somebody's trying to hurt our business.
Perhaps you could look into that.
I'll reach out if there's anything further.
Let us know if there's anything we can do to help.
Thank you.
I don't think he appreciated my tone at that point,
because I was being accusatory towards them.
But just like investigating a homicide, you need hard proof.
And after I had investigated everything to the point
that I could with the Lalanis,
the evidence wasn't leading me that way anymore.
I had to move on.
Gotcha.
Yeah, OK. Thanks.
You all right?
Yeah.
Just...
frustrated.
The idea that someone could burn down this building
in the middle of the city.
People could have died.
People almost did die.
And we've got nothing to go on.
We might have something. A fire at a rooming house.
Sounds like a pipe bomb.
We're bringing the guy in. Stewart Poirier?
It raised some concerns, because it seemed like the fire
was intended to hurt someone.
Something caused him to set a fire in the closet of his room.
He uh, he lit his clothing on fire and then took off.
He needs to be off the street.
This person was building a pipe bomb.
They'd put it in their closet and they'd lit it on fire.
Had it worked the way that it was supposed to work?
People would have died.
When I was investigating the Empress Hotel fire,
I was focussed more on who had something financially to gain
from that building coming down.
Then a call came in for another fire.
It was at the Inglewood Arms.
So how long have you been staying
at the Inglewood, Stewart?
For a while now, on and off.
Whenever I can get the money together.
And you'd been having trouble with the management?
Friggin' sink didn't work. I kept tellin' 'em.
But they wouldn't do anything about it.
I kept tellin' 'em.
So you built a bomb?
Bomb?
No, I didn't make no bomb.
I just put some newspaper and stuff i-in the closet.
Sprayed it with Lysol and and lit up a match.
OK. I see.
So, you thought you'd get back at maintenance?
I just wanted a new room.
I could tell Stewart Poirier had some mental health issues.
He had a low-grade education.
I kind of felt sad for him.
You do know that what you did was wrong, right?
People could have been hurt.
And you do know that you're going to jail, right?
Yeah. I know.
I ju-I just wanted a new room.
I wasn't looking at him as the type of person
who would have had the thought process or the ability
to take down the Empress Hotel.
The Empress Hotel fire was pre-planned.
It was sophisticated.
The person had to have the knowledge to know
how to bring that building down.
Turn out to be anything?
A spray can and some newspapers.
No history of fire setting, vandalism, assault, no arson.
Guy's dealing with a lot of issues.
So, I've been looking into local fires, like you asked.
Nothing like the Empress, obviously,
but from what I can tell, it looks like
we've got a serious increase in fires lately.
We've got dumpster fires, garbage cans, trash in alleys.
And none of these were reported to us?
Well, they didn't seem suspicious.
Some of the smaller fires were flying under our radar
because they were dumpster fires, garbage can fires,
that could have been caused accidentally.
That's something that the fire departments
wouldn't normally call us on.
But there were so many fires in that area,
I knew that they were more than likely intentional.
Do you think we're looking at just one person
behind all these fires?
I'm not sure.
Could it be a pyromaniac?
A pyromaniac...
is someone who has no control over his impulses.
Vengeance, anger, sexual frustration.
And that makes them especially dangerous and hard to predict.
Maybe it was one person setting larger fires and larger fires.
Someone who started off just by setting some small fires
in some garbage dumpsters,
and then those weren't satisfying his need anymore
and he needed to keep escalating.
He needed a bigger fire to make him feel even better.
He's watching and he's learning every time he sets a fire.
He's practicing his skill.
Could it have been possible that he was escalating
to the Empress hotel fire and thought he would try that?
Absolutely.
OK. I've got five local fire setters that I know of
active at the moment.
Most of mine are already in jail.
Good. Means we're doing our job.
I like Tommy Youth...
He's been in jail recently for a couple of dumpster fires,
but he's out now.
Maybe looking for bigger and bigger thrills?
Hey, did we get that info back on the Empress CCTV video?
The height estimate?
Oh, uh, yeah, uh, here.
It's uh...
between five-eight and five-ten.
Youth's five-ten.
He fit the height, he fit the weight.
