Jury deliberations begin in sanity trial for man who killed grandparents
Jury deliberations got underway today in the sanity trial for a 37-year-old man who, in the midst of his trial, pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his octogenarian grandparents inside a gated community in Palm Desert more than four years ago.
Frank Scott Castro III pleaded guilty Dec. 4, 2023, to two counts of murder, along with a special-circumstance allegation of perpetrating multiple killings and sentence-enhancing allegations of discharging a firearm causing great bodily injury.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony Villalobos said that if he is determined to have been sane at the time of the crime, Castro III could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, otherwise, he will be sent to a state hospital for mental health treatment.
Castro III was arrested in September 2019 for the killings of Frank Castro Sr., 83, and Carolina Castro, 81, whose bodies were found in their home in the 43000 block of West Calle Las Brisas.
Deputies responded at about 2 p.m. Sept. 11, 2019, to the West Calle Las Brisas address on reports of gunfire, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. Deputies found the two victims shot to death inside the residence, and the defendant standing at the front of the property.
The defendant waited on the patio for law enforcement and surrendered without incident, according to a trial brief. As Central Homicide Unit investigators attempted to interview him, he told them that he had used methamphetamine and had been up for 72 hours.
A black semiautomatic handgun was found on the kitchen counter of the home, according to the brief.
Deputy District Attorney Samantha Paixao and Castro's defense attorney David Kaloyanides delivered their closing arguments in the sanity phase of the trial Thursday at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.
Kaloyanides told jurors to pay attention to testimony from two experts, one who was focused primarily on moral wrong and whether the defendant understood that his actions were morally wrong and the other who said that, in addition to that, the defendant was unable to understand the nature of his actions.
"It's important to realize that in this phase, the two witnesses -- the two experts -- had some differing opinions about how they reached their conclusion. But their conclusion was the same,'' Kaloyanides said. "Mr. Castro was not legally sane. He was suffering from a mental disease."
He asked jurors to make the decision for themselves, that Castro III had a mental disease and was incapable of understanding the nature of his actions or couldn't understand what was legally or morally wrong.
Paixao began her argument by telling jurors that sometimes we put someone in a box when we don't understand why they did something, so that we can think that it won't happen again.
"Sometimes there are no reasons apart from, they just made a despicable, awful decision. And on September 11, (2019) the defendant made that horrible, despicable decision to kill his grandparents,'' Paixao said. "And it wasn't just kill, right? He shot them in the head. He shot his grandfather three times and his grandmother three times."
Jurors were asked to consider every step the defendant took and remembered from when he chose the lighter of two guns he had at his home, to when he shot each grandparent three times aiming at their head before calling 911. Paixao said that Castro III showed no prior signs of a mental crisis because his home was clean, he told a dispatcher that he was not hearing voices, and he could recall the past three days including when he killed his grandparents.
She contended that Castro III, instead of being insane could have been on meth, and that he made deliberate choices with his sanity intact. She said that the defendant drove to the home with a gun, didn't park abruptly and first shot the bigger person, his grandfather, before waiting 20 minutes to call the police, during which he could have also been building his defense.
Paixao added that the final opinion of the two experts wasn't consistent as defense council had said, because they returned with two different possible diagnoses.
She concluded her argument by telling jurors that Castro III killed his grandparents for no reason and no explanation could justify it, not even the threat of future harm that he claimed, so she told jurors she was confident that they would come back with the decision knowing that people do bad things even if we don't know why.
Kaloyanides rebutted the argument by telling jurors that Paixao was trying to place mental illness into a perfect little box, which is not how it works, and that his client was being painted as this evil man when Castro III, instead of fleeing the scene, realized what he had done and called 911 telling them that he doesn't want to hurt anybody but that he just hurt his grandparents.
He added that the experts probable diagnoses for Castro III were not inconsistent, as it makes sense for someone who published a dissertation on Schizophrenia to rule it out. The doctor said Castro III had more symptoms resembling bipolar disorder with psychotic features, which are similar to schizophrenic symptoms.
Jurors began deliberating shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday.
Castro III remains in custody without bail at the John Benoit Detention Center in Indio.
He has no prior documented felony convictions in Riverside County, court records show.
