Samuel Davalos Pasillas, a 47-year-old California pastor, was recently arrested for allegedly paying to men to kill his daughter’s boyfriend.

Last week, Riverside police arrested Samuel Pasillas after gathering enough evidence that he had ordered the attempted murder of the man dating his own daughter. The hit took place on October 21, 2023, in Riverside. The victim was sitting in his car when he was shot multiple times from a vehicle that pulled up alongside his. The shooters quickly drove away, but the victim survived by driving himself to a nearby hospital. He couldn’t provide investigators with too much information about his would-be killers, but five months later, police concluded that the incident was a “murder-for-hire shooting” orchestrated by his girlfriend’s father, Pastor Pasillas.

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“He actually provided information to these suspects that he hired,” Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback told ABC Eyewitness News. “He paid them almost $40,000.”

Police arrested Pasillas and one of the alleged hit men, 55-year-old Juan Manuel Cebreros of Long Beach, but they are still looking for the third suspect, one Jesus Abel Felix Garcia. Both Pasillas and Cebreros pleaded not guilty during a joint arraignment at the Riverside Hall of Justice, but they are being held for $1 million bail at the Robert Presley Jail until their felony settlement conference on March 26.

 

Sources from the Riverside Police Department told reporters that Pastor Pasillas had met with the two alleged gunmen, paid them $40,000, and provided information on the victim’s whereabouts the night of the shooting. As for the reason for wanting the man dead, Pasillas allegedly didn’t approve of his daughter dating him, and since he couldn’t convince her to break up with him, he went for the most extreme approach.