a couple of deputies went over to the lease house, walked through it and really didn t see anything suspicious. a day or two later, other deputies were asked to go search the lease house again. by then, they knew the hatchet had been used in the murders and they found a sheathe to a hand axe laying right out in the middle of the floor in a position that the first deputying walking through the house could not have missed it. they would have been blind to miss that sheathe. cooper also said that during his two days in the house, he smoked multiple cigarettes. but when lease collected the evidence, they only collected one cigarette butt and the rest of the cigarette butts somehow disappeared. later on, when they found the ryan station wagon in long beach, the first time it was inspected, there were no
for a time, san bernardino police apparently agreed with that conclusion. the sheriff s department was told by two different bystanders that the night of the murders around the time that the murders had occurred, they had seen a car that matched the description of the ryan station wagon speeding down the road from the ryan s house and that in that car were white men. as it turned out, josh ryan, the sole survivor of the attacks also reportedly seeing multiple intruders. deputy dale sharp interviewed him in the hospital. he had at least one hatchet wound to the head and he had his throat slit. josh was unable to speak, so
boyfriend, a man named lee furrow, drive up to their house in the wee hours of the morning. lee furrow comes rushing into the house wearing cover alls splattered with what looks to be spots of blood. he changes clothes and turns around and leaves. there were other people in the house and someone looked out the window and saw a white station wagon matching the ryan s parked in the driveway with other individuals in the car. diana roper called the sheriff s department and she gave them the cover alls. the bloody cover alls that they recovered were booked into evidence. when diana roper later learned that a hatchet was used in the murders, she again called police and said that lee furrows was missing from the tool belt. it would make sense that somebody like lee furrow would have killed the ryans.
but heil s biggest question involved motive and the prosecution s game that cooper killed the ryans in order to steal their station wagon. the problem with this theory is that if somebody such as kevin cooper had wanted to make an escape, they missed the fact that there was cash, credit cards, and other valuables left at the scene of the crimes. none of that was taken. if mr. cooper walked away from the prison with no money, all of it was right there for him to take and it was not touched. heil also disputed the prosecution s theory that the killer worked alone. the sheer number of wounds suffered by the victims, 140 in all, and the fact that doug ryan was an ex-marine with loaded guns in the bedroom suggested to heil that there had been more than one killer.
cooper at the crime scene. and we have other evidence that gives us cause to believe that kevin cooper was responsible for the murders. police patrolled on both sides of the california mexico border today seeking the escaped convict, kevin cooper. tidwell launched one of the largest manhunts in state history. circulating photos of cooper and the ryan station wagon. there is growing fear in the california community of chino. i want to know what the state officials are going to do. as pressure mounted to apprehend cooper, police caught a break. we recovered the ryan station wagon from a church parking lot in long beach. cooper t eer used the car to es