Three arrested in California erotic massage teacher's fatal shooting
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three suspects were arrested on Wednesday on homicide charges in the fatal shooting of an erotic massage and meditation teacher as he was walking his dog on a San Francisco Bay Area hiking trail this week, according to officials and local media reports.
Marin County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lieutenant Doug Pittman told reporters the three people were arrested near Portland, Oregon, in the killing of 67-year-old Steve Carter on Monday evening in Fairfax.
The three were captured on a surveillance camera at a gas station filling up Carter's car which had been stolen from the scene, Pittman said. They face charges of homicide, burglary and other felonies, he said.
The suspects were not named and further details on the shooting, including possible motives or whether they knew the victim, were not immediately provided.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Carter and his wife, Lokita, founded the Ecstatic Living Institute, which provides clothing-optional sexual Tantra and massage workshops in the now fire-ravaged town of Middletown, about 100 miles north of San Francisco.
The institute's website says the workshops provide ways to increase intimacy through spiritual rituals including meditation and sexual practices.
The newspaper said Carter had recently returned to the United States from Costa Rica to care for his wife, who is undergoing treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer.
"I am beyond devastated to face this situation while already going through intensive breast cancer treatment," Lokita Carter said in an online fundraising page that had already been set up to help finance her treatment.
"His senseless and shocking death is incomprehensible to all of us, and this time is the most difficult," she added.
Pittman said authorities found Carter's body still holding on to the leash of his dog, a brown Doberman pinscher that was shot and wounded in the attack. The Chronicle said the dog is expected to survive.
Pittman said local residents had provided hundreds of tips, leading to the arrest of the suspects. He said it was not immediately clear when they would be returned to California.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Mohammad Zargham)