He wasn't in custody.
He was a fire setter.
Tommy Youth.
We went to his last known address.
I was frustrated he wasn't home,
so I decided he must be somewhere in the area.
He doesn't work, he lives a transient lifestyle.
So I went to all of his known hangouts...
and I ran into him.
Tommy Youth.
Yeah?
I've been looking for you.
So where you been, Tommy?
I couldn't find you at home.
I didn't know you were looking.
Not up to your usual tricks, though, right?
No. I've been behaving myself.
I hope so.
You hear anything about all the fires?
Seems like there's been a lot of them lately.
Uh... I don't know about that.
You know anything about the Empress?
Y-you think I had something to do with that?
Come on. A place that big?
Uh, I wouldn't know where to start.
I don't know. You seem pretty creative.
No. No, no way.
Look, I-I saw that thing.
You were there?
Yeah. I-I was there. So-so was everybody else.
Although Tommy fit the description of the person
who was responsible for the Empress Hotel fire,
his body language was telling me something completely different
than it had in all the past interviews.
It said, "I'm not the one who did this fire...
nor are you gonna pin this fire on me."
I told you.
I haven't heard anything.
Come on. You must have heard something.
I know you guys talk.
No! No. Nothing.
Not a word?
No.
Nobody wants to talk about that.
Why not?
Nobody was talking about the Empress Hotel fire.
When you go to jail and you're known as a rat,
some things could happen to you.
You never want to be labelled a rat.
How'd it go?
We don't have anything to hold him on, I had to let him go.
When I asked him about the Empress, I don't know,
something was off.
You think he's hiding something?
I think he's scared.
Of what?
Maybe he knows who did it and he's scared of what'll happen
if he talks.
At that point, we had nothing else to go on.
You feel like you owe the public the answers.
and you're just not getting them.
And it's crushing.
A year had passed since the time of the Empress Hotel fire,
and I was at a stalemate.
I couldn't find a fire setter
capable of setting the Empress Hotel fire.
The trail had gotten cold.
I always second guessed myself.
Did I do everything I could have possibly done
to solve this case?
Have I missed something?
I was having a hard time dealing with it.
No new leads.
I thought maybe the fire setter had left the area.
And then I got a call about a new fire.
One that looked like an attempted murder.
Looks like at least two of the fire alarms were disconnected.
Luckily, a third one went off before the fire
got out of control.
Looks like they tried to burn down the wall.
Was anyone next door?
No. No. We're still trying to determine who lives there.
And whose apartment is this?
Uh, Stewart Poirier.
Stewart Poirier.
Yeah.
I put him away last year.
Well, he's lived here a couple of months.
Looks like he's out.
Mark.
I need you to put a BOLO out for Stewart Poirier.
Yeah, the guy we talked to right after the Empress,
the guy with the pipe bomb.
I told you guys! I told you guys this is gonna happen!
I'll call you back.
Sir? Do you live here?
Yeah, I live here. What did Stewart do?
We've had a fire in the apartment,
and we have reason to believe it may have been set deliberately.
Of course, it was! The guy wanted to kill me!
OK, what happened?
He's crazy!
He's always fighting, arguing, playing with matches.
Moping around and mumbling, till he gets pissed or mad or drunk.
When was the last time that you saw him?
When he came back to the apartment this morning.
I told him if he kept playing with fire,
he was going to kill someone.
Then he looked right at me
and said he was gonna burn me to death.
Do you have any idea where I might be able to find him?
I don't know.
Maybe the Good Shepherd Ministries.
I've seen him down there a couple of times.
Ask for Father Ed.
OK. Thank you.
Not only am I concerned that I don't know where Poirier is,
he is much more sophisticated than I initially thought.
The smoke alarm systems were dismantled,
door knobs were dismantled
so that people wouldn't be able to get out of their apartments.
This was concerning to me, because this wasn't someone
who was just randomly starting a fire
because he had a fight with a neighbour.
He actually put thought into this.
He was very methodical about the way he did it,
what time of night he was doing it at.
And, tried to set the fires in the areas
that were the only way out for the tenants of the building.
I've only come across him once before,
and did I ever underestimate him.
