Taped confession to child deaths played in court
Court Alerts
A Maryland man calmly described to detectives how he methodically drowned his three young children by holding them underwater in a hotel bathtub for 10 minutes each — a confession that was recorded by police and played in court Wednesday.
Mark A. Castillo, 43, of Rockville faces trial on three counts of first-degree murder in the March 2008 deaths of his children: 6-year-old Anthony, 4-year-old Austin and 2-year-old Athena. His attorneys contend that he is not criminally responsible for the slayings — Maryland's version of an insanity plea.
Castillo's attorneys are trying to prevent his two statements to police from being admitted as evidence at trial. Prosecutors played a tape of the first of those statements for the judge Wednesday to verify its authenticity. The jury has not yet been chosen.
Asked by homicide Detective Raymond Yost why he killed his children, Castillo let out a long sigh before describing a custody battle with his former wife.
"We've been going through an extremely hard divorce. ... My wife had denied my visitation," Castillo said. "I felt like I didn't want them to be in this world anymore."
Castillo described how he took his children to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore and then checked into a Marriott hotel downtown.
Related listings
-
Jury to deliver verdict in NYC Astor trial
Court Alerts 10/08/2009A court spokesman says jurors have a verdict in the criminal trial over the handling of New York philanthropist Brooke Astor's fortune.Courts spokesman David Bookstaver says the jury notified a judge Thursday that it had reached a decision in its 11t...
-
Age bias bill responds to Supreme Court ruling
Court Alerts 10/07/2009Democrats want to counter a recent Supreme Court ruling that makes it harder for older workers to prove they are the victims of age discrimination.The Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony Wednesday on a bill that would effectively nullify ...
-
Former Yale lab tech appears in court, hearing set
Court Alerts 10/06/2009A former Yale University lab technician charged with strangling a graduate student and stuffing her body behind a laboratory wall appeared in court Tuesday, but did not enter a plea to murder.Twenty-four-year-old Raymond Clark III appeared in an oran...
Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.