If you were like us yesterday, you may have sat spellbound as police officers cornered ex-LAPD officer and serial killer Christopher Dorner in a mountain cabin above Los Angeles. It marked the end of a six-day manhunt, the largest in the city's history. Dorner had killed three people in what he called "warfare" against his former police department. And yesterday, he shot and killed one more officer from the San Bernardino County Sherrif's department while holed up in the cabin.

As news choppers flew overhead (which was kind of terrifying in itself, thanks to rampant rumors that Dorner had a bazooka), smoke started to drift up from the cabin. Then, a lot of smoke started to drift up from the cabin. Pretty soon, the entire thing was engulfed in flames, and the newscasters were helpfully mentioning that anyone save the Human Torch would be unrecognizable by now. It was assumed at the time that tear gas containers started the blaze. This morning, reports came in that the forensics team found a charred body, which we can only assume is Dorner's.

Here's where the story gets even more nuts: Several audio files indicate that police officers started the fire deliberately. Footage above is from KCAL TV. You can hear officers on the scanner shout, "We're going to burn him out," and "Burn this motherfucker!"

Then, at the one-minute mark of the video below, an officer says, "All right, Steve, we're gonna go, we're gonna go forward with the plan, with, with the burn. We want it like we talked about."

What a crazy news story. We're happy this asshole isn't around to kill anyone anymore—but, uh, we also didn't expect him to be burned to death. There was something a little too scarily cinematic about all this.

[H/T: The Guardian]