Lanning was taken into custody, and consented to an interview with detectives. The ex-Marine said he had resigned from Phoenix Fire a few months earlier because of his longtime meth addiction.
Lanning said his best buddies were Avey and Bishop, his former colleagues at Station 18.
Jamie Peachey
Betty and Mike Johnson at the site of what was supposed to be their dream home.
The December 2003 fire destroyed the new
home of Peoria residents Betty and Mike
Johnson.
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Lanning soon confessed to his direct role in burning down the Johnsons' home — for $250.
He said he had broken into the place with Avey and that Bishop had been the lookout and getaway driver.
The ringleader, according to Lanning (and years later, Avey), was Robert Brewster, a pal of Avey's who worked at Peoria Fire.
Lanning agreed to call Avey at Station 18 with detectives listening in; he told his pal on tape about the search warrant for the stolen property. Lanning said he was worried something was going to come up about the fire.
"Don't say one word," onetime Army Ranger Avey told him.
As the two men spoke, sheriff's deputies prepared to swoop into the fire station at 23rd Avenue and Camelback. They soon arrested Avey and Bishop without incident.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio's public relations squad had tipped off favored media to the unique situation, and the cameras rolled as the handcuffed firefighters (their Phoenix Fire T-shirts turned inside out) were led to the county jail in downtown Phoenix.
Neither man would speak with detectives. Their mug shots, which were plastered all over the local news, made them look more like street thugs than men sworn to protect and save citizens from fire and other dangers.
The detectives went to Brewster's home in Peoria but did not arrest him, asking only to speak with him.
Brewster said it was "no secret to anybody . . . the passion I had behind it — losing my money [to the Johnsons]. I talked to my extended family at the Fire Department about it, and everybody knows the story. I got screwed, and I moved on with my life."
Brewster claimed not to know why anyone was implicating him. He said he did not recall speaking with the arson suspects immediately before or after the fire.
Actually, records show that Brewster and Avey spoke by cell phone about four hours before the December 20 fire and, again, hours afterward.
"I had nothing to do with this. So if you're accusing me of it?" Brewster said, ending the interview by asking for an attorney.
Veteran Phoenix firefighters accused of turning into arsonists was a big story. Sheriff Arpaio called a press conference, at which he strongly suggested that more arrests were forthcoming.
Peoria Fire suspended Brewster with pay pending the results of an internal investigation.
That day, State Farm sent a letter to the Johnsons revoking its earlier "reservation of rights" warning notice, later noting in an internal memo, "We no longer had a question of whether or not they set the fire."
But, privately, the insurer still the couple's personal property claim, the precise extent of which still was uncertain.
State Farm issued a check for $554,000 soon after the arrests to cover the alleged replacement value of the home itself and some temporary living costs (minus a $2,000 deductible).
"State Farm couldn't wait to pay that, after holding out for months, because they were so sure the Johnsons were the arsonists," public adjustor Dave Skipton says. "It was [the company's] way of saying, 'Please don't sue us for bad faith.'"
Any good feelings that the Johnsons may have had were short-lived.
Sheriff's Detective Phil Dougherty told Betty Johnson by phone within hours of the arrests that he still needed to talk to her about those BankOne letters.
A few days later, Betty says, she informed Dougherty that a TV reporter had knocked on her door to ask about the letters, which she says the reporter claimed to have seen.
Dougherty's police report said that Betty told him during the call that she had been approached in 2002 by "Lillian," who said she worked as a loan officer for BankOne (supposedly producing business cards to prove it).
"Lillian" wanted Betty to privately invest money in a side deal with her, but Betty told Dougherty she never did. Betty claimed that the mysterious woman helped her compose the phony "construction loan" letters on bank stationery, which Betty in turn delivered to four subcontractors, including Robert Brewster.
It sounds dubious.
But Betty Johnson's oldest child, Summer, says she recalls a well-dressed woman named Lillian coming by the house to speak privately with her mother.
"She was a real person," says Summer, now a mother of three and wife of a Phoenix police officer. "My mom would not make something like that up."
Betty tells New Times that "Lillian" disappeared for good in the fall of 2002 after Robert Brewster filed a complaint with a sheriff's deputy. A sheriff's "field report" shows that the deputy came by the Johnsons' home to sort things out and then chalked up the dispute between Brewster and the Johnsons as a civil matter.
"When I confronted Lillian after the deputy came by, that was it — never saw her again," Betty says. "I made a big mistake by dealing with her. But it wasn't like we didn't pay people. We just didn't pay Brewster any more money because he didn't make his wrongs right on the job."
