A TANTRA TEACHER who made DVDs on yoga for lovers and taught classes at a clothing-optional retreat was found shot dead on a hiking trail in Northern California this week.
Steve Carter, 67, was still holding onto the leash of his wounded dog, authorities said.
Carter and his wife, Lokita founded the Ecstatic Living Institute based in Middletown, a town about 100 miles north of San Francisco.
A hiker found Carter’s body on Monday evening along a scenic trail about 20 miles north of San Francisco, the Marin County Sheriff’s Department said.
His Doberman pinscher also was shot, but it survived and was turned over to an animal welfare group, Lieutenant Doug Pittman said.
As a tantra teacher, Steve Carter participated in training sessions across the U.S. and in Canada and Costa Rica.
The couple released DVDs on tantric massage and intimacy, yoga for lovers and meditation.
They also taught classes at Harbin Hot Springs, a clothing-optional retreat in the Middletown mountains that burned down in a recent wildfire.
Detectives had been looking for three people of interest in the killing of 67-year-old Steve Carter, and on Wednesday made arrests.
Morrison Haze Lampley (22), Sean Michael Angold (24), and 18-year-old Lila Scott Allgood were arrested 600 miles up the Pacific coast, in Portland, Oregon.
According to Marin County Sheriff Doug Pittman, the weapon believed to have been used in Carter’s murder was recovered during the course of the arrests.
Logan Rose, director of the Ecstatic Living Institute, said the Carters recently led retreats for couples in Costa Rica and had come back to California so Lokita Carter could receive breast cancer treatments.
It has been a very traumatic season for us with Lokita’s cancer, then the Valley Fire that destroyed our beloved Harbin Hot Springs where we offered the majority of our workshops.
This is the most devastating blow. We are heartbroken.
Carter’s brother, Michael Carter, said he knew of no one who disliked his brother.
“I can’t imagine that it’s anything other than a random thing,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. ”
All of it seems very random and unbelievable. Nothing makes any sense.
Lokita Carter, who started a GoFundMe page in July to help with the costs of her cancer treatment, wrote yesterday that she was “shattered, shocked and enraged.”
I am beyond devastated to face this situation while already going through intensive breast cancer treatment.
His senseless and shocking death is incomprehensible to all of us, and this time is the most difficult.
Please hold Steve and me close to your hearts and in your prayers. I am shattered, shocked, enraged and so so sad.
Contains reporting by the Associated Press
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