i don't know. i may be crippled the rest of my life. i said, two families are devastated. who won today? you tell me. you tell me. tell me who won here today. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com in 1992, there were more than 70 suspicious fires set in seattle, washington, during a six-month period of time. all appeared deliberately set. it was the biggest arson case in american history, solved with behavioral profiling, hypnosis and piece of art. [ sirens blaring ] >> on the night of august 9, 1992, firefighters outside seattle, washington, faced a disaster.

three churches were engulfed in flames at the same time just a few miles from one another. >> when we arrived, the fire was probably at its peak. the flames were shooting above the sanctuary, which was a very large sanctuary. >> the next morning, parishioners of trinity lutheran arrived to find their church in ruins. reverend rouss made an unusual decision. he would conduct services anyway. the parking lot was turned into a makeshift church, and in the midst of smoking embers, the congregation held their sunday service. >> as i looked in the faces of many of my parishioners, you could see the sorrow. many were crying. they thought, this can't be true. >> arson dogs were brought in to look for traces of flammable liquids. they found none.

and chemical tests of the rubble couldn't find accelerants either. >> there was really very little trace evidence for us to recover at the scenes. >> there was no vandalism at the fire scenes. so the motive appeared to be thrill-seeking. and all of the fires started the same way, on the ground floor, at chest level. over the next several weeks, there were eight church fires, six were lutheran churches. eventually the arsons moved on to businesses and homes. in one night alone, there were 12 different arson fires. all of the fires were set at night, without the use of accelerants. >> i watched people burned in the middle of the night out of their homes. losing all of their possessions. standing literally in their night clothes with nothing but their life left with their children sobbing.

>> we heard stories about people jumping out of windows or being lowered out of windows. a lot of stories about just devastating financial impacts. >> one victim was inside her home when the fire started. >> i was just getting out of the tub when i started to hear strange crashing noises outside my house like glass breaking. i opened the bathroom. there was the front door. i just -- the wall to the left was entirely in flames. just up in flames. >> she grabbed her roommate and ran frantically to the front of the house. >> we opened the front door and the entire front porch is up in flames. so our access to get out was denied. that was absolutely terrifying. that's when we made a split- second decision. am i going to live? i gotta move. >> the two made it out the back door and were lucky to be alive. from august to january, barely a night would go by without another family getting burned out of their home.

with each fire, the arsonist was getting more daring. >> he was becoming very emboldened. and he would actually set a fire literally looking through the window at the family eating dinner. >> miraculously, despite extensive damage, no one had been killed. no one until the arsonist made his next move.

in the fall of 1992, residents of seattle and the surrounding area were under siege. a serial arsonist had set over 25 fires targeting churches, businesses, and homes. all of the fires were set at night in the same way, by someone igniting buildings at chest level without the use of accelerants. >> i called our arsonist a guerrilla fighter because under generally cover of night, would go out, prowl around, be unseen, hit his target, and be gone basically before his target becomes known to anybody as a fire. he was very, very quick.

he was extremely covert. >> residents formed vigilante groups to protect their neighborhoods. local fire companies mounted all night patrols but still the fires continued. the arsonist appeared to be taunting fire investigators. >> he would draw out the fire department. we would have one fire in one part of town and then a fire station is nearby and he would set another fire on the other side. so he knew where the fire departments were. >> a task force was formed to coordinate the investigation. they commissioned a psychological profile of their suspect. by interviewing past arsonists and identifying the traits they all have in common, psychologists gain important information about the type of individual that commits these crimes. the profile described the arsonist as white in his late teens or early 20s, with an

alcohol or drug problem. he was intelligent but an underachiever who had probably just experienced some major trauma in his life. he would probably be working as a salesman or delivery person since he was familiar with many sections of the area. the arsonist left no clues. but two months into the fire spree when he started fire number 28, he got careless. investigators found two fingerprints near the window where the blaze was set. the prints were run through a computer and checked against hundreds of thousands of prints on file. there was no match. which meant it was likely the arsonist had no prior criminal record. two weeks later, at fire number 42, he made another mistake. urine was found in the snow near

