Early news reports worried Dorner victim’s father, document shows

Even as Irvine police were trying to confirm the identities of a young couple found shot to death in an Irvine parking garage early this month, the department’s on-duty watch commander received a late-night call from former LAPD Capt. Randal Quan.

According to an Irvine detective’s search warrant affidavit released Monday, Quan had seen an early news report of the double homicide at the condo complex at 2100 Scholarship.

Quan, the document states, was worried that his daughter, Monica, 28, who lived there, might be a victim.

Quan explained that his daughter called him every night but had not returned his calls that night.

The former police captain said his daughter and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, 27, drove a small white car, similar to the one described on the news report.

Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence, who were found dead in Lawrence’s white Kia Optima, were the first known homicide victims blamed on fired LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner, whose rampage earlier this month also left two law officers dead and culminated in Dorner’s suicide.

The document states that as police in Irvine walked around the car that night, they counted 14 shell casings. The woman in the car, it states, was in the passenger seat, tucked in nearly a fetal position. The man was in the driver’s seat, slumped over. Police said there were numerous bullet holes through the windows on both sides.

Monica Quan was the assistant women’s basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton, and Lawrence was a campus police officer at USC. The two had met at Concordia University in Irvine, where both played on the school basketball teams.

Police say Dorner was angry at the elder Quan, who had represented him in the disciplinary case that resulted in his termination from the LAPD in 2009.

In a Facebook post attributed to him, Dorner warned Quan of “deadly consequences for you and your family.”

The document shows that the items seized from the home in La Palma where Dorner once lived with his mother included an iPhone, an iPad, three laptops and several hard drives. Those items, the document states, had no evidentiary value to police and have since been returned to Dorner’s mother.

christopher.goffard@latimes.com