Convicted arsonist Rickie Lee Fowler was given the death penalty Monday in San Bernardino Superior Court for starting the 2003 Old Fire that killed five people and damaged more than 1,000 homes in the hills of East Los Angeles.

Rickie Lee Fowler, 31, was convicted Aug. 15, 2012, of five counts of first-degree murder and two counts of arson.

Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith said Fowler "shall be put to death," after hearing arguments by attorneys and moving statements by the victims' families, according to The San Bernardino Sun. Fowler is a known methamphetamine addict with a violent history of rape and assault.

The Old Fire occured during one of the worst wildfire periods in California's history. The flames blazed through 91,000 acres in nine days in the foothills above San Bernardino. The fire started at Old Waterman Canyon Road and California Sate Highway 18 and caused the evacuation of about 30 communities and over 80,000 people, according to coverage by the Los Angeles Times.

All five men died from heart attacks triggered by the stress of trying to escape their burning homes, the Associated Press reported.

Prosecutors said Fowler started the fire in a fit of ragee after he was thrown out of his godfather's house at the top of Waterman Canyon.

Investigators interviewed Fowler several months after the fire but didn't have enough evidence to file charges until six years later, The Sun reported.

Witnesses placed Fowler at the scene after reporting seeing a passenger in a white van tossing burning objects into dry bush. Investigators believed those burning objects to be road flares, according to the L.A. Times.

Prosecutors also said Fowler gave authorities a note in 2008 admitting he was there when the fire began. Fowler retracted his statement the following hear, however, and told reporters he had been bullied into a confession.

However, Defense attorney Don Jordan argued that there was doubt about whether Fowler lit the fire and said his client didn't know where or how it started.
 
District Attorney Michael Ramos said the sentence would finally bring closure to those who lost loved ones in the fire.

"Today, after nearly ten years, justice has now been secured for the victims and their families, and those whose lives were affected by the actions of Rickie Lee Fowler," Ramos said in a statement.

Read the whole story at AP

Check out photos of Fowler and the Old Fire at Mercury News.

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