An Expert on the Criminal Mind, Now He’s Suspected in an Arson Spree
The New York Times
Amid a series of arson incidents across Northern California this year, a criminology professor was charged with setting a patch of the Sierra Nevada forest ablaze.
LASSEN NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. — He drove out of the Lumberjacks restaurant parking lot on a Tuesday in August, up Main Street, past the fire station and the gun shop. Then, Gary Maynard left the small city of Susanville in the northeastern corner of California and headed up a steep highway into the Sierra Nevada, where, prosecutors say, he set the forest ablaze.
Mr. Maynard, a criminology professor who specializes in deviancy, now sits in a Sacramento jail awaiting a hearing. The crime expert, investigators say, became a criminal himself.
Arson, a crime whose perpetrators have included lawyers, dentists, millionaires and residents of homeless encampments, has for decades been a concern in California, where about 10 percent of wildfires every year are set on purpose, according to Cal Fire, the state’s largest fire agency.
