Authorities’ tentative conclusion is that Jeffrey Alan Lash was a rich eccentric so caught up in his make-believe world of spying that his fiancee believed it, too 
 
 Inside his own head, Jeffrey Alan Lash was a secret government operative under constant surveillance by the CIA, the FBI or both.  LOS ANGELES (AP) — The body of a mystery man was decomposing in his car in the ritzy Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Southern California for nearly two weeks before he was found by authorities, an attorney said. Neighbors thought Lash was dying of cancer because his health appeared to be degenerating over the past year, but Lash told Nebron that he had been exposed to nerve-damaging chemicals on a mission and his condition was worsening. Braun told the police about the body and warned them the house was stuffed with weapons. Braun, the lawyer, said he doubted the story about working for the government was true. “Whether he really was working undercover for some government agency or not,” Braun told the Palisadian Post, “he was convinced he was and he had my client convinced.” 
 
 Lash’s neighbours said they too were told Lash had worked for the CIA and found him odd.
– The death of a Los Angeles man in his car has led police to a huge stash of firearms and an even bigger pile of strangeness. From what cops can piece together, Jeffrey Alan Lash claimed to be a spy—sometimes a hybrid human-alien spy—and just before he died in his car on July 4, he told his fiancee that government agencies would take care of his body, the Guardian reports. She left town on his orders and called police two weeks later after discovering his rotting corpse was still in the vehicle in the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Police found a stash of 1,200 firearms in the apartment they shared—which has now risen to 1,500, according to the Los Angeles Times—along with $230,000 cash, explosives, and 6.5 tons of ammo. Police say the weapons were legally acquired and that out of 14 vehicles registered to Lash, they've found eight in various LA locations—including an SUV that can drive underwater, the AP reports. The partner of Lash's late father tells the Times that he was a loner and that she lost touch with him years ago and didn't know where his money came from. Police say Lash had late-stage cancer and that foul play is not suspected in his death. He had told his fiancee that his illness was caused by chemical weapons exposure on a secret mission, reports the Guardian, which notes that the "tentative conclusion" investigators have reached is that he was so caught up in a fantasy world of spying that others around him started to believe it.