Psychiatrist counters Castillo defense experts

BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

bvelliquette@heraldsun.com; 918-1042

HILLSBOROUGH -- Alvaro Castillo killed his father and shot at students at Orange High School, not because he was psychotic, but because he wanted to kill his abusive father and wanted to be remembered as a school shooter, a psychiatrist told a jury Tuesday during Castillo's trial.

Nicole Wolfe, a forensic psychiatrist, examined and tested Castillo at Dorothea Dix Hospital for several weeks in 2007 to determine if he was insane when he killed his father and shot at the students.

Castillo is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, and a psychologist and psychiatrist hired by his defense team previously testified they believed Castillo was insane and did not know what he was doing was wrong because he believed he was on a mission from God.

Wolfe, however, contradicted their findings by pointing out things he said or did as he planned and committed the crimes, and his behavior afterwards.

Although Castillo's father, Rafael Castillo, was portrayed through the previous evidence as a controlling and abusive father, Wolfe said Alvaro Castillo was able to talk his parents into letting him keep guns in the house even after he pointed a gun at his father and his father had to wrestle it away from him during his suicide attempt on April 20, 2006.

"If you're allowed to keep a weapon after it's already been pointed at you, that shows me he's not quite as controlling as he's been portrayed," Wolfe said.

Castillo also told Wolfe that his mother made him promise her something after she found the rifle and shotgun under his bed, Wolfe said.

"He said that his mother told him, 'Promise me not to do anything to me or your sisters,'" Wolfe said.

That statement was very relevant because Castillo didn't kill his mother or sisters; he killed his father, Wolfe said.

Castillo's obsession with school shootings and school shooters also was a motive for his desire to commit a Columbine-type massacre at Orange High School, Wolfe said.

He wanted to be like Eric Harris, one of the school shooters at Columbine, and like Kip Kinkel, a teenager who killed his parents in Oregon before going to his high school and shooting students there.

"He wants to be like the Columbine shooters, they named their guns after a female and so did he," Wolfe said of Castillo.

In the months leading up to Aug. 30, 2006, Castillo made a very detailed notebook about school shooters. He made a chart with the names and dates of school shootings, and he included his name and Orange High School at the bottom of the list.

"The notebook was extremely significant because it told me exactly how much time he spent studying school shootings," Wolfe said. "The main thing was that he included himself."

Wolfe also noted in a video taken by a news crew that as a deputy led Castillo from the Sheriff's Office to a car, he responded to reporters' questions. If Castillo had been psychotic at the time, it would have been unlikely he would have responded appropriately to the questions, she said.

Wolfe diagnosed Castillo as having major depression and anxiety with a schizotypal personality disorder. A schizotypal personality disorder is not treatable by medication, but rather it refers to a personality type that is often withdrawn, isolated and odd.

During a charge conference in which the attorneys discuss with the judge what the jury instructions will include, Orange-Chatham District Attorney James Woodall surprised Castillo's defense team by saying he wants the jurors to be allowed to consider the felony murder charge.

Felony murder is a murder that is committed in association with other felonies. A typical felony murder would be one in which a store clerk was murdered during an armed robbery.

Woodall argued that making the pipe bombs, sawing off the shotgun and shooting at the students at Orange High were felonies that were closely tied to the murder of Rafael Castillo.

The penalty for felony murder is life in prison, just as it is for first-degree murder.

Orange-Chatham Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour said he was taking the request under advisement. If Baddour decides the felony murder charge is appropriate, the jury will have a number of choices on the verdict sheet: guilty of first-degree murder and/or guilty of felony murder, guilty of second-degree murder, not guilty by reason of insanity or not guilty.