By STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Prosecutors charged a man Wednesday with killing a Catholic bishop in a crime that stunned Los Angeles religious and immigrant communities.
Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell, 69, was fatally shot multiple times Saturday in the bedroom of his home in Hacienda Heights, an unincorporated community about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles.
FILE – Bishop David O’Connell, of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, attends a news conference at the Fall General Assembly meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, on Nov. 17, 2021, in Baltimore. O’Connell was found dead in Hacienda Heights, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023, of a gunshot wound, according to the Los Angeles Times. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
The suspect, Carlos Medina, is the husband of O’Connell’s housekeeper. Medina had done work at the bishop’s home and was arrested Monday by a SWAT team.
LA County District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday 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,” Gascón 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 was a native of Ireland, according to Angelus News, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest. 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.
