Prosecutors in LA have charged an Irish bishop’s housekeeper’s husband with shooting the cleric dead in his home.
Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell, 69, was blasted multiple times Saturday in the bedroom of his home in Hacienda Heights, an unincorporated community about 30km east of downtown Los Angeles.
The suspect, Carlos Medina, is the husband of O’Connell’s housekeeper. Medina had done work at the the Cork native’s home and was arrested Monday by a SWAT team.
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LA County District Attorney George Gascon said yesterday that Medina is charged with one count of murder with a special allegation that he personally used a firearm.
“Charging Mr. Medina will never repair the tremendous harm that was caused by this callous act, but it does take us one step closer to accountability,” Gascon said.
Medina faces 35 years to life in prison. He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon. It was unknown whether he has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
O’Connell had been a priest for 45 years and had spent the majority of his career in the US. In 2015, Pope Francis named him one of several auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese.
Lt. Michael Modica of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who is leading the homicide investigation, said Medina told detectives of several reasons for the violence, “and none of them made any sense to investigators,” so the motive remains unclear.
Previous reports that Medina said O’Connell had owed him money appear to be incorrect, Modica said.
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