Suspected Killer of Officer Committed Suicide : Investigation: LAPD spokesman says autopsy reveals that the man shot himself moments after a police sharpshooter had wounded him.

Seconds after he was wounded by a police rifle shot during a standoff at a motel in Hollywood, a man suspected of murdering a Los Angeles police officer died from a self-inflicted gunshot to his head, a Police Department spokesman said Monday.

An autopsy showed that the fatal wound suffered by Manuel Vargas Perez, the suspected killer of Officer Charles D. Heim, came from his own .38-caliber handgun Sunday afternoon, not the police rifle that originally was thought to have mortally wounded the 26-year-old gang member, police officials said.

LAPD spokesman Capt. Bruce Hagerty said Monday that officers stormed Perez’s room at the motel “a matter of seconds” after their rifle shot hit him in the throat and a stun grenade hurled toward his door exploded.

“They did not immediately realize he had shot himself because there was so much blood,” Hagerty explained. Hagerty said his information about the autopsy came from two detectives who witnessed the medical procedure.

At the county coroner’s office, officials declined to discuss the autopsy, saying the formal report had not been filed Monday.

Asked about the police statement regarding the self-inflicted wound, Lt. Deborah Peterson of the coroner’s investigations division replied: “I’m not saying it’s wrong. But nothing has been released from this office. The doctor has not finished his paperwork.”

Chief Willie L. Williams was not aware of Perez’s self-inflicted wound when Williams told reporters at a Sunday news conference that the fatal shot had come from a police rifle, Hagerty said.

“The chief put out the information that he had at the time, and he said that the investigation was not complete,” the department spokesman stated Monday.

Perez earlier had threatened suicide, both to police negotiators during the three-hour standoff Sunday at the Lucky 7 Motel on Sunset Boulevard and on Friday, to friends he talked with before the killing of Officer Heim, according to Hagerty.

“We knew he was suicidal, we knew he was irrational,” he said.

Cornered in the Lucky 7 on Sunday morning, Perez refused to surrender, fired on policemen and then emerged from his room bearing a handgun, police said. It was at that point, Hagerty said, that the suspect was wounded by a police rifle shot.

Officials said Monday they still are investigating the circumstances surrounding Heim’s death Friday night after he and his partner tried to enter Perez’s room in another Hollywood motel on a tip about drug dealing there.

Funeral services for Heim are scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, with burial following at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall. Heim is to be buried next to a young daughter who died of cancer.

A Police Department spokesman estimated that at least 2,000 officers from around the state would attend the funeral for Heim, 33, who served with the LAPD for 11 years.

The service will include a helicopter formation fly-over, but will be missing another tradition usually part of funerals of officers killed in the line of duty. Because Heim himself led the riderless horse in somber processions at other funerals, his widow has asked that the horse not be included at his service.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League has set up a trust fund for Heim’s family, which includes his wife--a police officer pregnant with the couple’s first child--and his 12-year-old son from a previous marriage.

Donations can be sent to the “Officer Charles Heim Fund,” c/o Getzoff Accounting, 16255 Ventura Blvd., Suite 525, Encino, Ca. 91436.