Body in cabin probably ex-officer

Fugitive apparently killed as fire razed wilderness hideaway

BIG BEAR LAKE, CALIF. — Police scoured mountain peaks for days, using everything from bloodhounds to high-tech helicopters in their manhunt for a revenge-seeking ex-cop. They had no idea he was hiding among them, holed up in a vacation cabin across the street from their command post.

It was there that Christopher Dorner apparently took refuge last Thursday, four days after beginning a deadly rampage that would claim four lives.

The search ended Tuesday when a man believed to be Dorner bolted from hiding, stole two cars, barricaded himself in a vacant cabin and mounted a last stand in a furious shootout in which he killed one sheriff ’s deputy and wounded another before the building erupted in flames.

He never emerged from the ruins and hours later a charred body was found in the basement of the burned cabin along with a wallet and personal items, including a California driver’s licence with the name Christopher Dorner, an official told the Associated Press.

Authorities believe the remains are those of the former Los Angeles police officer, but they have not been formally identified.

Dorner, 33, had said in a lengthy rant police believe he posted on Facebook that he expected to die in one final, violent confrontation with police, and if it was him in the cabin that’s just what happened.

The apparent end came very close to where his trail went cold six days earlier when his burning pickup truck was abandoned with a broken axle on a fire road in the San Bernardino National Forest near the ski resort town of Big Bear Lake.

His footprints led away from the truck and vanished on frozen soil.

With no sign of him and few leads, police offered a $1 million reward to bring him to justice and end a “reign of terror” that had more than 50 families of targeted Los Angeles police officers under round-the-clock protection after he threatened to bring “warfare” to the LAPD, officers and their kin.

Just a few hours after police announced Tuesday that they had fielded more than 1,000 tips with no sign of Dorner, word came that a man matching his description had tied up two people in a Big Bear Lake cabin, stole their car and fled.

Fish and Wildlife wardens spotted the Nissan that had been reported stolen and gave chase, said Lt. Patrick Foy of the California Fish and Wildlife Department. The driver looked like Dorner.

They lost the car after it passed a school bus and turned onto a side road, but two other Fish and Wildlife patrols turned up the road a short time later and were searching for the car when a white truck sped erratically toward them.

Dorner, who allegedly stole the truck at gunpoint after crashing the first car, rolled down a window and opened fire on the wardens, striking their truck more than a dozen times, he said.

The driver then ran to the cabin where he barricaded himself and got in a shootout with officers, two of whom were shot, one fatally.

Law enforcement officers surrounded the cabin and used an armoured vehicle to break out the cabin windows. The officers then lobbed tear gas canisters into the cabin and blasted a message over a loudspeaker: “Surrender or come out.” The armoured vehicle then tore down each of the cabin’s four walls.

A single shot was heard inside before the cabin was engulfed in flames, a law enforcement official said.