Dorner: Cabin owner’s daughter calls events ‘overwhelming’
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Stepping carefully though piles of ash, shattered glass and cinder blocks chipped by ricocheting bullets, Cindy Moore tried to make sense on Friday of the scene of horrific violence that was once a cherished mountain retreat for family and friends.
[For the record, 7:12 p.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified Cindy Moore as Cindy Martin.]
It was her family’s first visit to the 90-year-old cabin where fugitive ex-police Officer Christopher Dorner died Tuesday in a fury of bullets and fire.
“We came to see if the old place was completely gone — and it is,” Moore, 65, said. “Yet it still means something to the family. It was filled with artifacts and photographs, some 80 years old, that cannot be replaced.”
WHO THEY WERE: Victims in the Dorner case
“They say Dorner died in the basement over there,” she said, nodding toward a 10-foot-deep section of the property filled with charred debris and green latex gloves discarded by forensic investigators.
The property is owned by Cindy’s sister, Candy Martin, who was unavailable for comment. Her daughter, Leah Bowerman, 30, struggled to find words to express her feelings.
[For the record, 5:40 p.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified Leah Bowerman as Leah Martin.]
“Pretty shocking. Devastating. Overwhelming,” she said, shaking her head with sadness and cradling a baby in her arms. “We’ve had this cabin for seven years. So many memories. Now it’s rubble.”
PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer
The cabin was surrounded by oak trees and cedar pines up to 100 feet tall, their trunks punctured by bullets.
Also on Friday, San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators were called to retrieve a P22 pistol equipped with a silencer that was discovered protruding from the snow along Glass Road, about half a mile from California 38.
Investigators aim to learn whether it had been dropped by Dorner after he crashed a stolen vehicle early Tuesday afternoon near the intersection of Glass Road and California 38.
TIMELINE: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer
With law enforcement officers in pursuit, Dorner carjacked a pickup truck and drove along narrow, curving Glass Road, roughly 5 miles to the cabin where he was killed.
ALSO:
Anti-LAPD graffiti likely inspired by Dorner, police say
Dorner manhunt: Setting fire to cabin justified, some experts say
Dorner probably stalked Irvine couple before attack, affidavit says — Louis Sahagun in Big Bear
The rear area of the cabin on Seven Oaks Road where slaying suspect and former Los Angeles police Officer Christopher Dorner died in a shootout Tuesday with law enforcement. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times