An autopsy was scheduled Tuesday for the man authorities said killed two North Coast land managers in ambush-style attacks in coastal Mendocino County.
Aaron Bassler was shot and killed Saturday after a gruelling five-week search through dense forests.
Deputies, who were concealed in heavy brush and camouflage, spotted Bassler walking down a timber road on Saturday and fired their Colt M-4 .223-caliber rifles from about 40 yards away, Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said.
Bassler was struck by all seven shots in his upper torso and died immediately, Allman said.
Ballistics tests will determine whether the weapon Bassler was carrying, a Norinco SKS 7.62-caliber assault rifle, was the same gun used to kill Matthew Coleman, 45, of Albion, and Fort Bragg City Councilman Jere Melo, 69, Allman said.
A forensic pathologist was scheduled to conduct Bassler's autopsy Tuesday morning in Ukiah, Allman said.
Federal behavioral analysis experts advised sheriff's officials in the search for Bassler, a Fort Bragg native who grew up playing and hunting in the forest where Melo was shot on Aug. 27. Sixteen days earlier, Coleman was killed more than 25 miles to the north, near Rockport.
Bassler's family said he suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness.
The Mendocino County District Attorney's Office was leading an investigation into Bassler's death.
The two deputies and a sergeant who spotted and shot Bassler were members of a highly-skilled Sacramento County sheriff's SWAT unit deployed to join the multi-agency search.
On Saturday, Bassler was walking down a timber road about a half-mile south of an area known locally as the mud flats off Sherwood Road. The area, forestland owned by a private timber firm, is abou
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