Dorner Died of Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound to the Head, Authorities Say
By Mike Brunker, Investigations Editor, NBC News

Police had been seeking Dorner since last week, when they say he launched a deadly revenge campaign against the Los Angeles Police Department over his 2009 firing.

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Christopher Dorner, the former LAPD police officer who carried out a vengeful rampage against his fellow ex-cops and others, died of a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at the end of an intense firefight with police in rural Big Bear, Calif., authorities said Friday.

Chris Dorner’s victims.

At a late-afternoon news conference, San Bernardino County authorities said that the cause of death was determined by an autopsy conducted Thursday by the county Coroner’s Office.

Authorities had been unsure whether Dorner killed himself, had been struck by a deputy’s bullet or had died in a fire that engulfed the cabin during the shootout. The coroner’s finding still must be finalized.

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Guided by a serial killer on death row, San Joaquin County sheriff’s deputies and public works employees were digging Saturday at suspected dumping grounds in two counties in search of the remains of victims of the notorious “Speed Freak Killers.”

Condemned serial killer Wesley Shermantine, 45, drew maps of where he and late accomplice Loren Herzog buried as many as 20 victims of their drug-fueled murder spree that began in the mid-1980s and terrorized San Joaquin and Calaveras counties for more than a decade. Shermantine gave up the information in exchange for $33,000 provided by Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, Padilla told The Times.

On Thursday, remains tentatively identified from dental records as those of Cyndi Vanderheiden, a 25-year-old Linden woman who disappeared from her home in 1998, were found in a remote area of Calaveras County, said San Joaquin County Sheriff’s spokesman Les Garcia. Authorities are still awaiting the results of DNA analysis to confirm the identity.

Searchers using heavy equipment operated by county workers found the remains of another young woman Friday near the same site to which Shermantine had directed Padilla with maps mailed to the bounty hunter from San Quentin State Prison.

Investigators haven’t yet identified the remains found Friday, but information provided by Shermantine to Padilla indicated they could be those of 16-year-old Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler, who went missing from Stockton in 1985.

“We have information that we may have 10 to 20 bodies in that well,” Garcia said of the focus of the search Saturday, a site identified by Shermantine on farmland in the town of Linden, about 13 miles east of Stockton.

Padilla and Stockton Record reporter Scott Smith had provided the information to sheriff’s officials months ago, Padilla said. Law enforcement authorities only initiated their search, Padilla said, after he took cadaver-sniffing dogs to the sites identified by Shermantine and “got a lot of hits.” Prison screening of the communications sent through the mail by the death row inmate also put pressure on authorities to reopen the cold case, the bounty hunter said.

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Mourners wept and placed flowers Saturday at the scene of the latest stabbing death of a homeless man in Orange County, and people who knew the victim said he had feared for his safety as police recently sought a serial killer suspected in the slayings.

Police detained a man in connection with Friday night’s killing in Anaheim but investigators didn’t say if there were any links to the deaths of three other homeless men.

The dead man, described by friends as a Vietnam War veteran in his 60s named John, was found between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. in the parking lot of a Carl’s Jr. fast-food restaurant at the intersection of La Palma Avenue and Imperial Highway in Anaheim, police said.

Marilyn Holland, an Anaheim resident who befriended the victim and regularly brought him oatmeal raisin cookies, said he was uncharacteristically nervous since police warned him to stay vigilant in the days after the killings began.

“He told me he thought he was being followed,” Holland said. “I told him after pay day I was going to get him a cell phone, so he could call 911 if anything happened. Normally he would refuse help but he was willing to accept the phone because he was scared.” Holland was paid Friday but never got the phone to her friend.

Several witnesses reported an assault in progress, and officers arrived to find the homeless man dead near a trash bin in the restaurant parking lot. Witnesses followed a man who ran from the lot and led police to him, Anaheim police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.

“We were having dinner in the area and saw about 40 police cars scream into the parking lot. I ran over and hugged my friend, screaming, `Please tell me it’s not John!’ But it was,” Holland said, fighting back tears.

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Over the past month or so there have four murders of homeless in the northern Orange County area. It’s been pretty gripping since there are literally hundreds of transients in the area. We tend to think of this group of people as completely isolated and forgotten, but that’s really not the case.

Marilyn Holland, an Anaheim resident who befriended the victim and regularly brought him oatmeal raisin cookies, said he was uncharacteristically nervous since police warned him to stay vigilant in the days after the killings began.

