Cheri Domingo—Gregory Sanchez Romantic Relationship

Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez’s romance was a long, circular courtship that repeatedly broke apart and resumed before ending in the violence at Cheri’s home. Their connection brought together genuine affection, incompatible expectations, and a persistent hope of marriage; even after Cheri had decided to move on, their final meeting placed them together on the night of the attack.

Origins and a Circular Courtship

Cheri and Gregory first met in the late 1970s, when both worked for Burroughs Corporation. They dated on and off from 1977 through 1981, returning to one another often enough that the relationship’s endings could be mistaken for pauses. When they finally split, Debbi Domingo assumed they were taking another break. That uncertainty was characteristic of a partnership whose course, for four years, repeatedly turned back on itself.

Gregory was eight years younger than Cheri, and the difference sometimes seemed to shape their opposing expectations. He was preoccupied with proving his masculinity: he rode a motorcycle, drove a Camaro with racing stripes, coached Little League and Pop Warner football, and filled his apartment’s spare bedroom with high-end stereo equipment. He was fit, carefully dressed, and, like Cheri, meticulous about looking after what he owned. Both had grown up without much and took care of what they had. Yet their shared attentiveness to possessions did not resolve the more personal impasse between them. Cheri waited for Gregory to grow up; Gregory waited for Cheri to relax. Eventually, both began seeing other people.

Marriage, Affection, and the Prospect of Moving On

The relationship had been Cheri’s closest prospect of love since her divorce, though her friend Ellen never knew Gregory personally. Ellen once saw him slip into Cheri’s office and remembered him as tall, handsome, dark-haired, and immaculately put together. By the time Ellen and Cheri became friends, the relationship had already begun and ended repeatedly; Cheri had recently decided it was over. The account presents that decision alongside her renewed search for companionship: she tried personal ads and professional dating services, went on a few stiff dates at downtown restaurants, and laughed when a man called her office and left the name “Marco Polo.”

Cheri still wanted to marry again. To Ellen, she seemed an old-fashioned romantic, drawn to an idealized image of a couple walking hand in hand along a beach at sunset. Gregory, meanwhile, had proposed to her repeatedly. He later told Debbi that Cheri would never marry him, because she believed she was too old for him. Debbi thought that explanation was ridiculous. The difference between Gregory’s repeated proposals and Cheri’s stated reluctance leaves the relationship’s central mismatch unresolved: he was asking for a future she did not believe was possible, while she continued to seek the kind of lasting romance she imagined elsewhere.

Gregory was also part of Debbi’s life, not only Cheri’s. He had been close to her and treated her well, occupying a place more like an older brother than a father figure. He teasingly called her “Debra D”; she corrected him that her name was not Debra, and he persisted. That familiar, affectionate bond made his departure especially painful. When Burroughs Corporation announced in June 1981 that it would close its Santa Barbara division, Gregory planned to look for work at the company’s Florida branch. In July, while Debbi was living at the Klein Bottle Crisis Shelter, he invited her to lunch and told her himself that he was moving, because he knew learning it later would shatter her. Hearing the news directly did not make it hurt less.

The Final Turn

Gregory had met Tabitha Silver in May. They lived in the same apartment complex; after he had dated her friend Cynthia, she introduced them. The new relationship deepened quickly, and Gregory was startled by how serious it seemed after less than three weeks. His connection with Tabitha therefore developed while his history with Cheri remained emotionally consequential: he had told Debbi that he had proposed to Cheri many times, even as he was beginning a new relationship.

Gregory returned from Florida on July 23 and immediately called Tabitha to say he had decided to stay in California. He missed his friends and family, and, with Tabitha’s birthday only days away, invited her to Santa Barbara for the weekend. On Saturday they spent the day together, and he hinted at proposing. The following night, when Tabitha appeared at his door, Gregory changed their plans at the last minute: he said he would spend the evening with a friend. That friend was Cheri.

A neighbor of Cheri’s heard a gunshot, then a woman speaking to someone in a controlled, unemotional voice, apparently saying, “Take it easy.” It was probably the last thing Cheri ever said. Investigators later theorized that the bedroom door scraping against the shag rug alerted Gregory to an intruder, and that he fought with the killer. The account does not turn their final meeting into a reconciliation or explain what passed between them that night. Instead, the abrupt change of plans is the last known hinge in their relationship: after years of breakups and returns, Gregory chose to see Cheri, and the meeting became inseparable from the attack that ended her life.