LOS ANGELES — Though he lived only half a mile from the command center, deputies never knocked on the door of Jim Rose’s house looking for Christopher Dorner, Rose told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.
“One friend said, ‘OK, so much for the inspection,’" Rose, 78, said.
As it turned out, wanted murder suspect Dorner appears to have been hiding in plain sight, just a five-minute walk from where law enforcement officials from multiple agencies had centered their search operation for the ex-LAPD officer.
More than 200 officers were involved the first night. Sheriff’s department officials said the search included more than 600 cabins over eight square miles.
It apparently did not include Rose’s neighborhood, which it turns out, may have been where Dorner was hiding all along.
“As far as I could tell, they did about as good as they could do," said Otis Farry, whose home is on Club View Drive. “Who would’ve known?"
Farry’s home abuts the Big Bear Lake golf course, which is across the street from the neighborhood that rises into the forest.
“I figured he was back in the woods somewhere, but the guy was right across the street," said Bruce Doucett, 55, a certified public accountant who lives in the same condominium complex as the unit where Dorner was said to be hiding.
If the body found in a burned-out cabin in the Big Bear area is identified as Dorner’s, it would end a weeklong manhunt for the ex-LAPD officer and Navy Reserve lieutenant. He is suspected in a string of shootings following his firing by the Los Angeles Police Department several years ago.
