Updated: Man Found Dead in Angeles National Forest Reportedly Thursday's Shooting Suspect

Updated 3:04 p.m: A hiker in the Chantry Flat Recreation Area Monday found a deceased body with a handgun nearby, according to an updated press release from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. The 3 p.m. release did not identify the body, although hours earlier Lt. Angela Shepherd of the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station told Patch the deceased man was Kevin Pochter, the man accused of shooting to death Dean Albert of Arcadia on Thursday.

According to Capt. Mike Parker of the Sheriff’s Department, at about 8:30 a.m. Monday, the hiker believed the man to be sleeping, but remembered from various news reports that authorities were looking for a man who was considered armed and dangerous. The hiker contacted the rangers who alerted the sheriff’s command post, which dispatched deputies to investigate, according to Parker.

Sheriff’s Mounted Enforcement Detail deputies went to the described area and found the deceased male. Sheriff’s Homicide investigators and Coroner’s investigators are at the scene, the press release states.

According to the sheriff’s department, the area where the body was found has a panoramic view of a nearby city. It was approximately six miles from Mount Wilson, where the car of the victim of the murder was found abandoned. The distance between the two locations is a steep slope of rugged terrain, about 3,000 vertical feet lower than the where the car was found.

Earlier: After a massive weekend search throughout the San Gabriel mountains for shooting suspect Kevin Pochter, authorities found the 53-year-old Huntington Beach man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday.

Lt. Angela Shepherd of the of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said authorities found Pochter in Chantry Flat, the same campground in the Angeles National Forest where Pochter allegedly shot to death Dean Albert of Arcadia, a man whom sheriff's deputies referred to as a lifelong friend of Pochter. 

A passerby discovered Albert lying on the side of Big Santa Anita Canyon Road, south of the Chantry Flat Recreation Area, authorities said. He was suffering from a gunshot wound to the upper body, and transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Deputies from Crescenta Valley, Temple, and San Dimas Sheriff's Stations as well as officers from Arcadia, Sierra Madre, and Monrovia Police Departments spent days searching for Pochter.

On Sunday, team members from the Sheriff's Special Enforcement Bureau and Emergency Services Details joined multiple search and rescue perosnnel to search for Pochter on the ground, while a sheriff's helicopter Air-Rescue 5 scoured the area rugged area from the air.

Deputies and search and rescue personnel from Crescenta Valley, Temple, and San Dimas Stations covered some 62 square miles of rugged terrain, including hiking trails, according to a release from the sheriff's department.

Albert was collapsed but still breathing when he was found. He was treated at the scene and transported to a nearby hospital where he died from his injuries. Albert and Pochter are reportedly lifelong friends.

The sheriff's department said that Albert's car, a silver BMW, had been taken from the scene and later found Saturday morning at Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains. Witnesses recognized the vehicle, and deputies recovered it.

Editor's note: Correction - An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that deputies believed Albert was killed between the Mt. Wilson summit and Chantry Flat.