He held their heads under water in the bathtub, police say, until his three young children breathed no more.
Then, according to charging documents, Mark Anthony Castillo stabbed himself in the neck with a steak knife and downed 100 Motrin pills to try to kill himself before passing out near his children?s corpses in a 10th-floor room at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards.
When Castillo awoke the next afternoon, police say, he called the hotel?s front desk to confess what he had done.
Then, charging documents state, Castillo, 41, of Rockville, told paramedics when they entered the room: “I know what I did was bad. I did it. I drown the kids last night around 6 p.m.”
After his release from the University of Maryland Medical Center on Monday, Castillo was charged by police with the first-degree murder of his sons, Anthony, 6, and Austin, 4, and daughter Athena, 2. (Click here to read the charging documents.)
“Cases like this one are difficult,” city Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld said. “They have an incredible emotional impact on everyone involved.”
Mayor Sheila Dixon said the deaths underscore the need to try to identify and help people with mental illness. “This tragedy not only makes one wonder and question why someone would do such an act, but it also emphasizes the fact that mental health and how we deal with mental health is a huge, huge problem,” she said.
“We will be asking ourselves, ?Why, why could someone do this??”
Castillo took his children to the Inner Harbor on Saturday before checking into the hotel at 5 p.m., police said. He and his estranged wife, Amy Castillo, a pediatrician, fought over custody of their children, court documents show. When Mark Castillo, a gymnastics coach,didn?t return his children to their mother when he was supposed to at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Amy Castillo repeatedly called Montgomery County police.
A man who sounded as though he was crying declined to comment when he answered the phone Monday at Amy Castillo?s Silver Spring home.
Melody Wikoff, Mark Castillo?s ex-wife, with whom he has a 20-year-old daughter, sounded shaken when reached Monday at her job at a Missouri school.
“It was a shock,” she said. “We have one child together, but I don?t want to talk about this.”
Amy Castillo?s friends issued a statement requesting privacy:
“Amy Castillo asks for your continued prayers during this unspeakably difficult time. She is surrounded by family and friends and is coping as well as can be expected. We ask that members of the press respect Amy?s privacy as she bears this solitary cross.”
