PHOENIX — Eight months after Osvaldo Hernandez Castillo was murdered in Phoenix, his family finally has some answers after the suspect in a recent murder was connected to his death.
The 20-year-old’s mother pleaded with a judge on Friday to keep the man suspected of killing him behind bars.
“How could he take my son’s life?” the mother said during a court hearing. “He took a part of me with him. He left me devastated, a family in pieces.”
Hernandez Castillo was found murdered inside his car on March 20th, near 25th Avenue and Dunlap Ave in Phoenix.
He was found in the driver’s seat with two gunshot wounds— one in the head and the other on his back. An investigation revealed Hernandez Castillo had been shot in the back. A shell casing was found in the backseat, along with an unfurled condom.
No one had been arrested in the case until this week, when police linked Leonardo Santiago, 21, to the murder. Detectives found a video of the killing on his cellphone while he was being investigated for the murder of Bernardo Pantaleon, according to court documents.
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Arresting documents said Santiago appeared to have lured Hernandez Castillo through Snapchat. Santiago agreed to meet up for sex with Hernandez Castillo the night of the homicide, documents said.
During a post-Miranda “warning,” Santiago admitted to killing the 20-year-old and recording the crime on his cellphone. He said that the motive for the killing was to “be recognized by others in [a] gang, money, and marijuana.”
Santiago was already in police custody when he was questioned on Dec. 7, having been detained three days prior in connection to the “brutal killing” of 30-year-old Pantaleon.
Pantaleon was found dead on Nov. 26 by a hiker on Mountain View Park and police said he suffered “significant bodily trauma."
The 30-year-old was shot multiple times, and his body was mutilated after his death, according to court documents.
Police arrested Santiago; Manuel Carrasco Calderon, 21; Jose Rodriguez, 20; and Christopher Ibarra Santana, 21, about a week after the murder. Court documents identify them as street gang members.
Detectives said Santiago shot and killed the victim. Then an hour later, he and Calderon went back to where Pantaleon’s body was abandoned and Calderon used a “knife with a brass knuckle handler to mutilate the body,” documents said.
Arresting documents said Santiago and Calderon took pictures and videos of the crime and shared the images with other gang members on a social media group chat. Rodriguez and Santana then sent those images to the victim’s family, records said.
Detectives allege the suspects detailed their plan to kill Pantaleon on the chat. They planned to murder the 30-year-old on Nov. 24, “however, they lamented the victim passed out,” the court document said.
It was the following night whenPantaleon was murdered.
“Members of the chat repeatedly asked for updates, lamented they were not invited, asked to see video/photograph proof, and one codefendant offered to hide [Santiago] after the murder was completed,” arresting documents said.
Days after the murder, the suspects “made derogatory remarks regarding the victim’s sexuality and a derogatory statement about homosexuals not being allowed in the northside” in the group chat, records said.
Pantaleon was part of the LGBTQ community.
The victims were killed three miles away from each other. The suspects lived near or around that area, according to arrest documents.
“I just want justice for my son,” Hernandez Castillo’s mother said when Santiago faced a judge for the new charges in his death. “Eight months had to pass when he had to kill another boy so that my son’s murder could be found. I don’t want him to get out.”
The suspects face a series of charges, including 1st degree murder, being a part of a street gang, and crimes against a dead person.