According to his partner of 17 years, a California man recently found decomposing in an SUV near his home containing over 1,200 guns claimed to be an undercover operative, the L.A. Times reports.

Fiancée Catherine Nebron identified the dead man as Jeffrey Alan Lash and said she believed him when he told her he worked for multiple unnamed government agencies.

“The story itself sounds totally crazy but then how do you explain all this?” Nebron’s attorney, Harland Braun, told the Associated Press. “There’s no evidence he was a drug dealer or he stole these weapons, or had any criminal source of income, no stolen property, all the stuff you’d look for.”

According to Braun, Lash had been suffering from cancer but told Nebron “he had been exposed to nerve-damaging chemicals on a mission and his condition was worsening.” From the AP:

Braun said Nebron and two friends were in a car at a supermarket early July 4, when Lash felt hot and had trouble breathing. For three hours they tried to ice him down.

“He wouldn’t go to a hospital and didn’t want any 911 call,” Braun said. When he died, Nebron parked him in a car down the street from the condo they shared, the lawyer said.

Police say they don’t believe there was any foul play involved in his death, but the official cause has been deferred pending further investigation.

Lash told Nebron the government agencies would take care of his body and the items in the home, so Nebron and her friends took a trip to Oregon, distraught.

Braun says Nebron was shocked to find that agents hadn’t removed Lash’s body when she returned 10 days later.

After his body was discovered on Friday, police searched Lash’s home and removed at least $500,000 worth of guns and two tons of ammunition from the house. Since then, authorities have also located eight of the 14 vehicles registered to Lash’s name, including a Toyota SUV “designed to drive underwater,” the Associated Press reports.

“One of the mysteries of this guy is who he really is,” Braun told the L.A. Times.

[Image via KNBC]