Mother, Girl Shot to Death in Courthouse

A 9-year-old girl and her mother, apparently preparing to testify in a dog-mauling case, were shot and killed by a gunman as they sat in a Municipal Court waiting room for prosecution witnesses early Tuesday afternoon.

Riverside County sheriff’s deputies said the suspect, Fred Wayne Helvy, 32, attempted to use his own 5-year-old daughter as a shield as he fled the courthouse. Helvy, who is being held on suspicion of murder, complied with deputies’ orders to drop his weapon, but attempted to flee toward a nearby parking lot and was captured moments later.

The victims were identified as Elizabeth Ann Castillo, 27, and her daughter, Cori Ann Castillo, 9, of the Riverside County community of Mead Valley. The child was pronounced dead at the scene. Her mother was rushed to Inland Valley Regional Medical Center in Wildomar, where she was dead on arrival.

Sheriff’s deputies said late Tuesday that no motive had yet been established for the shooting. But the victims, as well as Helvy and his daughter, were all apparently in the single-floor cinder-block courthouse for the same purpose.

“We believe all were witnesses for the prosecution in the dog-mauling case,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Albert Hearn.

The case, authorities said, involved a January attack by two Alaskan malamutes on a 5-year-old boy in Mead Valley. Jeffrey Gude, 35, of Perris, is charged with creating a public nuisance by failing to control the two dogs, which prosecutors say had engaged in prior attacks, including one on a 5-year-old riding a bicycle near Gude’s home last year.

It was not immediately clear whether Cori Ann Castillo or Helvy’s daughter, Christy, were among the dogs’ earlier victims.

Authorities said the shooting occurred about 12:45 p.m., as jurors, attorneys and spectators were returning from lunch to the courtroom of Municipal Judge Arjuna T. (Vic) Saraydarian.

Unlike many larger judicial facilities, the tiny courthouse has no security system to screen for weapons. A satellite of the larger Three Lakes Municipal Courthouse in Perris, it contains one courtroom, the witness waiting room and a traffic ticket collection office.

More than 40 people were in the courtroom, which is next to the witness room, when several shots rang out, Hearn said. Two sheriff’s detectives were standing 10 feet outside the closed door of the witness room, and Castillo, Helvy and their daughters were together inside.

Moments after the shots were fired, Helvy ran from the room, clutching a weapon and his child. He complied with an order to drop his gun, but held onto his child as he fled down a hallway and out a side door.

By the time he made his way to a parking lot across the street, Helvy was surrounded by sheriff’s deputies and surrendered. Authorities confiscated a small pickup truck that he had apparently parked in the lot and said they would seek a search warrant to check it for weapons.

“We don’t know the motive as of yet,” Hearn said late Tuesday. “ . . . This has all the earmarks of a domestic case but as of yet we have not been able to determine if there was any relationship, blood or otherwise, between the victims and the shooter.”

Helvy, who lives in a trailer home on a dirt road in Perris, has been arrested several times, Hearn said. “But there is nothing in his record that is of significance as far as violence,” the lieutenant added.

Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Curt Hofeld told reporters Tuesday that Helvy had been questioned as a possible witness in the Gude trial and had been cooperative. Hofeld said he believed Christy Helvy was called as a witness and was expected to testify.