Schmidt

Defendant was convicted by a jury of attempted arson.

Around 6:45 p.m. on October 4, 1962, two employees of Forest Lawn Cemetery, Reid and Pacheco, saw defendant sitting in his car on a service road for employees in a restricted area near “Abiding Love.” He told them he had a claim there since 1911; Reid advised him the cemetery had closed at 6 p.m., whereupon defendant started out of the park. Shortly thereafter they saw him again drive up the dirt road toward “Abiding Love” and stop; parked in their truck at the bottom of the hill about 100 yards away, they watched him run or walk quickly into a brush thicket in an undeveloped part of the cemetery. Then Pacheco saw him come out of the brush, get into his car and drive off; they followed him to the gate. Upon returning to the brush thicket they found, placed in the leaves at the bottom of the brush (Ex. 1), three match packets tied together with a string, a lighted cigarette between them (Exs. 3,4,5). The soft ground around the matches showed defendant’s footprints. Ten minutes later they again saw defendant; he was about one-half mile away on a higher level which looked down on the area. Where the match device was found there…