By Khalida Sarwari
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has filed eight felony charges, including murder, against a man suspected of shooting another man at a gas station and then carjacking and killing a Campbell woman during an alleged crime spree in San Jose on Friday.
Prosecutors are charging Paul Castillo, 33, of San Jose, with murder, kidnapping in the commission of a carjacking, attempted robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and causing bodily injury on a peace officer or firefighter, robbery with use of a firearm, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, and unauthorized use or theft of a vehicle.
Castillo will be arraigned on the charges in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose this afternoon.
Castillo began his alleged crime spree around 10 a.m. Friday at a Chevron gas station on Lincoln Avenue, where he allegedly approached a 42-year-old man while he was pumping gas and shot him during a robbery attempt, police Sgt. Jason Dwyer said.
The victim was taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and is expected to survive.
Castillo then allegedly fled the scene in a Nissan 300Z that had been reported stolen nine days earlier. Police later found the car at The Plant shopping center at Monterey Road and Curtner Avenue, about a mile from the gas station.
There, he allegedly carjacked 60-year-old Cindy Nguyen, a real estate agent and popular Vietnamese radio show host, around noon.
A colleague said she had called her assistant from the area on Friday afternoon to ask for help jumpstarting her car battery, but that she had called back to say some people had come by to help her. That was the last time anyone heard from Nguyen.
Castillo wasn’t seen again until six hours later, when police spotted his vehicle near a condo complex near Mabury and North King roads.
An officer fired several shots at him after he allegedly tried to run over the officer, Dwyer said. He crashed the car and fled on foot and could not be located despite an extensive search.
Nguyen’s car, a white 1997 Lexus, was found in the area and her body was found at 8 a.m. Saturday in a home in the 500 block of North 12th Street. Castillo has ties to that home, Dwyer said.
Officers searched for Castillo throughout the weekend, even using a grounded police helicopter, until they finally tracked him down in West Sacramento and took him into custody around 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
He is being held without bail at Santa Clara County Jail.
On Tuesday night, detectives served a search warrant at the Tree House Marijuana Collective in connection with the homicide and crime spree. Investigators believe that at least two people associated with the marijuana collective aided and abetted Castillo.