And so how did you know Stewart?
I met him when he first came to Toronto, years ago,
through the Ministry.
We tried to be there for him when he needed us.
Uh, money, medicine, housing.
He wasn't always easy to help.
Thank you.
We have reason to believe that he's been setting fires.
He may have tried to kill someone.
Does that seem like Stewart, Father Ed?
You have to understand, he's been hurt his entire life.
He doesn't know how to process it.
When he gets angry, when he feels threatened,
he can lash out.
When I talked to him, he seemed very calm.
Almost childlike.
Well, he struggles to control his impulses.
A few years ago, he started getting more aggressive.
His behaviour deteriorated.
Fighting, vandalism.
We gave him several bans from the Ministry,
often for months at a time.
Did you stay connected?
Yes. As I've done with others in similar situations,
he'd call me, I'd meet him outside, bring him food.
Money on occasion, so he could get a place to sleep.
But then...
there was another incident.
He uh, he attacked several staff members, made threats.
We were forced to give him a two-year ban.
But you continued to help him?
Well, what kind of a person would I be if I didn't?
But I can only do what I believe is right.
Do you know where I can find him?
I don't know where he is.
But if he comes to me for help, I'll let you know.
Stewart's in the area, he's out of custody,
and he's lighting fires.
Father Ed, my father's dead.
Fuck, fuck.
Get away!
Detective Harris, Stewart was here, asking for money.
I refused him and tried to get him to stay, but...
Do you know where he is?
He's still outside.
He's agitated.
He said if he sees any police, he's going to kill them.
He has a knife.
We found Poirier, and he's armed.
Let's get uni's over there right now and bring him in safe.
You got it.
Don't you come near me!
No. No. No. No. No. No! No! No!
Don't get out of the car!
No-no-no-no!
No!
Stewart?
Stewart Poirier.
Stewart?
We're gonna have to bring you in, OK?
You all right?
You have anything on you we should know about?
Don't do that, Stewart.
I-I'm not coming with you.
We just want to talk to you.
I'm -I'm gonna, I'm gonna kill you.
I'm gonna kill myself.
Stewart, we don't want that.
We just want to talk. OK? Just talk.
Don't you want to talk?
Stewart knew he was cornered.
He had set a fire to his own apartment.
He'd tried to kill some of the occupants of that building.
He knew he was going away for a long time.
Look at this.
Alcoholic father.
Can't read or write.
Twelve years in a mental institution,
starting at seven years of age.
Said he was abused there, too.
He's been hurt by almost everybody
who's ever been close to him.
I feel sorry for him.
He's not taking care of himself, he has mental health challenges.
He never had much of a chance, did he?
I'm surprised that he could be that same monster...
that's trying to kill people in a fire.
I know that there's another side to him
that I myself haven't seen yet, but it's there.
Would you like something to drink, Stewart?
Water? Coffee?
Juice?
C-can I get some juice?
Sure.
How did you set that fire in your apartment?
Lighter fluid.
The cheap stuff.
Two dollars and forty-nine cents.
And Lysol.
I put it on the bed frame, the mattress.
Then I set everything up against the wall.
Why?
I was mad.
At a guy in my building.
Did you want to scare him?
Can I... can we pass on that question?
Sure.
So, you set the fire, and then what?
I watched...
to see it burn.
The firefighters, they got there too fast.
So I took off.
I set my dad's house on, on fire.
A long time ago.
Why?
Because of the way he hurt me when I was a kid.
I'm sorry about that, Stewart.
I truly am.
Anything else?
Any fires you never told anyone about?
There... there was that wood chipper.
Down by the Don River.
I-I tried to cut the gas line.
I couldn't get through it.
I watched it go up, though.
I watched it for quite a while.
That was a big one.
Can we turn that thing off?
I want to tell you something.
I'm sorry, we can't, Stewart.
It has to stay on.
It's to protect you so that we don't say
you said something you didn't. Right?
You remember that...
that big...
big, big, big building?
Down by the mall?
The one right beside the record shop?
Yes. I think so.
I did that one, too.
Stewart?
Can we stop?
Stewart? Did you set the Empress Hotel on fire?
