The husband of the late bishop David O’Connell’s housekeeper was identified as the main suspect in O’Connell’s killing, authorities confirmed Monday.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified Carlos Medina as a suspect in the slaying that occurred over the weekend, and while giving no motive for the crime, Luna did share inside details from the case that could point to one.
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Luna claimed that someone reported Medina was acting “strangely” after O’Connell’s death in Hacienda Heights, California, and claimed the bishop owed Medina money. Detectives are also interviewing Medina’s wife, the housekeeper.
“The detectives are absolutely interviewing her,” Luna said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “As far as we know at this time she’s been fully cooperative.”
Detectives also identified Medina through surveillance footage of a dark SUV at O’Connell’s home around the time of the killing on Saturday. Weapons were found at Medina’s home in Torrance, California, but Luna said ballistic tests are still pending.
An arrest tied to O’Connell’s murder was announced Monday morning. O’Connell, 69, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the chest at his home over the weekend. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said the alleged murder occurred early Saturday afternoon.
O’Connell was a fixture of the Los Angeles Catholic community and served in the area for more than four decades.
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“As a priest and later a bishop here in Los Angeles for forty-five years, Bishop Dave was a man of deep prayer who had a great love for Our Blessed Mother,” Archbishop Jose Gomez and the Diocese of Los Angeles said in a statement. “He was a peacemaker with a heart for the poor and the immigrant, and he had a passion for building a community where the sanctity and dignity of every human life was honored and protected.”
