For nine and a half hours on Sept. 5, 2024, a prosecutor said, Justin Wayne Halstenberg steered his white pickup around the east end of Highland on a 108-degree day, repeatedly passing the same location on Baseline Street just a couple of minutes from a fire station.
It was a day Halstenberg had prepared for, Deputy District Attorney Justin Crocker told jurors at the San Bernardino Justice Center during his closing argument on Monday, May 12, in the trial of the man accused of setting the 44,000-acre Line fire.
Halstenberg, Crocker said, practiced with ignition devices consisting of a cigarette box, wadded up yellow legal paper and coins to give the devices enough weight to throw in setting fires in 2023 in Jurupa Valley that were quickly extinguished. A similar device was found at the Line fire after Halstenberg’s two earlier attempts at igniting brush fires in Highland that day failed, he said.
“The defendant was waiting, driving around, looking for the perfect place, the perfect moment and finally he caused the destruction,” Crocker said. “The defendant finally got one to take off.”
But Deputy Public Defender Luke Byward, in his closing argument, said there was no substance to the prosecution’s circumstantial evidence against Halstenberg, a 35-year-old Norco resident.
“Justin Halstenberg has been painted by the prosecution as a mastermind arsonist, high-end, sophisticated with this scheme, a plan practiced over years to prepare an incendiary device with the intention of burning down the county in this very special spot,” Byward told the jurors. “Do you pick across the street from a fire station?”
The wildfire that started on Baseline burned into the San Bernardino National Forest and forced thousands of mountain residents to flee. One house in Running Springs was destroyed and five other structures were damaged. Six firefighters were hurt, including one who suffered a bone chip in an ankle.
A document filed by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office said DNA that could belong to Halstenberg was found on coins — three nickels, a dime and a penny — that prosecutors contend were used to weigh down the device used to start the blaze.
Byward dismissed the importance of the coins, which at two locations including the Line fire were found in the street. He said with the coins falling out of the paper, it would have been difficult for Halstenberg to throw the burning paper from his pickup as prosecutors contend.
“I hope you haven’t been reduced to believing floating lanterns as the cause of the fire,” Byward told jurors.
Halstenberg has pleaded not guilty to 14 felony charges: four counts of arson of a structure or forest land, three counts of arson of property, three counts of arson using an ignition device, two counts of arson of an inhabited structure and one count each of aggravated arson and arson causing great bodily injury.
He has not been charged in connection with the Jurupa Valley fires.
Halstenberg, wearing a black suit, mostly stared straight ahead during the closing arguments.
Crocker told jurors that Halstenberg subscribes to a YouTube channel that shows buildings burning. The prosecutor then scrolled down a website to show a list of 90 videos in the feed. Crocker showed on a screen a list of about 20 news and Cal Fire websites that he said Halstenberg visited as the fire raged.
Halstenberg criss-crossed East Highland from about 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. the day of the Line fire, stopping for a while to play the slots at what is now known as the Yaamava‘ Resort and Casino. He shut off his phone during the hours when the three fires were set, Crocker said.
“The time had come for him to put his plan into action,” Crocker said.
He played a video from a Tesla’s camera that showed a white pickup parked at an angle along Baseline. The Tesla passed the truck and then made a U-turn. The pickup was gone, and the hillside was in flames, the video shows.
Crocker later projected a photo of Halstenberg’s pickup traveling through Highland at night as the flames glowed in the background.
“An image that brings fear to the people of that community, seeing an entire mountainside on fire. It brings joy and a sense of accomplishment” to Halstenberg, Crocker said. “The rush — feel it, enjoy it.”
Byward countered that prosecutors failed to show that Halstenberg, whose phone tracked his location, was precisely at any of the ignition points on Sept. 5.
He also said the yellow papers found at the fires that prosecutors contend were the same and connected the defendant to the fires were, in fact, dissimilar. The first fire, on Bacon Road, was set when Halstenberg was not on that street, Byward said. He said there is no evidence that his client watched the YouTube videos. And he showed photos of a construction staple found at the Line fire ignition location that he said did not match those located at Halstenberg’s home.
Byward also criticized the prosecution for not testing Halstenberg’s pickup, which has more than 300,000 miles on it, for malfunctions that could have accidentally started the roadside fires.
“Is there any other matching evidence other than the DNA?” Byward asked. “They won’t do physical testing if it isn’t going to help their case. Everything is being twisted to fit that scenario.”
Closing arguments were scheduled to conclude Tuesday morning with Crocker’s rebuttal. The jury will receive instructions from the judge on the law and then begin deliberations.
