Into the Dark

65

Big Bear Lake, California

It was just after dark when the call came out of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“Captain says this is a priority, Lee.”

“All right, raise Marv. He’s at Thirty-eight and Pine Oak. Get Duke to send the Marine Unit, so we’re covered from the water and we need air support to stand by. We’re on the way.”

Lee Hespler, a deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, was posted to the Big Bear Sheriff’s Station.

Any thought of a sleepy night shift had just gone out the window.

The urgent request from LACSD came from Joe Tanner. They wanted Big Bear sheriffs to secure a property on Vista Lane, belonging to Robert Bowen of San Marino.

If they were to encounter Bowen, they were to exercise extreme caution, meaning get backup, arrest him and alert the task force.

Warrants were signed.

From what Hespler gathered from the call, guys across L.A. and up in Van Nuys were executing warrants, as well.

As he rolled out of Big Bear and over Stanfield Cutoff, he grabbed his microphone again for his dispatcher.

“Allison, tell Marv and Duke no lights or sirens. We’ll keep this low-key.”

Hespler could get to the address in twenty minutes, but he’d wait until the others were in position, he thought as he sailed along North Shore Drive. It was not long after that, about eleven minutes beyond Stanfield Cutoff, Hespler would later write in his report, that he first saw the flicker of the fire at the Bowen property.

He called for fire and paramedics, then hit his lights and siren.

Don’t this change everything? Hespler thought.

Emergency crews found the cabin fully involved with flames soaring into the night sky.

After rapid work they kept the blaze from igniting the surrounding forest, but the structure was lost.

Paramedics rushed the survivors to Bear Valley Community Hospital.

The Coroner’s Office was alerted to stand by.

One victim with third-degree burns to eighty-percent of their body was airlifted to the Burn Center at USC in Los Angeles.