Castillo v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 04 June 2019 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 0140-17-4 |
| Citation | 827 S.E.2d 790,70 Va.App. 394 |
| Parties | Braulio Marcelo CASTILLO, s/k/a Braulio Marcello Castillo v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia |
| Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
Thomas K. Plofchan, Jr. (Westlake Legal Group, on briefs), for appellant.
Eugene P. Murphy, Senior Assistant Attorney General (Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Chief Judge Decker,* Judge Malveaux and Senior Judge Haley
OPINION BY JUDGE MARY BENNETT MALVEAUX
Braulio M. Castillo ("appellant") was convicted of first-degree murder, in violation of Code § 18.2-32, burglary with the intent to commit murder, in violation of Code § 18.2-90, and violation of a protective order, in violation of Code § 16.1-253.2. On appeal, he challenges several of the trial court’s decisions: (1) the denial of his motion to sever the protective order violation and the admission of the protective order; (2) the refusal to strike Juror Colbert for cause and to properly examine Juror Anderson; (3) the finding that he waived attorney-client privilege concerning notes found on his iPhone; (4) the admission of "cadaver dog" evidence; (5) the denial of motions for mistrial based upon prosecutorial misconduct; (6) allowing for the testimony of a child via closed-circuit television; (7) the admission of testimony regarding his exercise of his right to remain silent; (8) the limitation of cross-examination of certain Commonwealth witnesses; (9) the denial of his motion to set aside the verdict based upon a Brady violation; and (10) the refusal to review notes from an interview in camera . Finding no error, we affirm.
Appellant and the victim, Michelle Castillo, were married and lived in a home in Ashburn, Virginia. They had four minor children, V.C., J.C., Z.C., and B.C., and an adult child, Nicholas, who lived away from home at college. The victim and appellant separated in March 2013. At that time, the victim petitioned for and was granted a protective order on behalf of herself and the minor children. The order required appellant to "refrain from committing further acts of family abuse." The protective order also gave the victim legal custody of the children and possession of the marital residence. Appellant was allowed to see the children for dinner on Wednesday nights and on every other weekend but was prohibited from entering the residence.
Two to four weeks after entry of the protective order, the victim filed for divorce. She requested spousal support and child support. Her divorce attorney described the divorce as "hotly contested," and testified that he believed the victim was eligible for a combined total of $ 14,000 to $ 20,000 a month in child support and spousal support. On March 14, 2014, the parties appeared in court for a pendente lite hearing, which was continued to May. The victim’s demeanor in court on March 14 was "happy," and she was observed smiling and laughing.
The following day, the victim, who had trained as a triathlete after separating from appellant, ran a marathon and qualified for the Boston Marathon. She planned to compete in an Iron Man competition in November 2014, and her friends stated that she was excited about her plans and upcoming travel.
On the evening of March 19, 2014, the victim met several members of her triathlon team at a restaurant. She appeared happy and excited that she had qualified for the Boston Marathon. The victim left the restaurant to pick up her children from visitation with appellant.
The minor children had been visiting appellant for dinner that night at his house, which was approximately a thousand yards from the victim’s home. Lucy Fuentes, appellant’s sister, was also at the dinner, and she left appellant’s house at 8:05 p.m. and drove the children to meet the victim at a Harris Teeter grocery store a few miles away.
Security footage from a neighbor’s house showed a male jogger arriving at the victim’s home and walking up the driveway about ten minutes before the victim arrived with the children. Although the jogger’s face is unidentifiable from the video, Nicholas Castillo and David and Stephanie Meeker, friends of the Castillos, identified the jogger as appellant based on the jogger’s unusual gait.
The following morning, the children woke up and discovered the victim was missing. In the victim’s bedroom, J.C. noted that the bed had been made up "messily" and without the victim’s usual care. Several other witnesses also testified that the bed was not made in the manner typical of the victim. J.C. had to pick the locks to enter the victim’s bathroom, where he found the shower running with no one in it. J.C. called appellant and told him he could not find the victim.
