On this day 30 years ago the Las Vegas Hilton was set on fire by a 23 year old bus boy killing 8 and injuring hundreds of others.
Retired Las Vegas police homicide Detective Chuck Lee, who got Cline's confession during a polygraph test, always believed Cline intentionally set the deadly fire, perhaps as part of a homosexual encounter in that eighth-floor elevator lobby.
On the night of the fire, Cline was working as a busboy in the hotel's east tower.
Now 53 and balding, Cline revealed he never had been completely honest about what happened that night. He never told his family, and he never told his lawyers. But now, he wants everyone to know the truth. Cline said he was on his break when he sat on the couch in the elevator lobby to smoke a marijuana cigarette mixed with cocaine and dipped in PCP that his roommate had given him.
Cline's roommate had warned him not to smoke it all at once -- advice he ignored.
"Why did I mess with that stuff that I shouldn't have?" he said. "Messing with the drugs. I couldn't handle it. I was weak-minded."
Then, "for no reason, I just, I had his lighter, and I lit the curtains on fire," he said.
The flames grew fast, climbing the curtains and igniting the couch. Cline said he called the hotel operator to report the fire. He remembered a security guard stopping by with a fire extinguisher that didn't work.
The guard left to find another one, and the flames kept growing. Cline banged on room doors to warn guests before heading downstairs to his work area. "The smoke on the ceiling started getting darker and darker and lower and lower,'' he said. "I got scared." He joined other workers in the employee parking lot and watched the brilliant flames climbing the side of the building, then the largest hotel in the world with 2,783 rooms.
Panic set in as flames climbed into the night sky, rekindling memories of the deadly MGM Grand hotel fire less than three months earlier. Shortly after 8 p.m., firetrucks surrounded the burning hotel. Guests broke windows and cried for help. Bedsheets tied into makeshift ropes hung from windows. Helicopters plucked people from the rooftop. Inside, hotel workers told people to stay in their rooms with towels under the doors as the hallways filled with black smoke. Seven people died from smoke inhalation, three of them in the eighth-floor elevator lobby where the blaze began.
Another victim, Bruce Glenn, 47, of Plymouth, Minn., fell or jumped to his death from a 16th-floor window.
Also killed in the fire were Dennis McFarland, 32, Boone, Iowa; Frank Greenfield, 22, West Bloomfield, Mich.; Robert Leach, 54, Honolulu; Harry Gaines, 69, and his wife, Lorraine Gaines, 67, Los Angeles; Zeny Carvalho, 64, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Jack Turinsky, 41, Anchorage, Alaska.
About 200 others were injured in the blaze. As he watched the horror unfold, Cline thought to himself that he had it coming.
"I was thinking, you know, all the stuff I had done prior -- stealing cars, stealing money -- was all coming back on me. When you do bad stuff, karma comes back on you. You don't get away with nothing, you know. It just comes back and gets you."
Cline filled out three written statements that night, one for the hotel, one for fire investigators and one for police. It was the last one that made him a suspect.
In all of the statements, he wrote how he had discovered the fire, called the operator and banged on doors. He also wrote that he had grabbed a wastebasket and filled it with water in an attempt to quell the flames.But in his statement to police, he made what authorities considered a Freudian slip.
"I grabbed a trash can and filled it up with fire, and I put the couch out & then I went to get some more fire (the word was crossed out) water to put the curtain out," the statement read.
Homicide detectives questioned him the next day.
Woman's testimony sealed fate
After a polygraph test, Lee knew Cline wasn't being completely honest.
The veteran homicide detective called his bluff, and Cline broke down: He said he was on the couch having sex with a man named Joe. They were smoking a marijuana cigarette that accidentally caught the curtains on fire. "I never believed it was an accident," Lee said.
Retired Las Vegas police homicide Detective Chuck Lee, who got Cline's confession during a polygraph test, always believed Cline intentionally set the deadly fire, perhaps as part of a homosexual encounter in that eighth-floor elevator lobby.
On the night of the fire, Cline was working as a busboy in the hotel's east tower.
Now 53 and balding, Cline revealed he never had been completely honest about what happened that night. He never told his family, and he never told his lawyers. But now, he wants everyone to know the truth. Cline said he was on his break when he sat on the couch in the elevator lobby to smoke a marijuana cigarette mixed with cocaine and dipped in PCP that his roommate had given him.
Cline's roommate had warned him not to smoke it all at once -- advice he ignored.
"Why did I mess with that stuff that I shouldn't have?" he said. "Messing with the drugs. I couldn't handle it. I was weak-minded."
Then, "for no reason, I just, I had his lighter, and I lit the curtains on fire," he said.
The flames grew fast, climbing the curtains and igniting the couch. Cline said he called the hotel operator to report the fire. He remembered a security guard stopping by with a fire extinguisher that didn't work.
The guard left to find another one, and the flames kept growing. Cline banged on room doors to warn guests before heading downstairs to his work area. "The smoke on the ceiling started getting darker and darker and lower and lower,'' he said. "I got scared." He joined other workers in the employee parking lot and watched the brilliant flames climbing the side of the building, then the largest hotel in the world with 2,783 rooms.
Panic set in as flames climbed into the night sky, rekindling memories of the deadly MGM Grand hotel fire less than three months earlier. Shortly after 8 p.m., firetrucks surrounded the burning hotel. Guests broke windows and cried for help. Bedsheets tied into makeshift ropes hung from windows. Helicopters plucked people from the rooftop. Inside, hotel workers told people to stay in their rooms with towels under the doors as the hallways filled with black smoke. Seven people died from smoke inhalation, three of them in the eighth-floor elevator lobby where the blaze began.
Another victim, Bruce Glenn, 47, of Plymouth, Minn., fell or jumped to his death from a 16th-floor window.
Also killed in the fire were Dennis McFarland, 32, Boone, Iowa; Frank Greenfield, 22, West Bloomfield, Mich.; Robert Leach, 54, Honolulu; Harry Gaines, 69, and his wife, Lorraine Gaines, 67, Los Angeles; Zeny Carvalho, 64, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Jack Turinsky, 41, Anchorage, Alaska.
About 200 others were injured in the blaze. As he watched the horror unfold, Cline thought to himself that he had it coming.
"I was thinking, you know, all the stuff I had done prior -- stealing cars, stealing money -- was all coming back on me. When you do bad stuff, karma comes back on you. You don't get away with nothing, you know. It just comes back and gets you."
Cline filled out three written statements that night, one for the hotel, one for fire investigators and one for police. It was the last one that made him a suspect.
In all of the statements, he wrote how he had discovered the fire, called the operator and banged on doors. He also wrote that he had grabbed a wastebasket and filled it with water in an attempt to quell the flames.But in his statement to police, he made what authorities considered a Freudian slip.
"I grabbed a trash can and filled it up with fire, and I put the couch out & then I went to get some more fire (the word was crossed out) water to put the curtain out," the statement read.
Homicide detectives questioned him the next day.
Woman's testimony sealed fate
After a polygraph test, Lee knew Cline wasn't being completely honest.
The veteran homicide detective called his bluff, and Cline broke down: He said he was on the couch having sex with a man named Joe. They were smoking a marijuana cigarette that accidentally caught the curtains on fire. "I never believed it was an accident," Lee said.
