Orcutt Killing Autopsy Results: Grim and Grimmer

Autopsy reports of the Orcutt killing that left four people dead on December 28 revealed that the three people murdered by former county jail custody deputy David McNabb — his sister Nicole McNabb; his mother, Melanie McNabb; and his mother’s boyfriend, Carlos Echavarria — had been stabbed multiple times and beaten with a sledgehammer. When Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived at the McNabbs’s Oakhill Road residence, two deputies tried to subdue the former county jailer by shooting him six times with less-than-lethal objects: four shotgun bean bags and two foam projectiles. McNabb was armed at the time with a Browning .243 caliber lever-action rifle, which he reportedly aimed at the deputies. Four of them opened fire, shooting 23 rounds at McNabb, five of which struck him. McNabb was not legally allowed to possess a firearm, having been arrested for domestic abuse; the rifle he carried is presumed to have been his father’s. It turned out not to have been loaded at the time. McNabb worked for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office between July 2001 and March 2012, when he “voluntarily resigned,” according to an official statement by the department.