A little after 7:00 a.m., appellant knocked on the door of the victim’s neighbor, Ahmed Qureshi, and told him that the victim was missing. Qureshi noticed that appellant was wearing sunglasses and that it appeared there was "something around" his left eye. Because appellant was prohibited from entering the victim’s home, he asked Qureshi to accompany him to the residence. There, Qureshi quickly checked the exterior before entering to find appellant upstairs examining the victim’s bedroom. After appellant came downstairs and joined the children in the kitchen, Qureshi asked J.C. if anyone had searched the basement. Appellant responded that they had already searched that area. Qureshi stated that they needed to call 911, but appellant told him that he needed to get the children to school and left with them. Qureshi returned home, called 911, and reported that the victim was missing.
Law enforcement officers arrived at the residence and searched the basement, where they discovered the victim hanging from a shower head in a bathroom. The victim was wearing a sweatshirt.
Detective Mark McCaffrey with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office and the lead investigator in the case, called appellant that morning and told him that he needed to speak with him about the victim’s disappearance. Appellant stated that he was taking care of his son and would call back. McCaffrey drove to appellant’s house and informed him of the victim’s death. Appellant expressed no emotion when he learned this information and did not ask any questions about the circumstances of his wife’s death. McCaffrey noticed that appellant had a black eye and a fresh scrape under his eye.
The medical examiner, Dr. Constance DiAngelo, testified that the manner in which the victim died was inconsistent with suicide. DiAngelo found multiple bruises and abrasions on the victim’s body and stated that such bruises were "very, very unusual" in suicide cases. She also stated that it was very unusual to find a suicide victim’s hair underneath the noose, as in this case. DiAngelo opined that the injuries to the victim’s neck and face indicated that she died as a result of suffocation and strangulation involving elements of both manual and ligature strangulation. DiAngelo testified that she found two ligature marks on the victim’s neck: a deeper, horizontal mark that was consistent with strangulation at the time of death, and a more shallow mark with a different orientation which was consistent with the victim being hung in the shower after death.
The Virginia Department of Forensic Science analyzed bloodstains found on the victim’s bed linens and the sweatshirt she was wearing and identified the presence of appellant’s DNA. One of the victim’s friends identified the sweatshirt as belonging to the victim. The victim’s housekeeper testified that she had not seen appellant in the home following the issuance of the protective order a year earlier.
Two victim recovery dogs were deployed inside the victim’s home seventeen days after her death. Morse, commonly referred to as a "cadaver dog," was trained to alert to the odor of human decomposition and large quantities of dried blood; Keela, the second dog, was trained to detect the odor of smaller quantities of dried blood. Morse immediately alerted to the basement bathroom where the victim’s body was found and later alerted to a carpeted area at the base of the victim’s bed. Keela was "detailed" to the carpeted area where Morse had alerted, but she did not alert. She only alerted to the victim’s underwear drawer.
A crime scene investigator with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office testified that he was unable to obtain fingerprints from the walls of the basement shower despite the fact that ceramic tile similar to the ones in the shower typically made obtaining prints easy. Nicholas Castillo testified that he had visited his mother and used her basement shower the weekend before her death.
On March 21, 2014, the day after the victim’s body was discovered, appellant called his orthodontist to report that he had a broken braces bracket and to schedule an appointment to repair it. The orthodontist testified that a bracket will become loose after external pressure or force is applied to either the tooth or the bracket.
J.C., who was eleven at the time of trial, testified that in the year preceding the victim’s death, appellant had asked him for the passcode to the victim’s home security system. The victim had changed the code after appellant moved out. J.C. gave appellant the code, but then told the victim, who changed it again. When appellant later inquired about the passcode, J.C. refused to provide it, even after appellant told him that he would give him a gold coin in order to obtain the code. J.C. stated that his refusal to provide the code angered appellant.
Z.C., who was eight at the time of trial, testified that on the night of March 19, 2014, he returned to the victim’s home after dinner at appellant’s house and slept with the victim for part of the night, but then went to sleep with his brother J.C. He left his blanket in the victim’s bed. Z.C. testified that appellant brought him his blanket that night while he was in J.C.’s room.
Eight days after the victim’s death, appellant filed a motion to dissolve the...
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