Residents called Cypress Police about a stranger in their neighborhood with a machete Saturday morning, leading to the man holing up in an unoccupied home, a fire breaking out in the same house and firefighters dousing the blaze and later finding the body of Steve Taylor, 20, of Long Beach, inside.
The flames were reported around 7:35 a.m. in the 11000 block of Panay Street, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
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Police are mum at this hour about the incident.
Fire officials report the residents of the home were away on vacation. Witnesses saw police chase a man with a machete or large knife back into the abode.
It's unclear if Taylor had any connection to the home's residents.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.