Driver's licence naming U.S. fugitive found in cabin

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 license with the name Christopher Dorner, an official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

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

"We have reason to believe that it is him," San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cynthia Bachman said.

A driver whose truck was taken by a carjacker believed to have been Dorner said Wednesday the man appeared calm and didn't want to hurt him.

Rick Heltebrake said he instantly recognized Dorner, who had an assault rifle pointed at him Tuesday on a mountain road. The most wanted man in America was clad in camouflage from head to toe and wearing a bulletproof vest packed with magazines.

"I don't want to hurt you. Start walking and take your dog,"' Heltebrake recalled Dorner saying during the carjacking Tuesday afternoon.

Dorner, who wasn't lugging any gear, got into the truck and drove on. Heltebrake, with his 3-year-old Dalmatian Suni in tow, called police when he heard a volley of gunfire erupt soon after.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said Wednesday his deputies did not intentionally burn down the cabin. His deputies shot pyrotechnic tear gas into the cabin, and it erupted in flames, he said.

McMahon did not say directly that the tear gas started the blaze, and the cause of the fire remained unclear.

A charred body was found in the basement, along with a wallet and personal items, including a California driver's license with the name Christopher Dorner, an official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing probe.

McMahon said authorities have not positively identified the remains.

Police Department Lt. Andrew Neiman said Wednesday that officers used the Internet to monitor radio chatter during the firefight. "It was horrifying to listen to that firefight and to hear those words. 'Officer down' is the most gut-wrenching experience that you can have as a police officer."

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 -- with guns and camping gear inside -- 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.

Lt. Patrick Foy of the California Fish and Wildlife Department, which aided the search, said two housekeepers surprised Dorner in the cabin when they came to clean it Tuesday morning. The women were tied up but one was able to free herself and call police, Foy said.

Fish and Wildlife wardens spotted the Nissan that had been reported stolen going in the opposite direction and gave chase, Foy said. 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.

"He took a close look at the driver and realized it was the suspect," Foy said.

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.

One of the wardens shot at the suspect as he rounded a curve in the road. It's unclear if he was hit, but the stolen truck careened off the road and crashed in a snow bank.

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, said a law enforcement official who requested anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. 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, the law enforcement official said.

Until Tuesday, authorities weren't sure Dorner was still in Big Bear Lake, where his truck was found within walking distance from the cabin where he hid.

Door-to-door searches failed to turn up any trace of him in the quiet neighbourhood where children were playing in the snow Tuesday night.

With many searchers leaving town amid speculation he was long gone, the command centre across the street was taken down Monday.

Ron Erickson, whose house is nearby, said officers interrogated him to make sure he wasn't being held hostage. Erickson himself had been keeping a nervous watch on his neighbourhood, but he never saw Dorner.

"I looked at all the cabins that backed the national forest and I just didn't think to look at the one across from the command post," he said. "It didn't cross my mind. It just didn't."

Police said Dorner began his run on Feb. 6 after they connected the slayings of a former police captain's daughter and her fiance with his angry manifesto.

Dorner blamed LAPD Capt. Randal Quan for providing poor representation before the police disciplinary board that fired him for filing a false report.

Dorner, who is black, claimed in his online rant that he was the subject of racism by the department and was targeted for doing the right thing.

Chief Charlie Beck, who initially dismissed Dorner's allegations, said he would reopen the investigation into his firing -- not to appease the ex-officer, but to restore confidence in the black community, which had a long fractured relationship with police that has improved in recent years.

Dorner vowed to get even with those who had wronged him as part of his plan to reclaim his good name.

"You're going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!" the rant said. "You have awoken a sleeping giant."

Within hours of being named as a suspect in the killings, the man described as armed and "extremely dangerous," tried unsuccessfully to steal a boat in San Diego to flee to Mexico. After leaving a trail of evidence, he headed north where he opened fire on two patrol cars in Riverside County, shooting three officers and killing one.

With a description of his car broadcast all over the Southwest and Mexico, he managed to get to the mountains 130 kilometres east of Los Angeles, where his burning truck was found.

Only a short distance from the truck, he spent his final days with a front-row seat to the search mobilized right outside.