Big Bear Area Shooting Probe Takes an Odd Turn

High above the flatlands of San Bernardino County, after a Big Bear man was accused of shooting his girlfriend and then leaving her in his garage, investigators began focusing on the man’s parents.

First they uncovered evidence that the parents tended to the woman’s wounds for almost a week, but didn’t call paramedics for help because they wanted to protect their son.

Then authorities discovered a hidden room in the parents’ cabin containing a cache of weapons, including hand grenades. That, it turned out, only opened the door to a decades-old criminal intrigue.

Investigators confirmed Friday that they are dusting off 35-year-old legal records indicating that the shooting suspect’s father was involved in the execution-style killings of two men -- a crime that temporarily landed the father on the FBI’s most wanted list in 1968.

Beyond being an unusual coincidence, those killings may be introduced as evidence next year when the parents and their son go to trial on charges related to the June 27 shooting of the woman in Baldwin Lake, a community named for a dry lake bed on the outskirts of Big Bear.

The family has maintained to investigators that the shooting of Christina Marie “Tina” Stebbins was accidental, and that she asked not to be taken to a hospital while recuperating from three bullet wounds.

If the suspect’s father, 69-year-old Robert Lindblad, repeats those claims on the witness stand, investigators say, they hope to pull out records outlining his involvement in the 35-year-old slayings of two men in Nevada.

Lindblad’s arrest and subsequent incarceration at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga has caused a minor sensation among activists in the Big Bear area, where he was known as an anti-government agitator and major supporter of environmental improvements.

Prosecutors say they may argue that California law allows them to impeach the father’s testimony when he comes to trial by showing “a readiness to do evil” -- allowing them, in layman’s terms, to argue to a judge or jury that the father’s testimony should be taken with a grain of salt because of his past violent acts.

Investigators believe the shooting of Stebbins was intentional, and law enforcement sources said Friday that they now believe the suspect -- Lindblad’s 36-year-old son, Christian -- may have developed a severe paranoia from extended use of methamphetamine before the incident.

“It’s hard to tell what [Robert Lindblad’s] mind set was at the time [of the 1967 Nevada slayings], and what relation it has to his mind set in this case,” said San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Det. James Cornell, who uncovered hints of the older crimes through electronic records checks and a confidential informant. “I hope the information can be used.”

Defense attorneys representing the Lindblad family members either did not return phone calls or could not be reached for comment.

Prosecutors acknowledge that they will face strong opposition from the defense team, which will contend that evidence of the 35-year-old contract shootings would be irrelevant and unnecessarily prejudicial in any trial on the more recent case.

The twist in the case has, at least for now, shifted the Big Bear Lake community’s near-obsession with the case from Christian Lindblad to his father.

Robert Lindblad is something of a legend in Big Bear. He is described by friends and associates as fiercely independent, a weapons fanatic with views of the government that border on anarchistic.

Most days, friends say, he can be found in his small office, chain-smoking cigarettes and drinking Jack Daniels. The office walls are adorned with gas masks, a friend said, a less-than-subtle suggestion to those who are offended by his heavy smoking. With his wife, Samantha, he has lived for years in a remote, 663-square-foot cabin with no electricity or running water.

He is no hermit, however -- far from it. Several years ago, he inherited the reins of a prominent nonprofit environmental organization, the Natural Heritage Foundation, from a friend and neighbor who was leaving town and wanted the direction of the organization to remain local.

Associates of Robert Lindblad say the organization has at least $2 million at its disposal, and tax returns filed with the state show that he paid himself $39,000 a year in 1998 and 1999, but no salary in the last two calendar years.

Contradictions

Robert Lindblad, who is being held on $500,000 bail, reportedly dislikes government and abhors bureaucracy, but is immersed in both. His organization has worked with several government agencies, including the city of Coachella and the Big Bear Area Regional Wastewater Agency, on a series of environmental projects.

For instance, the foundation was instrumental, according to government records and the recollection of other area environmentalists, in paying for and pursuing the 145-acre Stanfield Marsh project, intended as a wetlands preserve, on the east end of Big Bear Lake.

