CONROE (TX)
KTRK ABC 13
January 4, 2019
By Shelley Childers
More than two months after Father Manuel La Rosa-Lopez walked out of the Montgomery County Jail, investigators walked into the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston offices to collect evidence in their case against the Catholic priest.
In his first interview since that November raid, Montgomery County’s Special Crimes Bureau Chief Tyler Dunman said they found evidence to suggest the church was withholding information when their investigation began.
“We’ve sent several subpoenas for documents related to La Rosa-Lopez that we believed were at the Archdiocese and we received some small amount of documents back. After the search warrant, what we found was there were a great deal of more documents that were still there that they had not turned over to us,” said Dunman.
He tells ABC13 Eyewitness News they collected 15-20 boxes of documents, including paperwork from the church’s secret vault.
“It’s frustrating, because what we’ve heard is that ‘We’re going to fully cooperate and disclose,’ and all that sort of thing. That’s what we’ve heard from the church and that’s just not been our experience thus far,” Chief Dunman said.
La Rosa-Lopez is charged with four counts of indecency with a child involving two separate children while he was working at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe. Both alleged victims are now adults.
The criminal investigation began after each victim filed a report with the Conroe Police Department in August 2018.
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