Courts have ruled that religious freedoms allow Santeria practitioners to include animal sacrifice in their rituals, said Juan Martinez, director of Hispanic studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. But Martinez also said ceremonial use of human bones is more typical of Santa Muerte, a Mexican folk religion often associated with drug traffickers and others involved in risky, illegal activity.
The human skull and other bones discovered in the backyard of a Pasadena home last week may have been purchased on the Internet, possibly for late-night rituals at a makeshift altar.
Police discovered the bones, including those of animals, at around 1 p.m. last Saturday while searching for a reported trespasser in the backyards of homes in the 800 block of North Oakland Avenue, an area adjacent to Madison Elementary School and the Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena.
Pasadena police Lt. Tracey Ibarra said a woman at the home where the discovery occurred told detectives that the occupants had purchased the human bones on the Internet for use in the practice of Santeria, a ritualistic faith of the Caribbean.
Occupants of the home declined to speak with reporters and several adults and young children fled the home in two vehicles on Monday night after the arrival of television news crews, the Pasadena Sun reported.
But neighbors described hearing drum music and smelling smoke and burning incense coming from the home’s backyard at night on a nearly weekly basis for years, often around midnight.
One woman said she had called authorities several times over the past seven years to complain about noise and suspected abuse of animals after finding a severed chicken head with needles stuck into it on her patio.
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