Alvaro Castillo

After Morgan agreed to the date, Castillo smiled and tossed a slight wave over his shoulders to the courtroom before being led out of the back of the building to a sheriff's car.

Woodall says Castillo's mother did --not-- want her son to face the death penalty.

Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall is expected to announce Wednesday whether Alvaro Castillo, 19, of Hillsborough, will pursue the death penalty or time in prison.

Detectives said Castillo sent a homemade video tape and a letter to a local newspaper the same day of the incident. On the tape, Castillo seems to become animated and agitated when talking about alleged abuse at the hands of his father.

Investigators also said Castillo sent an e-mail about the alleged rampage to the principal at Columbine High School, where two gunmen shot 13 people before killing themselves in April 1999. In the e-mail, Castillo reveals his obsession with that massacre.

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. - A teen jailed on charges he fatally shot his father before opening fire at his former high school was able to buy two guns even though he was nearly involuntarily committed to a mental hospital just months earlier because of his suicide threats.

Instead, Alvaro Castillo agreed after the involuntary commitment process had started to admit himself to the hospital. That allowed him to retain his right to buy a gun.

For nearly 40 years, federal law has made it illegal to knowingly sell guns to a person who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution or otherwise been found by a judge to be mentally ill.

The difference between those who get involuntary and voluntary treatment often is small, but it can have potentially huge consequences, said Mark Botts, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government.

North Carolina law encourages authorities to persuade a person to consent to treatment even when the person is considered dangerous and eligible for involuntary treatment.

But when consent is given, the state no longer has control over the duration of the person's treatment because willing patients are allowed to voluntarily discharge themselves, Botts said.

CHAPEL HILL -- Rafael Huezo Castillo, who was allegedly shot by his son, Alvaro Castillo, died of multiple gunshot wounds to his head and neck, according to an autopsy report.

The autopsy report, released Wednesday by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, also states that multiple notes were left in the house in which Alvaro Castillo took credit for the shootings.

The autopsy report reveals that Rafael Castillo was sitting on the couch in a pair of boxer shorts and a white T-shirt between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., when his son allegedly began firing at him with a 9 mm rifle. An investigator at the sheriff's office said it appeared the elder Castillo was reading a newspaper at the time of the shooting.

One shot hit Rafael Castillo on top of his left shoulder, and five shots hit him in the left side of his face. One shot struck him in his left ear and then entered his skull. The tracks of the wounds were from left to right and slightly back to front in a downward direction, the report said. No powder residue was present on the skin around any of the wounds.

The bullets caused multiple skull fractures, massive disruption to the brain and destroyed the brainstem, the report said.

Investigators knew in April that a teenager now accused of killing his father before opening fire outside Orange High School was fascinated with school shootings, according to a high-school acquaintance who received a video from him saying he was going to kill himself.
Alvaro Castillo sent Anna Rose the video last spring. It came in the mail April 22, two days after Castillo was picked up by Orange County Sheriff's deputies and committed to a local hospital after his parents reported that he was suicidal.

Rose was away at college when the video arrived at her family's home, but her mother, Bonnie, immediately called 911 when her son started watching it that night. A deputy came to get the tape.

Rose's brother played some of the video over the phone to her that night, and she was so scared she didn't return home for a couple of months, she said.

Rose said in an interview Wednesday that she met with Lt. Larry Faucette at the Orange County Sheriff's Office a few days later and Faucette showed her Castillo's journal, which included photographs of her and detailed his admiration for the shooters in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo.

The day that Castillo was committed, April 20, was the seven-year anniversary of those shootings, in which two high school boys killed 13 people before killing themselves.

Rose said Faucette told her that he had read the journal and that Castillo was "sick" and would be in the hospital for a long time.

But a few days after that, Rose said, Faucette called to say that Castillo had been released.

"I kept saying, 'Please don't let him go, he's not stable no matter what they think,' " Rose said.

Castillo had a high school crush on Rose. In a video mailed to The Chapel Hill News last week, he brandished a gun with her name on it. The video also showed a second gun labeled Arlene.

Someone from the sheriff's office might have approached Castillo, according to a letter that arrived at the Roses' home after the Orange High School shooting. Castillo wrote to Anna Rose that he knew her "parents are scared."

"The sheriff told me you went to the police department so I would not bother you again. I kept my word," he wrote.

In the letter, dated Aug. 27 and postmarked the day of the school shooting, Castillo also said he would "die in three days or so," and that he wouldn't "go after" Rose's little sister, who is enrolled at Orange High School.

Bonnie Rose said she couldn't understand why the system could not do more to protect her daughter and family.

"That's why I sent an e-mail asking people to pray," Bonnie Rose said. "I realized that was the only protection we had, is if God protected us."

The mother of Alvaro Castillo says her husband was not abusive, as her son claims in the video on which he confesses to killing his father.

Victoria Castillo spoke through a neighbor who is helping the family amid weekend funeral arrangements for Rafael Huezo Castillo.

"I asked Vicki, `Did he abuse y'all?' " said Tim Fluet, who lives on a four-home gravel road near the Castillo family in Hillsborough.

"She said no."