the fire. forensic scientists carefully gathered the sample for dna testing. but since the urine was mixed with snow, it was difficult to isolate any cells for analysis. >> forensically, we were told there were just so few cells in there that were capable of extraction that it was not feasible. >> months went by. and the fires continued. the task force was no closer to identifying a suspect. >> there was a concern that there were more occupied dwellings that were being targeted. and, i mean, a large concern that we were going to start seeing people dying. >> unfortunately, just after midnight on september 22, 1992, those fears were realized. a fire broke out at a senior citizen home that housed more

than 400 people. three women, all residents of the home, died. >> i felt personally responsible for their deaths, whether it was true or not. the guilt of that, the misplaced guilt of that was so severe that shortly afterwards i really lost all will to live. >> now police were searching for not only for an arsonist, but a killer. eventually, the press coverage generated the first lead in the case. a woman called police to say a well-dressed man bumped into her near one of the fires. >> this individual stood out to her. fashion. it was his clothing, mannerisms, some odors that she detected, both alcohol and an aftershave or cologne. >> she said the man was intoxicated and had mentioned the fires.

she got a glimpse of his license plate number, but didn't write it down. the incident happened weeks earlier. and she had only a vague recollection of what the man looked like. in their desperation, investigators made an unusual decision. they decided to try forensic hypnosis. "%ñ

after 60 suspicious fires had been set in seattle, washington, investigators finally had a lead. a woman near one of the fires had seen a suspicious-looking man who had bumped into her. he was intoxicated and talked about the fires. this had happened weeks before and she couldn't remember much about him. investigators decided to try forensic hypnosis. >> trying to find out specific unique event in her memory that can trigger the rest of the memories to flood out. so it's a relaxation technique. we go back in time with her to this point in time. and have her really kind of watch a movie for us and tell us what she sees. >> this is one of the first times in u.s. history that

forensic hypnosis was used in a high-profile case. and it was risky. once a witness is hypnotized, most state laws prohibit an individual from testifying at a trial. as the witness keyed in on the alcohol she smelled on the man's breath, it unlocked images from the night of the fire. and she began to remember what she saw. she recalled a man. tall. thin. with hair pushed back off his face. well-dressed. wearing an oxford shirt. he appeared intoxicated. and his car, a sedan, possibly blue, was unusually clean. when asked if she could remember the license plate number, she recalled the first letter.

>> i see the letter "k." >> she was asked if she could recall anything else. she said she saw a 4 and an "m." that was all she could remember. there were 500,000 sedan cars in northern washington that had license plates with the letter k. so investigators believed that the physical description of the suspect provided by their witness was the key piece of information. to put this on paper, they brought in composite artist john hinds. he interviewed the witness who was once again hypnotized. >> she's the only witness i have ever done a composite drawing of who has been under hypnosis. >> using the information from the interview, hinds drew what the witness described. the process is an unusual combination of interviewing skill and drawing talent.

after two hours of meticulous work, an image was formed. perhaps this was the first look at the arsonist. when the drawing was finished, hinds showed it to the witness. she said that it looked just like the neatly dressed man she had seen. five months into the fire spree, the task force released their composite drawing to the press. they also released two others as a control to help guard against false leads. the psychological profile was also given to the press. it wasn't long before the hypnotically enhanced composite drawing paid off. clothes make them feel... and no one wants that feeling to fade.

