Reseda Woman Sought After Patient’s Death

Police on Monday were seeking a Reseda woman who they believe administered a fatal drug injection to an ailing man while illegally practicing medicine from her home.

Refugio Sandoval, 60, was being sought in the death of Jesus Nicolas Anchondo, 22, of Arleta, who police say died Sunday after getting an injection from Sandoval about 11 a.m. After going into convulsions, he was taken by paramedics to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where he died about noon, a hospital spokesman said Monday.

“This should be a warning to other people that you have to go see a doctor,” Anchondo’s distraught 22-year-old wife, Maria Almarez, said Monday. Almarez said that her husband had gone to see Sandoval because he had no insurance and didn’t have enough money to see a doctor, and that she didn’t even have the funds for a proper burial for him.

Authorities want to question Sandoval and said they were considering seeking an arrest warrant on charges of manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license. They said she apparently had a large clientele and had been treating patients for a variety of ailments for at least five years. One of those patients was Anchondo’s mother, who told authorities that she had taken her son to see Sandoval after he began complaining of strep throat or flu-like symptoms.

By the time authorities arrived at Sandoval’s Reseda home after Anchondo’s death, she had fled, and by nightfall, her seven grown children also were gone, police said. She was still at large late Monday.

Inside the ramshackle one-story stucco house across from a schoolyard, authorities said they found what looked like a pharmacy and doctor’s office, complete with rows upon rows of medications, and a line of chairs that they believe was Sandoval’s “waiting room.”

“We have no evidence that Sandoval had any actual medical training,” said homicide Detective Rick Swanston. “We don’t know much about her yet. She tells people she is a nurse, but we have not been able to find any proof of that yet.”

Swanston said police have information to believe that Sandoval got at least some of her medications in Tijuana, and that she was providing significant medical care to a steady clientele through word of mouth. “She had a lot of patients, we’re sure of that,” he said. There were no markings on her house to indicate that she was running a clinic or business of any kind.

Within hours of Anchondo’s death, Swanston said, police seized “tons of stuff, thousands and thousands of pills and vials of medicine.”

“She had everything in the world, hundreds of drugs in there,” he said. “She had a miniature hospital in her bedroom.”

He said that the medicines were labeled in Spanish, including a vial that appeared to contain the fluid injected into Anchondo, and that authorities were trying to determine their contents.

Neither Swanston nor the Los Angeles County coroner’s office would speculate on what the vial contained, or even whether it contributed to Anchondo’s death. Scott Carrier, a coroner’s spokesman, said an autopsy is scheduled today for Anchondo. “We have to await the results of the autopsy to see what killed him,” said Swanston. “He didn’t appear to have anything that serious before he was given the injection.”

One woman who said she was a client of Sandoval’s told The Times that the woman was known as Dona Cuca , a respectful term for a woman, and that she had treated her--and her mother’s injured foot--with oils but never with injections.

The client, who asked not to be identified, said she had an appointment with Sandoval on Sunday, but that when she arrived at the house in the 8100 block of Hesperia Avenue, no one was there. She said mutual acquaintances and Sandoval’s neighbors said she had possibly gone to Mexico.

Anchondo’s family and colleagues said Sandoval was known as a curandera , or a Latino who practices his or her own brand of medicine mixing herbal remedies, scientific practices and folklore.

Some said they had heard about her practice, which authorities and medical experts say is common in some Latino communities in Southern California, where drugs and medications can be bought at swap meets and black-market locations and then used on those who lack the money to see a legitimate doctor.

Unauthorized sales of prescription drugs and other items have soared in some immigrant communities in recent years, as newcomers bring with them informal practices of their homelands, where such drugs are more easily obtained over the counter, health officials said.

“We’re only beginning to understand the extent of the problem,” said Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, regional administrator of the state Department of Health Services’ food and drug branch in Los Angeles.

Authorities have cited at least one case in recent years where a woman was prosecuted for selling an injectable medication at a Sun Valley swap meet after the patient died under mysterious circumstances.

One of Anchondo’s colleagues at the Olga underwear warehouse in Commerce said Anchondo was working on his blue 1978 Cutlass Sunday morning when he began feeling ill, complaining of a sore throat and other problems, and saying he needed some penicillin. Anchondo’s wife--who accompanied him to Sandoval’s house along with Anchondo’s mother--said he was given an injection and fell down almost immediately, according to the colleague, Alex Lee.

Anchondo, who has a 3-year-old son, Nicholas, was a very friendly and hard-working man, who grew up in the Pacoima-Arleta area and was attending night school to get his high school equivalency degree, Lee said. He was among half a dozen of Anchondo’s colleagues who visited his house Monday to pay their respects.

“He talked a lot about giving his kid a better life,” said Lee. “He was a hard-working family man.”

Neighbors said they had seen a steady stream of people coming and going at Sandoval’s house, but that it was hard to separate potential clients from those visiting her many children. At least two neighbors said people had come to their door, asking for the house number where Sandoval lived, or simply asking for “the nurse.”

“There are lots of visitors,” said neighbor Martin Carvajal, 29. “I thought they were selling drugs or something.”

Another neighbor, Alberto Corral, 13, said: “Every time I’d walk by, you’d see people coming in and out.”

Ken Valderrama, 25, who lived across the street, said he frequently wondered whether all the traffic was due to some kind of illicit activity.

“Every night there’d be a few different cars,” he said. “But if you did think they were doing something illegal, you’d never think it was alternative medicine. That’s the last thing you’d expect.”

Times staff writers Sam Enriquez and Miguel Bustillo contributed to this article.