The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • A4

OUTPUT: 21:39 USER: DSWEENEY MASTER 10-12-10 BLACKYELLOWCYANMAGENTA More tests needed to find cause of death of woman in water tank LOS ANGELES More tests must be done to determine the cause of death of a 21-year-old Canadian tourist whose body was found wedged in a water tank atop a downtown Los Angeles hotel, officials said Thursday. An autopsy performed Thursday provide definitive answers into whether Elisa Lam of Vancouver, Brit- ish Columbia, was killed or fell victim to a bizarre accident. officials will await toxicology tests before mak- ing a final determination. body was found Tuesday in a water cistern atop the downtown Cecil Hotel. Police have called her death suspicious.

Guest complaints about low water pressure prompted a maintenance worker to make the gruesome discovery. Before Lam died, hotel surveillance footage showed her inside an elevator pushing buttons and sticking her head out the doors, looking in both directions. Meanwhile, water tested from the hotel contain any live bacteria that would cause illness. Chlorine in the water likely killed any bacteria in the tank where body was found, an official said. Police seek link between gunman, aspiring actress who was victim TUSTIN The link between the gun- man in a series of deadly California shootings and the woman police say was his first victim remained a mys- tery Thursday as detectives struggled to piece together the threads of the bizarre and fast-moving rampage.

Homicide detectives were trying to determine how the shooter, 20-year- old Ali Syed, knew his first victim, a 20-year-old aspiring actress named Courtney Aoki, said Orange County spokesman Jim Amormino. Deputies found Aoki dead of gun- shot wounds at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday at the home Syed shared with his parents. As parents placed a panicked 911 call, Syed sped away in their black SUV and went on to kill two drivers during carjackings, shoot up cars on a busy freeway interchange and injure at least three others before shooting himself in the head, police said. Investigators will comb through computer and cellphone records for clues about how Aoki met Syed, how she got to the house and what she did for a living, said Amormino.

parents did not recognize Aoki, he said. Aoki and her mother lived in sev- eral Southern California cities in recent years, according to public records, but she was not living with her mother or attending school at the time she died, Amormino said. Crash into fire hydrant ends chase; deputies capture burglary suspects MORENO VALLEY officials say a carload of burglary suspects smashed into a fire hydrant while they were trying to evade deputies. The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports deputies responded to a call of a burglary in progress at about noon Thursday. A witness told officials that sus- pects had fled the scene in a black Honda, which officers encountered a short while later.

Following a pursuit that lasted less than half a block, the vehicle the suspects were in crashed into a fire hydrant. Three suspects were taken into custody immediately and another was arrested minutes later after attempt- ing to flee. unclear what the sus- pects allegedly stole. Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times Former Bell Mayor Oscar Hernandez is charged with misappropriating funds. For the eight days that Dorner eluded capture, Evans remained silent and laid low, while police kept secret her role in identifying the suspect.

Evans had been training officer and was at the center of the incident that led to his dis- missal. On Thursday, Evans spoke to the Times about what happened, and police confirmed her account. It began for Evans on Monday, Feb. 4 the day after the bodies of Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence had been found riddled with bullets in their car. Evans, 47, received a message that an of- ficer from a small department south of SanDiego was trying to reach her.

When she returned the call, the officer told her that he had found pieces of a large-sized police uniform, some ammunition and other items discarded in a dumpster that appeared to belong to an LAPD of- ficer with the last name Dorner. name and other items were written in a small notebook found with the other things. The officer asked: Did Evans know this guy Dorner? She did know him. Several years ear- lier, Evans and Dorner, a rookie cop, had been partners. The pairing had ended badly when Dorner accused Evans of kicking a handcuffed man.

Evans denied the allegations and an investigation cleared the 18-year veteran of wrongdoing. LAPD officials went on to fire Dorner after concluding he had fabricated the story. Evans been able to shake the uneasy feeling when she went to work the following evening. Before beginning her night shift, she stopped in the police parking lot to talk with some other officers. The conversation turned to the Irvine killings.