“He told me he thought he was being followed,” Holland said. “I told him after pay day I was going to get him a cell phone, so he could call 911 if anything happened. Normally he would refuse help but he was willing to accept the phone because he was scared.” Holland was paid Friday but never got the phone to her friend.

Several witnesses reported an assault in progress, and officers arrived to find the homeless man dead near a trash bin in the restaurant parking lot. Witnesses followed a man who ran from the lot and led police to him, Anaheim police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.

This took place behind a Carl’s Jr. in Anaheim. I work very close to that location so it’s kinda heartening to hear about a positive vigilante capture, and see how a community pulls together to watch one another’s back.

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Three transients have been stabbed to death since last month. Some are banding together for protection, and police and missions are helping.

Cary Singletary is 6-foot-2, an ex-boxer who once worked nightclub security, alternating coffee and water to stay alert through the small hours. Now, encamped on the streets of downtown Santa Ana, he’s the unofficial sentry for what he calls “my people,” a group of homeless whose wary existence is now shadowed by a new peril: a serial killer.

“Hopefully, they’ll get the sick-minded coward,” said Singletary 52, speaking of the string of stabbing deaths of middle-aged homeless men in Orange County that began just before Christmas. Singletary stood in a parking lot Thursday night clutching a safety kit — a whistle and flashlight, both donated by the Orange County Rescue Mission.

Singletary said he fears that the killer, who has attacked in neighboring Anaheim, Placentia and Yorba Linda, might strike next in Santa Ana. So he is up all night, drinking coffee, keeping watch for strangers. For company, he listens to R&B on his headphones. He sleeps in two-hour shifts on the public bus.

“If that serial killer wants to come at us, he’ll have his hands full,” said Singletary, who has been homeless for six months. “We’ve got some soldiers out here. I’m just one of them. If that whistle goes off, you’ll have a whole army of homeless on him.”

Across the county, at the urging of authorities, many of the homeless are seeking beds at emergency shelters, or making sure to sleep in groups outdoors, and taking pains to make themselves less conspicuous on the streets and riverbeds. Many say it is just another version of a skill they have practiced for years — survival — in a dangerous milieu. In some cases, efforts to help are complicated by mental illness, paranoia and a deep-seated fatalism.

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But they now say a single serial killer appears to have been responsible, and that the perpetrator is probably local.

A $25,000 (£16,000) reward has led to 1,200 tips relating to the case but no suspects have yet been identified.

“Looking at the common denominators involved with the dumping ground, the type of victims, the dismemberments, all on Long Island, our theory is that it’s probably one serial killer,” Suffolk County police commissioner Richard Dormer told the Associated Press news agency.

But Mr Dormer, who at one time thought as many as three killers could have been responsible, conceded not everyone in his department shared his latest view.

The first remains were discovered on 11 December 2010 when a police officer and sniffer dog were looking for the body of a New Jersey escort who went missing in May of that year.

The dead adults are all thought to have been prostitutes, including the male, an unidentified Asian, who was found wearing female clothing.

The baby has been linked by DNA to another victim thought to be her mother. They were found seven miles (11km) apart.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nazi-occupied Paris was a terrible place to be in the waning days of World War II, with Jews, Resistance fighters and ordinary citizens all hoping to escape. Disappearances became so common they often weren’t followed up.

And one man used the lawlessness for his own terrible purposes, killing perhaps as many as 150 people.

Yet it wasn’t until thick black smoke seeped into buildings in a fashionable part of the city that firefighters and police were called to an elegant townhouse where they found body parts scattered around — setting off a manhunt that led them, eventually, to Marcel Petiot.

The crime was very much of its time, said David King, who chronicled the hunt for Petiot in “Death in the City of Light.”

“Paris was not a good place to be. A lot of people were trying to leave Paris, a lot of people just disappearing. He had it plotted out, a very devious plan,” said King, in a telephone interview.

“Respect for the law was tarnished under the Nazis. Even if you suspected something, a lot of people were very, very reluctant to go forward, especially if they were Jewish.”

Petiot, as it turned out, was a respected physician who turned serial killer by night, preying largely on Jews desperate to leave Paris by luring them in with promises of escape. He was accused of murdering “only” some 27, but authorities suspected his real toll was far higher.

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