Autopsies Planned for Two Men Found Dead at Vacation Home

Autopsies are planned later this week to determine whether carbon monoxide or natural gas, possibly from a furnace, killed a Pasadena man and his son in their Lake Arrowhead vacation home, officials said Tuesday.

Richard Fuller, 79, and his son, 47-year-old Dennis Fuller of La Verne, were found dead late Monday. They had spent the weekend in Richard Fuller’s three-story home on Cimarron Lane in Lake Arrowhead, said San Bernardino County Sheriff’s spokesman Chip Patterson.

The men were discovered by a family friend after one of them did not report to work Monday morning. Investigators say the men had been dead for about a day.

Dennis Fuller’s 43-year-old girlfriend, who had been sleeping on a higher level of the home with better air circulation, survived and was recovering Tuesday at Mountains Community Hospital in Lake Arrowhead. Her name was not available.

“We didn’t find anything else amiss there. There is no suspicion of foul play,” Patterson said. “It’s just a very sad case.”

County coroners have told sheriff’s investigators they believe the men died of carbon monoxide poisoning. But Patterson said investigators are also looking at a forced-air natural gas furnace that heated the home.

At lower levels, carbon monoxide poisoning can cause flu-like symptoms, then unconsciousness, and the woman has told detectives that she remembers little after Friday night, when she fell sick and went to bed.

“She was in a different part of the house,” Patterson said. “She’s going to be fine.”