Amy Castillo of Silver Spring spoke publicly Thursday for the first time since the slaying of her three children, tears welling up as she described her frustrations with the court system that she said failed to keep her suicidal husband, Mark, away from her three children.
“I do feel like there were times when some people would not listen to me,” Castillo said speaking at the McLean Bible Church in Tysons Corner, Va. “There were situations when I thought I’d say I told you so; unfortunately I told you so doesn’t bring much relief.”
In the weeks leading up to the deaths of Anthony, 6, Austin, 4, and Athena, 2, Castillo said her husband had been going through a stressful period, the type of situation that doctors said in court documents could push him into a downward spiral. A judge had ordered Mark Castillo to start paying child support in February, and he had lost the use of the family van after it had fallen into disrepair.
On Sunday morning, Mark Castillo, 41, who reportedly downed 100 Motrin pills and tried to slit his throat Saturday night after drowning his children, told paramedics, “I know what I did was bad. … I drowned the kids last night around 6 p.m.,” according to court documents. He has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bail and is under suicide watch.
The husband and wife had been in the midst of a custody battle for nearly two years as they moved through the divorce process.
Amy Castillo had repeatedly tried to get a court order to prevent Mark from seeing their children, but in January 2007 Montgomery Circuit Judge Joseph Dugan ruled the father could see his kids and that psychological analysis provided by court-appointed therapists showed no signs of acute danger, despite Castillo having been committed to a mental hospital in June 2007 for threatening to commit suicide. His wife said that just a month before that ruling, Castillo threatened to kill their children.
On Thursday, Amy Castillo had this advice for women in similar situations: “Be aggressive and proactive and do what you think is right, even if it doesn’t fit with what the court is saying.”
