Arson Suspect Seized in $5-Million Blaze : Crime: Flames destroy a controversial condo project in Pasadena. A laid-off construction worker is arrested as he watches investigators from across the street.

By IRENE CHANG and LOUIS SAHAGUN

Dec. 8, 1989 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

A laid-off construction worker was arrested Thursday in a $5-million arson fire that destroyed a controversial Pasadena condominium project under construction and heavily damaged an adjacent townhouse complex, forcing 30 people from their homes, authorities said.

Timothy Loxson, 26, of South Pasadena was arrested Thursday morning across the street from the fire scene at Orange Grove and Del Mar boulevards, where he had been watching arson investigators as they combed the rubble, Pasadena Fire Chief David Leonard said.

Loxson was booked for investigation of arson and remained in Pasadena City Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail. The arrest was based on conflicting statements Loxson made to fire investigators earlier in the day and the fact that he apparently matched eyewitness descriptions of a man seen running from the condominium project moments before it erupted in flames at 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, Leonard said.

The chief said that “the evidence we’ve collected shows definite signs of incendiary origin,” including “signs of a flammable liquid” detected at the southeast corner of the half-completed project. He said the complex was the site of a minor arson blaze last Friday.

Wednesday night’s fire spread quickly to an adjacent 20-unit townhouse complex, destroying five units valued at $650,000 each, authorities said. Two other units sustained heavy water damage. Thirty residents were displaced, but no one was injured.

The condominium project--a three-story, eight-unit complex of $500,000 to $1-million residences in an exclusive west Pasadena neighborhood dominated by Victorian homes and stately mansions--has been controversial from its inception, according to a former owner of a portion of the project site.

“Residents opposed to it circulated petitions to prevent it from going up,” said Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen, who sold a corner lot to developers. “They didn’t want to see any other condos going up. They felt it would be a precedent for changing zoning in the area.”

Five months ago, voters passed the city’s Growth Management Initiative, which set an annual ceiling of 250 new residential units citywide. The condominium project was exempted from the initiative because the property had already been subdivided, said Colin Lund, a Pasadena city planner.

The project, the product of a business partnership, was being built by the Construction Group of Los Angeles. Robert Klein, a spokesman for the firm, would only say, “I have no idea who might have done this.”

Many residents reported hearing an explosion moments before flames engulfed the project and lighted up the night sky.

“I heard an explosion I thought at first was an earthquake,” said Robert Martin Sr., who lives two doors away from the construction site. “I saw a highly suspicious man running eastward to a car.”

Martin said the man entered the car and “took off without his lights on” as a security guard from nearby Ambassador College vainly gave chase on foot. The security guard could not be reached for comment.

Other witnesses reported seeing as many as three men running from the fire.

Among the residents displaced by the fire was Katherine Morris, whose two-bedroom townhouse was gutted.

“It’s gone. There’s nothing left,” said Morris, surveying the ruins of her home, which she said contained several original Picasso paintings and pencil drawings worth “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

In an interview before his arrest, Loxson said he was one of seven construction workers relieved of their jobs at the construction site last Friday--the same day a small arson fire caused $5,000 damage to some stairwells and a wall.

“I heard they tried to start three fires in three stairwells,” said Loxson, who described himself as a carpenter who had worked on the project for six months.

The complex was scheduled for completion sometime in March, he said.

Loxson said he was not very upset about being laid off because his duties were nearly completed.

“I took it as it is,” Loxson said. “Framers are a dime a dozen.”

The other workers, however, took it a little harder, Loxson contended.

“They were bummed out. It’s Christmas time and they were upset,” he said.

One of Loxson’s co-workers, Scotty Adelhelm, 24, said authorities were wrong to suspect that Loxson was involved in the fire.

“He has alibis,” Adelhelm said. “He was with us until 6 p.m. drinking beer in the mountains. He was with his wife and kid after that.”

“I don’t understand anything that’s going on right now,” Loxson’s wife, Terri, said, fighting back tears. “He didn’t do it. He was home both nights. That’s all I have to say.”

As it stands, Loxson is the only suspect, although the investigation is continuing, authorities said.