Deepa Bharath June CasagrandePolice late Wednesday night...

Deepa Bharath June Casagrande

Police late Wednesday night were looking for a 41-year-old man they

say attacked a Dover Shores woman, gagged and bound her and then fled

after setting her house on fire.

Kevin Duane Carpenter, a handyman from Lake Forest, had worked on

the house in the 1800 block of Galaxy Drive more than twice, Newport

Beach Police Sgt. Steve Shulman said.

A 911 call came in at about 10 a.m., and police detectives who

were working nearby responded to the call, he said. They saw the

house engulfed in flames and saw a man matching Carpenter’s

description through the window.

“The detectives actually saw him set a fire in the house,” Shulman

said.

They found a 50-year-old woman wearing a robe who had been gagged

and bound, he said.

“Detectives released her and brought her out of the burning home,”

Shulman said. “[Carpenter] had set fires at various locations in the

house. He was armed with a handgun.”

He said it was not clear why Carpenter set the fires or if he had

tried to rob the woman.

The victim’s assistant tried to help her, but Carpenter bound her,

too, Shulman said.

“He hit the assistant on the head when she tried to intervene and

he also hit the other woman on the head,” Shulman said.

The house eventually collapsed inside and was structurally unsafe,

he added.

Officers started looking for Carpenter right away. Heavily armed

and armored SWAT team members waited for two hours before they made a

daring entry at about noon as uniformed officers used a small

battering ram to punch a hole into a portion of the home’s garage

door, sending in a trained K-9 police dog.

Helmeted SWAT officers carrying shields lifted open the large door

of the double garage. After a cautious examination of the sport

utility vehicle and a Mercedes Benz sedan inside the garage, the

authorities still didn’t have their man.

The arduous and frustrating wait continued for police because the

ashes were still smoldering and fires erupted suddenly as officers

tried to gain entry. Wind blowing from the bluffs didn’t help their

cause. It was about 6 p.m. when Newport Beach firefighters helped put

out the fires and searched the house.

No one was there, Shulman said.

“But they did find evidence in the Back Bay area, which led them

to believe he got down there,” he said.

Costa Mesa SWAT team members relieved their Newport Beach

counterparts shortly after 6 p.m., and the search continued with

lights shining down on the Back Bay.

After 9 p.m., authorities had turned their search to a Newport

Boulevard location where they said Carpenter had worked.

Throughout the day, officers set up barricades on all neighboring

street corners. Neighbors stood near the barricades watching the

action from a distance. A few neighboring homes were evacuated.

Jaime and Carol Ludmir are next-door neighbors.

“They’re using our yard to hose down the fire,” Carol Ludmir said

in the afternoon as firefighters battled the blaze. “This is

shocking. This was a very quiet and safe neighborhood -- till today.”

Ludmir said she did not know the victim.

“There aren’t too many kids on our street,” she said. “Not many of

our neighbors know each other.”

A man who would identify himself only as “Bill” of Newport Beach

said he was the one who had made the 911 call Wednesday morning.

“I was driving down Galaxy Drive when this woman came running out

of this house and stopped me,” he said Wednesday night. “She had duct

tape on her neck, wrists and ankles, and she got in my car and said,

‘He’s coming. Get out of here. Get out of here.’”

Bill said he saw a man matching Carpenter’s description running

out of the house onto the driveway.

“At that point, we drove away and called the police,” he said.

They saw the fire and smoke billowing a few minutes after they had

left the scene, Bill said, declining to give his last name because he

feared for his safety.

But, he added, he has seen Carpenter before at that house a few

times.

“He even waved out to me once,” he said.

The neighborhood, its streets lined with million-dollar homes with

sparkling pools and tall, swaying palm trees, is “vulnerable to such

attacks,” neighbor Anne Rupka said late Wednesday.

“Robbers and burglars obviously think they’ll get more out of a

neighborhood like this one,” she said. “But what I don’t understand

is what would’ve triggered so much anger in a person to do something

like this. It’s intriguing.”

Neighbor Jack Kayajanian said the victim is actually renting the

home.

“I’ve been inside the house,” he said. “It’s worth about $1.5

million, about 3,600 square feet. It has nice granite countertops. It

was remodeled less than two years ago. It’s a pity.”

Carpenter is described as a black man, 6-foot-1 and weighing about

201 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information

is asked to call the Newport Beach Police Department’s crime hotline

at (800) 550-6273.