Evans had heard about the case, but knew no details. The dead woman, one of the officers said, was the daughter of Randy Quan, a former LAPD captain-turned-lawyer who represented officers in disciplinary hearings. Through her night shift, a sinking dogged her. have to call Irvine she recalled thinking. Evans called the Irvine Police Depart- ment and told a supervisor her theory: Quan had represented Dorner at his ter- mination proceedings.

What if Dorner had killed daughter and her fi- as part of a vendetta and then tossed his belongings in the dumpster before escaping to Mexico? About 1 a.m., an Irvine detective called back and Evans repeated her sus- picions. A few hours later, her shift ended and Evans went home to sleep. When she awoke, a message from an- other Irvine detective, left early that morning, was waiting for her. Investiga- tors were pursuing her lead and were on their way to San Diego to examine Dor- belongings. that point, I was absolutely Evans said.

thought, my god, it really is I knew no one knew where he was. I thought, am I going to At the time Mr. Dorner was termi- nated, I had a very uneasy feeling. I knew he was very upset and I had con- cerns that at some point he may try to contact About 1:30 p.m., Evans said she was on her way to watch her teenage son play soccer when her phone rang. They had discovered the manifesto.

was told my family and I were not A short time later, police made plans for protecting her and her family. FROM PAGE A3 Damian Dovarganes Associated Press Judy Lim and her dog Blitz pass the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, where tourist Elisa body was found in a water tank. STATE By Linda Deutsch Associated Press LOS ANGELES The un- schooled and illiterate former mayor of the scandal-ridden suburban city of Bell had no training that would have alerted him that his huge sal- ary was illegal, his lawyer told a jury in closing arguments Thursday. Former Mayor Oscar Her- nandez have a college or high school degree and even finish elementary school, defense attorney Stan- ley Friedman said at the cor- ruption trial. Hernandez is among six former Bell city officials charged with misappropriat- ing funds.

He was earning just under $100,000 a year for the part-time job. Friedman argued that fi- nancial advisers hired by the city could have informed Her- nandez that salaries being paid to council members were illegal, but no one did that. say, in thenameof the law.Thesesal- aries are he said. Hernandez, former Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo and former council members George Cole, George Mirabal, Victor Bello and Luis Artiga are facingchargesofmisappro- priating funds from the blue- collar city near Los Angeles. closingargu- ments on Wednesday, they said the six officials felt they were above the law and col- lected paychecks for jobs that exist.

Legally, the officials could have paid themselves $673 a month for what was a part- time jobsince actu- ally run the city, Deputy Dis- trict Attorney Ed Miller said. But in addition to their in- flatedcouncil salaries, the offi- cials appointed each other to commissions that did nothing andoftenmet yearly just to in- crease their pay, he said. Some made $100,000 a year. Attorneys for Jacobo and Cole made their closing argu- ments Wednesday afternoon, saying their clients were vic- tims of a city attorney who never told them that what they were doing could be illegal. Friedmanechoedthatargu- ment on Thursday.

He added that Hernandez was known around town for being willing to listen to prob- lems. Like many other politi- cians of simple backgrounds, required tobe schol- arly to be mayor, he said. elect people who have a good heart, someone who can listen to your problems andlookyou in man said. are a lot of elected officials who may not be the most scholarly. We had a vice president of the United States who know how to spell Friedman said former Cali- forniaGov.ArnoldSchwarzen- main qualification was portrayed a killer ro- bot in the movies.

And (former Minnesota Gov.) Jesse Ventura was a profes- sional Miller spoke to the jury again during his rebuttal on Thursday. He referred to the defendants as gang of you have to be a law- yer to be he said. is supposed to raise a red flag in front of you as a reasonable The case was expected to go to the jury today. The six former officials face sentences ranging from 11 to 20 years in prison. Lawyer: Bell mayor told pay illegal Dorner: tip helped launch manhunt IN BRIEF A4 The Sacramento Bee Friday, February 22, 2013.