Three men from the remote outpost of Marial made a citizen’s arrest on Monday of a man accused of setting heavy wood on fire
The Mule Creek Trail is near the remote outpost of Marial, where local residents subdued a man suspected of starting fires on Monday. [BLM photo]
Frank and Jane Moody were planning a nice dip in Mill Creek, in Marial’s remote lower Rogue River enclave, Monday afternoon when an alleged arsonist crossed their path.
“We had seen him the day before and he was pretty disoriented, so we gave him some water,” Moody said. “He was harassing people all night at the campsite, looking for food, saying he was going to die. He disappeared, so we didn’t think he was still there until we saw him walking down the road near my house,” Moody said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
“We passed him walking down the road, then we rounded the corner and saw the two fires burning, so we ran down and got the guys from Marial Lodge. Our son, Daniel (Snyder ), was coming down at the time on his motorcycle,” said Frank Moody.
Rob Biscarret, owner of Marial Lodge, said he and his wife were taking a nap when they heard Frank Moody walk into the driveway.
“This guy had been hanging around the night before, bothering people, so we all knew he was in the area,” Biscarret said.
“I heard Frank pull into the driveway yelling, ‘Get your fire extinguishers, this guy’s starting fires!'” Biscarret explained.
“He said, ‘Do you have any ties?’ I asked why, and he said, “We have to go find this guy!” My sister was camping nearby and had run into him the night before. I ran over there and grabbed my dad (Marc Biscarret) and we met Frank’s son Dan on the road so he jumped in the truck with us too.”
The unlikely heroes ran down the road and into action.
“At first I was walking down the road near my house, so I got scared and ran to my house to get a gun, but when I came back, the three boys had already taken it,” Moody said.
“We didn’t really question him. He was pretty out of it, mumbling something about fires, and he had a lighter.”
Moody described the man, later identified as 31-year-old Trennon Smith, as large and combative.
“He wasn’t a small guy. Probably at least 250 pounds and 6-2. My son is pretty big, too, but this guy put up a lot of fight. My son said it was good that Rob and his dad were there because he didn’t he could have fought him alone. A guy hit him in the head with a gun. Then when they were fighting him, they went down a steep embankment and he hit a tree and got stuck,” Moody said.
Biscarret said it was “lucky” that a tree broke Smith’s fall.
“We were going to have him stay with us until the authorities got there, until he tried to tackle Dan, so I ended up on top of him, all of us wrestling him to the ground. Then we went over an embankment. That put him in a position where we could catch him, so we tied him up.”
Biscarret said it was obvious Smith was under the influence of drugs. The trio bound Smith with rope and ties, but he fought hard enough to break the ties.
“His pupils were dilated. He was combative and was sweating profusely,” said Biscarret.
“I’m relieved we were able to stop it. It’s all old growth there, and it wouldn’t take anything for that undergrowth to take off. It’s steep country, so when it gets caught, you have to let it burn.”
Moody said Smith had abandoned his car in a nearby field, which he reported to law enforcement. The police arrived to pick up Smith a couple of hours after he was arrested.
“We had him pretty much pinned down. We poured some water on him to cool him down, talked to him to keep him awake,” Moody added.
The Curry County Sheriff’s Office reported receiving the call from Moody’s shortly before 2pm Monday near the location of the Rogue River Ranch and Marial Lodge. With the area so remote and in a high fire danger zone, accessible by river or Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management roads, multiple agencies responded to help put out the flames and locate the suspect.
BLM agents reportedly transported Smith from Veneta to Three Rivers Medical Center in Grants Pass. He was later booked into the Curry County Jail. Biscarret said it was helpful to have so many agencies on hand Monday and for community members to be aware of their surroundings.
Jane Moody recalled trying to help Smith before discovering the fires.
“When we passed him, he had already lit the fires, but we didn’t know it. We stopped and said, “What are you doing?” He looked me in the eye and said, “I’m not going to make it,” he said.
“I told him, ‘We’re going to get the BLM guys at the ranch and they’re going to come take care of you. As soon as we turned the corner, we saw the lights go off and we thought, ‘Oh my God. He is lighting a fire. It could have been a lot worse than it was.”
Jane Moody said the arrest of a suspected arsonist was enough excitement for the countryside to last a long, long time.
“We live a pretty quiet life,” added Frank Moody. “We were just trying to go swimming like we do every day, in Mill Creek. It’s quiet and peaceful.”
“And we’d like to keep it that way,” added his wife.
Curry County Sheriff John Ward said Tuesday that Smith had been charged with first-degree arson and arson. He also had a warrant out of Lane County for a probation violation.
Smith has an arrest history dating back to 2011, with convictions from 2016 that include possession of methamphetamine, first-degree burglary, third-degree burglary and first-degree animal cruelty.
Monday’s fire, called the Rogue River Ranch Fire, was contained to less than an acre by the joint efforts of the Oregon Department of Forestry, the Douglas Forest Protective Association and the Coos Forest Protective Association.
Contact Mail Tribune reporter Buffy Pollock at 541-776-8784 or bpollock@rosebudmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.
