Rick Heltebrake with his dog Suni looks over the burned-out cabin where Christopher Dorner’s remains were found after a police standoff near Big Bear, Calif. Heltebrake had been carjacked by Dorner.SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner hid in a mountain condominium as a door-to-door manhunt took place outside and, after he finally made his break, apparently killed himself with a gunshot to the head amid a fiery battle with police.
Dorner is believed to have entered the condo through an unlocked door sometime Feb. 7, soon after he arrived in the resort area of Big Bear Lake after killing three people. He locked the door and hunkered down for six days until the condo’s owners came to clean it, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon told reporters Friday.
Deputies knocked on the door that first night but moved on when they found it locked and with no sign of a break-in, McMahon said.
“Our deputy knocked on that door and did not get an answer, and in hindsight it’s probably a good thing that he did not answer based on his actions before and after that event,” the sheriff said of Dorner.
When the owners arrived, he tied them up and fled in their car, leading to a chase, a shootout that killed a sheriff’s deputy and, ultimately, Dorner’s death in a remote cabin where he barricaded himself for a last stand.