A man of the cloth is behind bars over a bungled murder-for-hire plot that targeted his little girl’s boyfriend.
Religious dad pays thousands in murder-for-hire plot
A California pastor was taken into police custody for allegedly arranging to pay a pair of hired gunmen $40,000 to take out the man romancing his daughter.
Last fall, 47-year-old Samuel Davalos Pasillas, the pastor of Victorville’s Centro Internacional de Oracion church, was so homicidally disapproving of his daughter’s suitor, that he told two hitmen where they could find her beau.
According to Fox News, 55-year-old Juan Manuel Cebreros and Jesus Abel Felix Garcia allegedly staked out the area in Riverside that they were told the unfortunate boyfriend would be in, and waited for his arrival.
When the boyfriend drove up on the night of Oct. 21, the two contract killers pulled up in their car alongside his and opened fire.
The man was shot several times, but was able to get away and drive to a local hospital for medical treatment that saved his life.
Murder-for-hire plot unravels
It’s unclear how Riverside Police were able to track the hit back to Pasillas, but just under six month later, they managed to apprehend two of the three suspects.
On March 13, police executed search warrants on residences in Victorville, Long Beach, and Lynwood, that allowed them to snare both Pasillas and Cebreros.
Pasillas was charged with solicitation of, conspiracy to commit, and attempted murder, along with a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, though he did not pull the trigger himself.
Cebreros was hit with the same charges, and they plan to do the same to Garcia, who they have not manged to locate.
Both accused men entered a plea of not guilty and have been stuck behind bars on a bond of $1 million at Riverside’s Robert Presley Jail.
Investigators are still trying to figure out what motivated the father of the year to go after his child’s lover with such murderous intent, but they believe his religion and beliefs may have been a driving factor.
“There is nothing to suggest that this victim did anything or had anything in their background that would elicit his girlfriend’s father to even think of doing something like that,” Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback said to KABC-TV
“For all we know, and everything we’ve uncovered about the victim, he is just genuinely a nice guy that you would probably want dating your daughter.”
Both Pasillas and Cebreros are scheduled to appear in court next week.
