Santeria Group Disowns Suspect in Skeleton Thefts from Hope Cemetery

By Samantha Allen
Telegram & Gazette
December 24, 2015

http://www.telegram.com/article/20151224/NEWS/151229482/101366

Amador Medina. Submitted Photos/Hartford Police Department

A man facing charges in connection with the theft of skeletal remains from Hope Cemetery has been stripped of his title of Santeria priest.

The Cultural Association of African Religions Babalu Aye, a nonprofit organization in New York, said in a statement that Amador Medina’s membership has been revoked. Mr. Medina, 32, of Hartford, was charged this month with stealing remains from Hope Cemetery. He faces a hearing in Central District Court on Jan. 5 and has been ordered held on $100,000.

“By his own (alleged) actions, his membership has been cancelled for violating several points of the terms and conditions agreement that he signed to conserve his affiliation,” reads the statement from the association’s board of directors. “Practitioners and followers of the Yoruba Diaspora (of Santeria) fail to recognize the use of human bones in our religious practices for any reason.”

Mr. Medina told Hartford police, upon their discovery of five sets of human remains in his home, that he was a Babalosha priest, of the Santeria faith; investigators found an identification card from the association, referred to as the ACRABA, according to Deputy Police Chief Brian J. Foley.

Experts have said the use of human skeletons in so-called “healing ceremonies” is tied to Palo practices, rather than Santeria; Palo originated around the same time period, but from a different group of Africans, as they were enslaved and transported across the globe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Paleros, of the Palo faith, have been known in some branches of the religion to use bones in an attempt to channel and venerate the spirits of the dead, so they would help carry out a practitioner's bidding.

The board of directors of the Babalu Aye cultural association said that their organization has no ties to Mr. Medina or his practices. They said he “achieved initiation” and the group verified his initiation by recognizing him as a priest. They did not specify when.

“Mr. Medina … does not deserve to be respected as (a religious figure),” they wrote. “It seems to us that he has disgraced the name of his guardian Orisha that is Obatala, his house of Osha, and of our institution Babalu Aye.”

The group declined to offer more information or to be interviewed. The group's statement said that the charges against Mr. Medina have opened a “shameful chapter” for the association, which would like to separate itself entirely from media coverage on the matter.

Mr. Medina reportedly told investigators he didn’t disinter remains from the Houghton mausoleum in Worcester himself, but hired someone to do it. The Worcester Police Department has said a second mausoleum at Hope Cemetery may have also been broken into, with more human remains taken.