By Khalida Sarwari
Nearly a year after a popular radio show host from Campbell was abducted and slain as part of a violent crime spree, the man accused of her death finally learned his fate: life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Paul Ray Castillo, 34, is expected to be sentenced on Aug. 30 after pleading guilty and no contest to nine felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, auto theft and the murder of Cindy Nguyen, a 60-year-old real estate agent and Vietnamese radio show host from Campbell.
At the time, the death of Nguyen, a single mother of three, reverberated throughout the Vietnamese community.
“As tragic and senseless as Cindy Nguyen’s death was, we are lucky that Paul Castillo did not kill anyone else,” deputy district attorney James Leonard said in a statement. “While it does not make his victims whole, the plea in this case guarantees that Paul Castillo will never return to the community to harm anyone again.”
Castillo was a parolee from San Jose with a criminal history that includes domestic violence, carjacking and drug-related offenses. He began his crime spree on Sept. 6, 2011, when he asked to test drive a San Jose man’s Nissan 300ZX and then drove off. Three days later, he pointed a gun at a woman during a road rage incident.
Three days after that, a man found Castillo breaking into his car and when he tried to stop him, Castillo got into the stolen car and tried to run him over, according to prosecutors. Two days later, he robbed another man at gunpoint, taking his iPhone, jewelry and wallet at a San Jose shopping center.
On the morning of Sept. 16, Castillo approached a 42-year-old man while he was pumping gas at a Chevron gas station on Lincoln Avenue in San Jose, and shot him when the man refused to give him his money. The man survived.
Castillo then fled in the stolen Nissan that he dumped later at The Plant shopping center at Monterey Road and Curtner Avenue, about a mile from the gas station.
There, he carjacked Nguyen around noon. According to prosecutors, a witness saw him punch her, wrestle her into her own Lexus and then drive away.
Friends of Nguyen said she had called her assistant from the area to ask for help jump-starting her car battery, but then 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 him driving the stolen Lexus near a condo complex near Mabury and North King roads. An officer fired several shots at him after he tried to run over the officer. He crashed the car and fled on foot.
Nguyen’s car, a white 1997 Lexus, was found in the area. Her body was found the following morning wrapped in a carpet in the garage of Castillo’s sister’s home on N. 12th Street. Prosecutors said she had been shot at close range in the head, with the same .357 Magnum that was used in the shooting of the man at the Chevron gas station.
Officers searched for Castillo throughout the weekend, even using a grounded police helicopter, until they tracked him down at a pizzeria in West Sacramento and took him into custody on the evening of Sept. 18.
“For a little bit more than a week, Paul Castillo terrorized and devastated our community,” said district attorney Jeff Rosen. “Now he will spend the rest of his life in prison. He will die behind bars.”
Man who murdered popular Campbell radio show host last year receives life in prison
