UPDATE: The LAPD said it will continue investigating the burned cabin after telling the press the structure has not been entered because of high temperatures. The statement contradicts earlier reports that a body was found inside the building.

 

Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer wanted in the shooting deaths of three people, and the death of a sheriff's deputy during a chase Tuesday, is believed to have died Tuesday evening after authorities burned down a cabin in which they suspected he had barricaded himself.

A Los Angeles Police Department official confirmed with KTLA that a body was found in the burned out cabin. Los Angeles police released a statement denying any confirmation, however.

Authorities had been searching for Dorner, 33, in Big Bear since Feb. 6 when he was named a suspect in an Irvine double homicide.

Dorner was found Tuesday after police received a call at 12:20 p.m. PST that a vehicle had been stolen by a suspect matching Dorner's description. When the vehicle was found, Dorner fled on foot into the forest, the Associated Press reported.

Dorner barricaded himself inside a cabin in Mentone, Calif., just south of Big Bear, CTV News reported. Authorities surrounded the cabin which caught on fire shortly after authorities shot tear gas inside and burned down.

One San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy died and at least one other was injured during the shootout. According to Fox News, Dorner vowed not to be taken alive, fired at police and used smoke grenades.

From the Los Angeles Times:

According to a law enforcement source, police had broken down windows, pumped in tear gas and blasted a loud speaker urging Dorner to surrender. When they got no response, police deployed a vehicle to rip down the walls of the cabin 'one by one, like peeling an onion,' a law enforcement official said.

By the time they got to the last wall, authorities heard a single gunshot, the source said. Then flames began to spread through the structure, and gunshots, probably set off by the fire, were heard.

Dorner was suspected in a string of vengeance killings in connection to the recent murders of a couple in Irvine, and was believed to be responsible for Thursday's shooting of three police officers. One officer was killed. 

ALSO SEE: Dorner, Awlaki And The Threat To Due Process

The search for Dorner had spread as far as the Mexican border when authorities were told Dorner was in the Angelus Oaks.

The ex-cop’s manifesto, posted on his Facebook page, detailed plans to seek revenge on authorities and police including Randy Quan, the father of Monica Quan who was shot and killed Feb. 3 in Irvine along with her fiancé, University of Southern California security officer Keith Lawrence.

"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I’m terminating yours," Dorner wrote.

Dorner depicted himself as a man mistreated whose badge was unjustly stripped in 2008 after he filed a complaint against a white female supervisor—what he called being "terminated for doing the right thing."

 

 

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage of the Dorner manhunt here. 

Reach Deputy Editor Sarah Parvini here. Follow her on Twitter.

Reach Editor-in-Chief Agnus Dei Farrant here.