By IANS/EFE,
Caracas, April 30 (IANS/EFE) An American Catholic priest has been stabbed to death in Venezuela’s Bolivar state, officials said.
Esteban Woods, 68, of Vancouver, Washington, had been serving as a priest in Venezuela for the past eight years and was the pastor of the Holy Family Church in Puerto Ordaz, the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Thursday.
“We found him gagged and stabbed on the floor of his room,” Miguel Angel Garcia, pastor of the Our Lady of Coromoto Church, was quoted as saying by Union Radio Thursday.
Woods had been in the service of the Catholic Church for more than 23 years and had fulfilled different roles in Venezuela, including vicar of the parish of Santa Cruz and chaplain of the Instituto Pedagogico in the capital city of Caracas.