Death in a desert bunker

Gaping holes puncture the concrete roof, creating 30-foot drops to the floor below. Thousands of bullet casings crunch underfoot. Shattered glass forms a jagged carpet inside and out.

Over time the abandoned Air Force installation has become the haunt of bored teenagers, target shooters and outlaws.

And sometimes worlds collide.

That may have happened in the early-morning hours of Jan. 5, when about 30 or 40 teenagers from this small community between Barstow and Victorville held a birthday party at the bunker. By dawn two teenagers lay dead inside. Both were shot in the head at close range. The crime scene was so harrowing, it rattled even hardened homicide investigators.

According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, the victims -- 16-year-old Bodhisattva "Bodhi" Sherzer-Potter and her boyfriend, Christopher Cody Thompson, 18 -- stayed behind after the party broke up. Sometime before dawn they were killed.

Both enjoyed stellar reputations at the top-flight charter school where they met and among those who knew them. Sherzer-Potter, of Silver Lakes, was an aspiring filmmaker who routinely studied until 11 p.m. and whose mother rarely let her out of her sight.

Thompson, from Apple Valley, was a guitar-playing introvert who listened more than he talked and treated his girlfriend well.

"It's really an extraordinary case," sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Rick Ells said. "I worked homicide for years and if you take away gangs and drugs you eliminate about 80% of the cases. But these two kids were really squared away."

Authorities have ruled out murder-suicide and have been interviewing everyone who attended the party. They also seized computers from the victims' homes.

Det. Rob Alexander, sifting through dirt in the dark hallway where the bodies were found, said the case was the department's top priority.

"We have put everything aside to work on this," he said. "Emotions are running high."

Many local adults learned of the bunker only after the slayings and were shocked that it had been allowed to sit open for so long.