But Victoria Castillo did say her husband, who was a night janitor at Oak Grove Elementary School in Durham, was "very demanding verbally" and spanked the children "sometimes," Fluet said.

Fluet said he never detected abuse in the family.

"Honestly, knowing Mr. Castillo and just being with him, I don't believe it," he said. "I came from an abusive home. I know what abuse is."

A former employer also spoke highly of Rafael Castillo, who Fluet said was from El Salvador.

Southwest Elementary School Principal Ari Cohen said Rafael Castillo was hardworking and friendly during the three years he cleaned his Durham school before transferring this summer to Oak Grove.

"He was an evening custodian so he didn't have a lot of interaction with staff, but when he did he had friendly conversations," Cohen said. "He was outgoing and enjoyed talking with staff."

Handguns, shotguns and rifles.

Those are what Alvaro Castillo listed as his general interests on his Myspace.com page.

He also wrote that he likes cooking, cleaning, singing and target practice.

Under Alvaro's "pics" is a photograph that depicts him holding a pair of scissors above another male's head as if he was going to stab him. The caption reads, "Attempted Murder. Are you scared? Ha ha."

The 19-year-old lists his heroes on his site. They include "God, Mom, Dad, Victoria..."

He also writes that he would most like to meet John Hinckley Jr., Tom Hanks, Michael Moore and God.

Officials with the North Carolina National Guard said Thursday that Castillo entered the Guard as a recruit in 2004 and completed basic combat training in August 2005. He was never deployed and was being processed out of the guard after being determined to be medically disqualified for military service, according to the statement.

The Guard declined to comment on why Castillo was medically disqualified, citing confidentiality laws.

But according to court records released Thursday, Castillo was involuntarily committed to a state mental hospital on April 20 - the seventh anniversary of the Columbine attack - after he told his family he was going to kill himself with a shotgun.

Deputies took him into custody and "he stated that he was not going to go back into the Army and was going to kill himself," an affidavit attached to the commitment order said.

Castillo was released from the hospital eight days later, according to court records.

HILLSBOROUGH - On a homemade video, Alvaro Castillo confesses to shooting his father four times, then walks into a room and records the sheet-draped corpse.

"Look at me. I'm not even crying. I just killed him, and I feel fine," the Hillsborough teenager says into the camera.

"I'm not afraid anymore," he says in the video's final scene. "I have to die."

The tape, along with a handwritten letter, arrived at the office of The Chapel Hill News on Thursday, the day after Castillo was arrested and charged with a shooting at Orange High School, and told sheriff's deputies he had killed his father.

In the video, Castillo holds the camera close to his face and says he plans to kill himself and his father. Later, the teenager records a body slumped on a sofa. Two bare legs stick out from under a blood-flecked sheet.

Most of the hour-plus video shows Castillo aiming the camera at a small television playing violent movies. They include "Scarface," "Predator," "The Shining," "Natural Born Killers" and a documentary, "Zero Hour: Massacre at Columbine High."

Castillo narrates the violence, sometimes chiming in word-for-word with actors. He repeatedly uses the mute button to silence profanity.

Grisly scenes prompt a throaty laugh.

"Beautiful," Castillo says, during "Scarface's" final bloody scene, when the lead character floats dead in a swimming pool.

On the video, Castillo notes that he first watched these movies when he was 8 to 10 years old. He taped them, he says, to show how violent the world is.

Castillo also says on the video that his father slapped -- but never punched -- his head, back and rear. His father disciplined his mother "like a child," he says.

The letter also claims abuse: "His threats and abuse took their toll on me."

In another scene, Castillo cocks a shotgun and puts the barrel in his mouth, then points it at the camera. The word "Arlene" is written on a scrap of paper taped to the weapon.

Castillo says his suicide would be "the perfect instant killing."

Near the end of the video, Castillo addresses the parents of the students he plans to kill, displaying a shotgun shell and a 9 mm bullet. He encourages parents to shoot themselves and reunite with their children in the afterlife.

"Once again, parents, I'm sorry about this. I'm sorry about the pain you'll go through," Castillo says. "If you want to be with your children, go with them."

Castillo pants in front of the camera, describing his father's killing.

Before turning off the camera, he says, "It's time."

We were selective, however. We decided not to do what Castillo had asked in his letter -- simply make the tape public and allow him, in the letter writer's mind, to join the high school violence pantheon. Instead, we chose the four brief clips that illustrated the progress of the video and complemented the rest of our reporting.

We did not excerpt the graphic sections of the video (where he shows the camera his father's body, for instance) or scenes where he clearly seeks to glamorize his actions.

We will not post the entire video, nor will we give copies to other media. We will work with the AP to make one of the excerpts available to other news outlets.

Investigators say Castillo was obsessed with Columbine. During a search of the Castillo home on Lipps Lane in Hillsborough, deputies found a diary entitled "Mass Murders and School Shootings of the 20th and 21st Centuries," as well as directions to the homes of the Columbine school shooters.

Eyewitness News has learned that the Castillo family knew of this obsession, saying Alvaro Castillo identified with the deep depression of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, but never anticipated it could lead to violence.