A California couple says they were tied up in their mountain condominium by a fugitive ex-cop who allegedly killed four people before presumably dying after a firefight with law enforcement.
Karen and Jim Reynolds recounted their encounter with Christopher Dorner in chilling detail at a news conference Wednesday, saying Dorner rushed them when they entered the unit Tuesday.
“I thought we were dead,” Jim Reynolds said according to MyFoxLA.com. “Really, it was pretty scary.”
The couple said they immediately recognized Dorner from news reports, and although he said he did not want to hurt them, he put pillowcases over their heads and tied up their arms.
Jim Reynolds says Dorner told them, “I don’t have a problem with you, I just want to clear my name.”
The couple says Dorner fled in their purple Nissan. Karen Reynolds was able to reach her cell phone and dial 911.
Authorities couldn’t immediately verify the couple’s story to The Associated Press, but it matched early reports from law enforcement officials. Later reports said the incident involved two women from a cleaning crew.
The couple spoke out after authorities announced in an afternoon press conference that they believed the nearly week-long manhunt for Dorner was over, even though human remains found in the burned out cabin where he was believed to have been hiding have not yet been identified.
An official briefed on the investigation tells The Associated Press that a wallet with a California driver’s license with the name Christopher Dorner has been found in the burned rubble of a cabin.
San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon also addressed mounting speculation over whether police had purposely started a fire to smoke out Dorner, saying his deputies did not intentionally start the fire.
McMahon said deputies shot pyrotechnic tear gas into the cabin and it erupted in flames. He says the tactic was intended to drive Dorner out, but it was not their intention to set the cabin on fire. McMahon did not say directly that the tear gas started the blaze and the cause of the fire remained unclear.
The saga that had gripped the nation ended when a man believed to be Dorner barricaded himself in a vacant cabin after stealing two cars and took part in a shootout, in which he killed one sheriff’s deputy and wounded another.
Game wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the Reynolds’ purple Nissan Tuesday going in the opposite direction and gave chase, department spokesman Lt. Patrick Foy said. The driver looked like Dorner.
They lost the purple car after it passed a school bus and turned onto a side road, but two other Fish and Wildlife patrols turned up that road a short time later, and were searching for the car when a white pickup truck sped erratically toward the wardens.
“He took a close look at the driver and realized it was the suspect,” Foy said.
Dorner, who allegedly stole the pickup truck at gunpoint after crashing the Nissan, rolled down a window and opened fire on the wardens, striking a warden’s truck more than …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News