LOS ANGELES (AP) - An attorney says the body of a mystery man was decomposing in his car in the tiny Pacific Palisades neighborhood in California for nearly two weeks before he was found by authorities on July 17.
Inside his home, detectives discovered more than 1,200 guns, scopes, 6.5 tons of ammunition, bows and arrows, knives, machetes and $230,000 in cash.
They also found eight of 14 vehicles registered to the man stashed across Los Angeles, including a Toyota SUV designed to drive underwater.
Veteran defense attorney Harland Braun represents the man's fiancée Catherine Nebron and identified him as Jeffrey Alan Lash. The couple had been together for 17 years, and she believed Lash when he said he worked as an undercover operative for an unnamed government agency. Nebron said Lash died July 4 in a parking lot in Santa Monica.
"They worked for about three hours trying to keep him alive. He refused 911, he didn't want to go to an emergency room. He didn't want any police so he died there," Braun told KABC.
Lash reportedly told Nebron if anything happened to him, "they" would take care of the body. So, after his death, Nebron and her friend went on a roadtrip to get away. When she returned, Lash's body in his car was still sitting there, so she contacted a lawyer and alerted police.
LAPD Deputy Chief of Detectives Kirk Albanese said there's no indication the man was doing anything illegal with the weapons.
According to KABC, neighbors thought Lash had cancer because his health was visibly degenerating over the last year.
