Body Identified as Christopher Dorner

The charred body found in a mountain cabin after a police gun fight has been identified as a former policeman accused of murder, officials say.

Dental records showed the body was Christopher Dorner.

Police say Dorner killed three people last week in revenge for being fired from the Los Angeles police in 2008

As police closed in on Tuesday, he shot and killed an officer and wounded another before the cabin in which was barricaded caught fire, officials said.

The San Bernardino County coroner did not provide a cause of death.

Police launched a massive manhunt last week, which ended on Tuesday afternoon when they received word that a man matching Dorner's description had stolen a vehicle in the area of Big Bear Lake, a ski resort 80 miles (130km) east of Los Angeles.

Officers pursued the suspect, who took refuge in the cabin on a snowy, wooded mountain, and a gun battle ensued as police closed in.

A police detective was killed in the exchange, and a San Bernardino sheriff's deputy was wounded.

During the gun battle police shot tear gas canisters into the cabin in an effort to drive Dorner out.

Shortly afterwards, police reported hearing a single gunshot as fire began to spread through the cabin.

Dorner, a 33-year-old former Navy reservist, is alleged to have started his killing spree on 3 February when he shot dead the daughter of a former police captain and her fiance.

The woman's father, Randal Quan, had represented Dorner at a police disciplinary board before he was fired in 2008.

He was kicked off the force for making false statements, after lodging a complaint against his field training officer, saying she had kicked a suspect during an arrest.

Police say that on February 7, Dorner shot and killed a police officer in Riverside, California.

During the manhunt, authorities guarded about 50 families, several of them belonging to former police department colleagues against whom Dorner had apparently vowed revenge for ruining his career.

In an online manifesto, Dorner, who was black, suggested that racism was still rife in the Los Angeles Police Department.

It was an unwelcome allegation for a department that overhauled itself after the notorious police beating in 1991 of a black man, Rodney King.