How gloating emails to a newspaper solved the arson spree targeting 125 SUVs in one night, Jalopnik

Damage across West Covina

In the early hours of August 22, 2003, vandals struck four dealerships and a private neighborhood in West Covina, California. They damaged one building and 125 SUVs, spray-painting messages including “I love POLLUTION” and “SUV = TERRORISM.” The letters “ELF” also appeared repeatedly, linking the attacks to the Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized activist group. The group targeted property and had been credited with hundreds of attacks from the late 1990s through the 2000s; several SUVs were set on fire that night.

Emails redirect investigators

Within weeks, federal agents arrested Josh Connole, a peace activist, vegetarian and solar panel sales representative who drove an electric vehicle and lived at a commune. After the arrest was announced, a Los Angeles Times reporter received emails from someone using the name “Tony Marsden,” who said police had the wrong man and claimed involvement in the attacks.

The sender said the group had left clues that did not implicate Connole. He also described painting an equation by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler on an SUV, a detail that had not been made public. Investigators traced the emails to Caltech and found messages on a school computer.

Cottrell identified by DNA

The email sender was William “Billy” Cottrell, a Caltech theoretical physics PhD student, not “Tony Marsden.” Investigators also matched his DNA to a headband recovered at the scene. Cottrell initially said he would not identify anyone else involved. He later said Tyler Johnson and Michie Oe had persuaded him to spray-paint SUVs, and that Johnson set the first vehicle alight in a neighborhood. Cottrell said he objected, but that fires continued at the final dealership.

Fire allegations and defense

Cottrell said a Molotov cocktail accidentally set his clothes on fire, prompting him to remove his shirt; he said his headband was left behind. Johnson and Oe were later named as unindicted co-conspirators, but had left the country before their arrests.

The account notes that Cottrell’s statements may have served his own interests. His defense team sought to distinguish spray-painting from arson, and his attorney also raised Asperger syndrome as a defense.