"At first it was just utter shock," Candy Martin told NBC4 during an exclusive on-camera interview. "And we're looking and we say, 'Oh these are cabins, these look like, and there's no doubt that those are my cabins."
Martin discovered her own family vacation compound at Big Bear was featured prominently in Tuesday's standoff between law enforcement officials and Christopher Dorner. The ex-cop had been wanted in connection with a string of "revenge-style slayings."
Martin explained to NBC that it was "surreal" watching the Seven Oaks Mountain Cabins on the news as the main hiding place for Dorner. Since being on the lam, Dorner reportedly held two cabin owners captive at a separate residence and stole their sport-utility vehicle. A shootout/ stand-off with area police quickly followed, culminating into with a raging inferno.
."Then the fire. Oh my gosh. That was heart wrenching to see, the fire. I just started crying. I couldn't talk at that point," Martin said.
Rick Heltebrake, the man who was carjacked by Dorner described the gun pointed at him, ordering him to get out of his truck.
"I don't want to hurt you. Start walking and take your dog,'" Heltebrake recalled Dorner saying during the carjacking Tuesday afternoon. Heltebrake gave details of the incident to news reporters on Thursday.
Martin bought the Seven Oaks Cabins in 2005 as a getaway for her family and with the intent to rent out the six smaller cabins on the property.
Because Martin was not present at the cabin, she had the fortune of not being present during the mayhem of the past days.
"I'm not the worst victim," she said. "The one's are the families who lost their loved ones. Even my daughter said, 'Mom, it's a cabin. It's not a life.'"
Officials have confirmed that the burned remains found in Martin's California cabin have been positively identified as Dorner's.
Dorner's ex-girlfriend Arianna Williams said the ex-cop worked in a pressure cooker and she was afraid he would target her after she heard he was the object of a manhunt.
"It was very scary, and, you know, I made a decision to speak out because if anything had happened to me, I'd want my family to at least have an idea about maybe who it was," she told CNN on Thursday.
