Tribe prepares to bury 5 slain members in Calif

Source: AP-Excite

By TRACIE CONE

PORTERVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Gravediggers work the old-fashioned way on the Tule River Indian Reservation, chipping away at the hard pan by hand with pickaxes and shoveling the dirt aside. They say it's a sign of respect not to use machinery, but never has the crew had to dig so many graves at one time.

On Monday, the brothers who run the reservation cemetery were preparing to dig a grave for Alyssa Celaya, 8, who died Sunday following a rampage the previous day that also took the lives of her grandmother and the grandmother's two brothers. It will be the first of five they'll dig this week.

The killings have shaken this peace-preaching tribe because it goes against their teachings that love for family exists above all.

Authorities said the killer was Alyssa's father, Hector Celaya, 31, who died Sunday after a shootout with sheriff's deputies. Investigators were still searching for a motive.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20121211/DA337F1G2.html

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Members of the Tule River Indian Reservation Fire Department help to dig the grave Monday Dec. 10, 2012 of a tribal member who died recently of natural causes. Afterward, they said they would move to the other side of the colorfully decorated cemetery for the somber task of digging a grave for 8-year-old Alyssa Celaya, who was murdered along with her grandmother and two other relatives on Sunday. Her father, 31-year-old Hector Celaya, is suspected in the killings and died in a shootout with Tulare County sheriff's deputies. The men said that they dig graves by hand instead of using backhoes or other machinery "out of respect." But never have they had to dig so many at once. All told, 5 residents of the reservation are dead. (AP Photo/Tracie Cone)