Firefighter charged, terminated in connection with arson in which human remains were found

A firefighter has been charged with setting a fire in whose charred aftermath human remains were found in the Lakeshore Heights community near Prue on Aug. 4.

Dustin William Koelliker, 39, of Osage, is being held in the Osage County Jail with bond set at $100,000. He is charged with felony first-degree arson and endangering human life during arson, and misdemeanor violation of a burn ban and obstruction of  lawmen by making false statements to investigators.

Sand Creek Fire Chief Robert Tyner said Saturday that Koelliker was fired from the department the evening of the fire, after he had been pinned as the instigator of the fire.

The body was found in a school bus used for storage the day after the Aug. 3 fire. Undersheriff Lou Ann

Brown said that the skeletal remains have yet to be identified, even as to gender. She said samples from the body have been sent off  for DNA analysis. "We don't know much of anything yet," she said. 

The bus in which the body was found belongs to Daniel Glenn Clark, 53, Koelliker's stepfather, Brown said. Clark has been incarcerated since September of 2010 and is currently at James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena serving a 20-year sentence for child molestation and rape by instrumentation involving two young girls.

Koelliker has not been accused of involvement in the demise of the dead person, but the fire he is accused of igniting destroyed one house, damaged another, took out two mobile homes, outbuildings, two tractor trailers, a boat, a motorcycle and a greenhouse, and burned more than 300 acres.

In a probable cause affidavit for Koelliker's arrest, Osage County Sheriff's Investigator Loren Vaughn reports that Koelliker said  that on the morning of Aug. 3 he smelled smoke and noticed smoke rising from Clark's home nearby. He claimed that he and his juvenile son then went to the fire and saw a small black car with no tag leave the area and speed away. Koelliker told investigators he immediately called the Sand Creek Fire Department and he and his son got to work trying to extinguish the blaze. He told Vaughn that he believed the fire had been started by someone using a cutting torch to steal metal.

When Koelliker was informed by Eddie VIrden, an investigator with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture and Forestry, that the torch would be processed as evidence, Koelliker told Virden that he had handled the torch and used it to cut metal during the fire, the affidavit says. 

Koelliker's juvenile son had a somewhat different spin on events, according to the affidavit by Vaughn. The boy said he was asleep in a fifth wheel next to his father's house, woke up, and found his father was gone. After several minutes, he said his father came up the driveway honking his car horn. The pair returned to Koelliker's stepfather's house and found fire surrounding the area where the cutting torch was located and where they had been cutting up scrap metal a day earlier. The boy told investigators that he believed his father had started the fire, the affidavit says. 

Virden then interviewed Koelliker again, and Koelliker admitted inventing the story about the tag-less black car and said he had started the fire while using the torch, Vaughn reported. Koelliker said he didn't want to admit to starting the fire because he was a firefighter, knew about the burn ban, and because he has a criminal history. Oklahoma Department of Corrections records show he is on parole until 2018 for 1993 convictions out of Kansas for aggravated drunken driving and assault and battery. 

Koelliker is scheduled to appear in Osage County District Court for a pre-preliminary hearing on Aug. 26.