Can, can we stop... now?
I wa-I want to stop right here.
OK. OK. We'll take a break.
He's confessing to all kinds of fires.
We had no records of this, nothing in his file.
But even after finding out about this long history of
fire setting, the Empress Hotel seemed like an outlier.
Stewart was shutting down on us and I needed something that
would make me believe that he set the Empress Hotel fire.
I wasn't sure.
I need to protect the public from him,
and how am I gonna do that?
You think he's telling the truth?
About the Empress?
It doesn't seem like it fits his pattern.
He's impulsive, you know?
If he gets mad at somebody, somebody, he lights a match.
The Empress seems too well planned.
Could be he's just taking credit.
Big fire might make him feel important.
Either way, we've got to get him talking, get details,
see if they match up.
He's shutting down in there.
He doesn't trust us.
Not yet.
We're going back in there, I want you to take the lead.
Mark and I decided we'd have a different tactic.
We'd go back into the room and change it up a little bit.
I'd go hard on Poirier to push him towards Mark.
It wasn't something I was looking forward to.
You can't charge me with that big fire, can you?
I could. If I believed you.
But... I think you're lying.
No... No.
Yeah. I don't think you could have set that fire.
It's too big.
It's too much for you.
My partner here, he thinks you did it, but...
he's easily fooled.
Me, not so much.
I... I'm not lying.
Hm. I don't know.
Maybe you can talk to Mark about it,
but I don't think I want to listen to this anymore.
Man, she's tough.
She's always...
giving me a hard time.
Look, Stewart, I-I know you did this thing.
I'm impressed, I gotta tell you.
I just...
I just wish she believed you.
You know, she might be impressed if you...
told me a little more about it.
Impressed by both of us. You know?
I could get the real story out of you.
It'd be a real win for me. She'd like that.
And she'd see that...
that you really did do it.
What do you say?
You want to tell me what really happened?
How'd you manage it?
Is she coming back?
Who?
Debbie.
Is she coming back?
Yeah.
Yeah, she's coming back.
Hey.
You want to help me show her how dangerous you are?
I get a kick out of it.
Out of what?
The flames.
Fire. Burning people.
That's why I burned my place.
You wanted to hurt your neighbour?
That's why I unhooked the fire alarms.
So he couldn't get out.
So he would burn.
And die.
He watched from behind a tree as the fire department pulled up.
And he was actually sad.
He was sad that they came.
He was sad that they put out the fire,
because he wanted those people to burn inside that building,
and he wanted to watch it.
Very seldom in one's career would you run into someone
who would be a pyromaniac.
And I knew I was staring at one right there at that moment.
And what about the Empress?
Were you trying to hurt people there, too?
Stewart?
How did you get inside?
Through the back.
Even knew that there's a door.
It was open.
Had you been there before?
I had my eye on the place.
I knew exactly where to go.
As he's talking about the greatest fire that he's done,
he's got details that we never released to the public.
And he's given those details
as part of his description of that fire.
So I knew that Stewart was the one who went in
and lit that Empress Hotel fire.
There was wood everywhere.
They didn't clean it up right, you know?
It was completely messy.
So uh, I made two piles...
put gas on 'em, and made a path in between both.
Then what?
Then I made sure I could get out.
I didn't want to get caught in the fire.
I almost didn't make it.
But I did.
And it burned.
And it burned like hell.
It burned like hell.
It burned like mother-fucking hell.
Where's Debbie?
53-year-old Stewart Poirier was arrested
earlier this month when police linked him
to the high-profile Yonge Street arson,
but new paperwork filed in court today
adds twenty-nine charges to the list.
Between April 2010 and this month,
Poirier is accused of setting 13 different fires.
Six of those fires were set in one day alone.
And I looked at Stewart in the courtroom
and I was worried for his safety.
I was worried for what other inmates would do to him.
But at the same time, I knew he was dangerous,
and we had to put him away.
He didn't last in jail.
Within three months, Stewart died.
We weren't aware that he had cancer.
In an odd way, I felt relieved.
I didn't want Stewart suffering.
I went through his personal belongings,
I don't know if they were ever claimed.
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