There have long been rumors circulating about Robert Lindblad’s past, but when questioned by friends, he has declined to discuss the issue, associates say.

“It was always a suspect thing,” said Erv Nichols, a Fawnskin resident, friend and chairman of a Sierra Club chapter in Big Bear. “He is a mysterious guy.... I would classify him as the Hunter S. Thompson of Big Bear. He’s just an iconoclastic guy. He’s a character -- but then again, we have many of them up here.”

With the new revelations, friends say they aren’t sure they ever truly knew Robert Lindblad. “I like him very much. But I didn’t know his past, and now I do,” Nichols said. “I’m saddened by it, more than anything else.”

Several environmental projects could be in trouble too. The Heritage Foundation was being counted on, Nichols said, to pony up as much as $200,000 for a program to build islands for rare birds near Big Bear Lake so they would be protected from coyotes. “Now everything’s up in the air,” Nichols said.

Authorities said the saga began when an argument broke out between Christian Lindblad and Stebbins, his girlfriend of three years. Stebbins, 35, had reportedly lived with the Lindblad family under a strict set of rules, and apparently discussed leaving Christian Lindblad and taking their young son with her.

Christian Lindblad, authorities said, shot Stebbins in the right hand, right leg and stomach during an argument in the home they shared near that of his parents.

Six Days in a Garage

Stebbins survived, but instead of taking her to a hospital, Christian Lindblad contacted his parents, who helped him move her to a cot in his garage. The parents tended to Stebbins’ wounds for six days, using gauze, soap and water. By the time paramedics discovered her -- tipped off by a Lindblad family friend, officials said -- Stebbins had nearly died.

Stebbins is “feeling much better” and is leading “a pretty normal life,” said Cornell, the sheriff’s detective. But she still suffers from lingering effects of the shooting, and is not expected to fully recover for another year, the detective said. She faces additional surgeries.

Christian Lindblad was charged in July with attempted murder, torture and other charges, and faces life in prison if convicted, said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Brown.

His parents were arrested a short time later and accused of being accessories to the shooting. They face six years in prison if convicted, Brown said. No trial date has been set.

The parents posted bail, but were arrested again in September on weapons charges after an anonymous tip led investigators to two secret rooms in their cabin. There, authorities discovered a weapons stockpile, including, according to law enforcement documents, blasting caps and small explosive devices.

The parents face an additional eight years in prison on charges related to the weapons. That case could go to trial by the end of the year.

Now, officials say they have also discovered a new tentacle of the case.

According to interviews and FBI records, Robert Lindblad was accused in a murder-for-hire case in 1967. According to law enforcement officials, he was charged with two others in the shooting deaths of two Wyoming men. After the charges, Robert Lindblad went into hiding -- possibly in South America and the Sierra Nevada, Cornell said.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley said Robert Lindblad was placed on the agency’s most wanted list after a federal fugitive warrant was issued in the summer of 1968. He remained on the list for about three months until he surrendered to his attorney in October 1968.

According to a 1968 article in the Mason Valley, Nev., News, when Robert Lindblad turned himself in, he had a “flawless handlebar mustache,” apparently to conceal his identity.

Also described by the newspaper as “an expert in desert survival and karate,” he apparently led investigators to a shallow desert gravesite upon his arrest on a murder charge, according to the article.

Robert Lindblad was handed over to the FBI and then to local authorities. He provided evidence against his co-defendants and therefore avoided prosecution, officials said. He moved to Big Bear Lake a short time later.

San Bernardino County officials say that, so far, they have incomplete accounts of the 1967 shootings, and are still working with officials in two Nevada counties to get a better picture. They said it is a strange coincidence that Robert Lindblad was on the most wanted list, then surfaced in connection with the Big Bear shooting.

“This whole thing started as something that his son did,” Cornell said. “He and his wife became involved as a result of that. I don’t think there was any direct planning or anything that involved them. Their involvement in it was sheer coincidence, just because they had a son that lived close enough to them to rely on them. And they made the wrong choices.”

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Times researcher Vicki Gallay and staff writer Daniel Hernandez contributed to this report.