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when the composite drawings and psychological profile of the arsonist were released to the media, this man, george keller, believed he knew the identity of the arsonist. he immediately went home and looked through his cell phone records and discovered that one of his business phones was used on the dates of the fires from locations near the fires. and his business credit card

receipts showed that one of his cards was used to purchase gasoline in areas near the fires on the same dates. george keller faced a gut-wrenching choice. the person using these company credit cards was his son, paul, who bore a striking resemblance to the hypnotically enhanced composite drawing. >> i said there is a considerable resemblance between these pictures and my son paul. then i went through the profile and because i was looking for a significant personality trait or something that might disqualify paul. as i went through all the items of the profile, it -- i couldn't eliminate any. >> paul keller was 27 years old and employed in the family advertising business. he was the oldest of three children in a deeply religious

lutheran family, which possibly explained why lutheran churches were targeted. paul keller's sales routes took him across the areas where the fires had been set. >> he was emotionally rattled, very upset. but as time went on, we also understood for him or from him and from his wife that paul's presence in their family had been unsettling from almost the time paul was born. >> his father told police that paul had an obsession with fire. he said his son had applied for a firefighting job, but had been rejected. and that he had set a fire when he was 9 years old. he fit other aspects of the profile. he was intelligent but had done poorly in school. had problems with alcohol and most striking had suffered an emotional crisis just before the

arson spree began. >> he, at that time, was going through a divorce. he was filing for bankruptcy. his life was falling apart. he was drinking heavily. >> and the first three numbers of his license plate were exactly what the hypnotized witness remembered. the task force put paul keller under surveillance. for ten days, they followed him, hoping they could catch him in the act. >> the task force people were trying to keep paul under surveillance which was real challenging. and they would lose him periodically. and everybody would panic. >> eventually they decided to take him into custody. >> all right, detective isaacson. >> yes. >> paul keller? >> yes. >> is your name paul keller? >> yes. >> you're under arrest. we have a warrant for your arrest. >> excuse me?

>> when keller arrived at task force headquarters, his father was waiting for him. >> george keller is a bear of man. as he embraced him, he put his mouth close to his ear and hugged him tightly and said, it's all over, son. >> i said, it's all over. and i said, the life as you knew it before this morning is over. >> at first paul keller said he was innocent. >> am i going to jail today or am i going to be released on my own, since i never did anything wrong? >> 15 minutes into the interview, the task force agents complimented him saying he was the best arsonist they had ever seen. >> you guys don't think i'm a mean guy, do you? >> no, you are absolutely fascinating to us. we respect you for what you've been able to do here. it's amazing.

>> and with that, keller confessed to setting 75 fires, including the fatal fire at the retirement home. paul keller's fingerprints matched the ones found on the window at one of the arson fires. his method of operation was surprisingly simple. he just walked up to each site and started the fire with a cigarette lighter. >> did you commit in arson? >> yes. corrugated. you can see where some of it is left. >> yeah. >> did the same thing. that fast. i pulled around, and the door was just wide open. there i was, in that state of mind, i lit a chair. she just went. that was the only one i really ever stayed to watch of all. >> it went real fast. >> very fast. it also went to multiple alarms very fast. >> keller also said he was sexually molested by a volunteer fireman when he was 12 years old.

paul keller was convicted of arson and murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. he won't be eligible for parole until he is 113 years old. >> again, a word to the victims. all our life, we will be sorrowful for your pain and your loss. we shall never forget to pray for your healing, restoration and peace. may god and his help and in his grace help all of us. >> paul keller's arson spree was the biggest in u.s. history. >> it's very hard to rationally explain why i did that because there is no rational reason. i was not angry. i was not -- but i was very empty. and perhaps i thought that others needed to be as empty as i was.

but it was not a valid thing to do. >> and investigators say he may not have been caught if not for the forensic hypnosis and the the forensic hypnosis and the composite drawing. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com in denmark, police say they shot and killed a man believed to be behind two deadly attacks in copenhagen. a live report straight ahead. in ukraine, guns fall silent and a tense calm settles in. people on both sides watch and wait to see if a new cease fire will hold. more snow for boston yet again. blustery cold and strong winds all expected. good morning, good evening and good afternoon to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm george howell this is cnn. p