DiMaggio suspected of setting two fires before kidnapping teen

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Phillip Garrido enters a courtroom in Placerville, Calif. Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years in prison for Jaycee Dugard’s abduction. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

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A tent in the backyard of a home in Antioch, Calif., where authorities say kidnap victim Jaycee Lee Dugard lived. (Paul Sakuma / Associated Press)

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Elizabeth Smart addresses the media outside a federal courthouse following the guilty verdict in the Brian David Mitchell trail in Salt Lake City. Mitchell was found guilty in the June 5, 2002, kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. (Colin E. Braley / Associated Press)

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Elizabeth Smart poses with her parents, Lois and Ed, outside their home in 2003. Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City bedroom in 2002 (Tom Smart / Associated Press)

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Brian David Mitchell, Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapper, is escorted into the Frank E. Moss Federal Courthouse in Salt Lake City in 2010. (Jim Urquhart / Associated Press)

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Katie Beers, whose kidnapping attracted nationwide headlines in 1992, poses for a photo in Old Westbury, N.Y. The 30-year-old mother of two co-wrote a new book about her ordeal. (Frank Eltman / Associated Press)

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John Esposito sits handcuffed in a van in Hauppauge, N.Y., as he is about to be taken to court for arraignment on charges of kidnapping Katie Beers. (Michael Albans / Associated Press)

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Shawn Hornbeck, 15, watches as his parents Craig and Pam Akers talk to the media in Richwoods, Mo. Shawn, who was missing since Oct. 2002, was recovered in 2007 with another missing boy. (Tom Gannam / Associated Press)

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Michael Devlin is escorted out of the Franklin County Courthouse in Union, Mo. Devlin pleaded guilty in Franklin County to one charge of child kidnapping and one count of armed criminal action in the 2007 abduction of 13-year-old William “Ben” Ownby. (Tom Gannam / Associated Press)

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Steven Stayner, right, and and his brother Delbert Stayner walk toward their Merced County home as Steven was reunited with his family following a 7-year kidnap ordeal. (Ted Benson / Associated Press)

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Convicted kidnapper Kenneth Eugene Parnell during a court appearance in Oakland in 2003. Parnell was convicted in the kidnappings of Steven Stayner in 1972 and Timothy White in 1980. (Nick Lammers / Associated Press)

By Tony Perry

Aug. 15, 2013 4:58 PM PT

Within hours of finding a burned-out house and garage in rural Boulevard, investigators suspected the owner, James DiMaggio, of setting separate blazes, possibly with timing devices, according to search warrants made public Thursday.

The fires on the property in eastern San Diego County were discovered late in the afternoon of Aug. 4. By 4 a.m. Monday, investigators with expertise in arson were seeking a search warrant to investigate the rubble.

The fires were set separately, possibly with accelerant, arson specialists said in seeking the warrant. The one fire could not have migrated to the other location, they said.

Once the warrants were issued by a Superior Court judge, investigators found what is called an “arson wire” that times a fire to erupt.

Also found were empty boxes of ammunition, camping gear, a camping map of Yosemite, and a note whose contents were not disclosed, according to the search warrant.

Other warrants suggest that by the time the structures exploded in flames, 40-year-old DiMaggio had already kidnapped 16-year-old Hannah Anderson and was speeding northward in his blue Nissan, using death threats to keep her from trying to escape.

In the burned-out buildings, investigators found Hannah’s mother, Christina, 44, and her 8-year-old brother Ethan. DiMaggio, a family friend known as Uncle Jim, was immediately suspected of killing both family members before kidnapping Hannah, who was at cheerleading practice.

DiMaggio and Hannah were found in the deep forest of southern Idaho on Aug. 10, six days after the fires. DiMaggio fired once, possibly twice, at FBI agents sent to rescue the teen.

The agents returned fire, killing DiMaggio. Only when Hannah was interviewed by the FBI did she learn that her mother, brother and her dog had been killed.

Hannah has been reunited with her father, Brett Anderson, at the family home in Lakeside.

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Twitter: @LATsandiego

tony.perry@latimes.com