Purported High Priest in Afro-Caribbean Sect Killed

A purported high priest in an Afro-Caribbean religious sect was found shot to death Tuesday in front of his La Puente home, authorities said.

Neighbors on the quiet street of neat tract homes were surprised to learn Wednesday that the victim, Dominguez Sanchez, was, according to Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators, “a high priest in the Yoruba Santeria religion.”

According to the Encyclopedia of American Religions, practices of the African Yoruba religion include appeasement of the gods by various offerings, such as dancing and animal sacrifice. In Caribbean culture, Santeria mixes the Yoruba beliefs with Latino Catholicism.

No suspects or motive had been found in the case, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

Sanchez was found lying in a pool of blood in his driveway about 2:30 p.m. by a passer-by. Paramedics were called to the home on Fern Creek Drive, but Sanchez died of a gunshot wound at the scene, the spokesman said.

A neighbor said that a machete and a pile of cut weeds were found near the body and that it appeared that Sanchez had been working in his well-tended yard at the time.

Sanchez, who investigators said was in his 40s, his wife and several grown children, moved into the home about three months ago, according to neighbors.

They added that although the family generally kept to themselves and did not associate with neighbors, there was a continual stream of visitors to the home, especially on weekends.

“They looked like a very large, united family. They weren’t any trouble,” one neighbor said.

Area residents noted that within a few days after moving in, several men and women helped the family build a seven-foot fence around the backyard and landscape the front with rose bushes and small trees.