Grand Jury Indicts Man in Slayings at Courthouse

A Mead Valley man who allegedly shot and killed a neighbor and her young daughter in a Lake Elsinore courthouse earlier this week was indicted by a Riverside County grand jury Thursday on two counts of first-degree murder.

Fred Helvy, 32, who could face the death penalty because of special-circumstance allegations filed in the case, will be arraigned this morning in Riverside County Superior Court, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Mitchell.

Late Wednesday, Helvy was placed in a security ward of Riverside General Hospital for up to 72 hours of psychiatric observation.

Helvy, whose 5-year-old daughter was scheduled to testify in a dog-mauling trial, is accused of shooting two other prosecution witnesses in the same case--Elizabeth Ann Castillo, 27, and Cori Ann Castillo, 9--as they sat in a courthouse waiting room Tuesday afternoon.

Helvy, using his daughter as a shield, attempted to escape through a side door of the courthouse before being captured by sheriff’s deputies in a nearby parking lot. In addition to the semiautomatic handgun used in the slayings, detectives said they found a loaded hunting rifle and .22-caliber handgun in Helvy’s pickup truck.

Mitchell said that Dist. Atty. Grover Trask will decide before trial whether to seek the death penalty or a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Special circumstances in the case, Mitchell said, are the double murder and an allegation that Helvy lay in wait for his victims.

He said the attack was premeditated but there still is “no clear motive” why he singled out the Castillos. He refused to speculate whether Helvy intended to fire on others at the courthouse, but noted the suspect “had other weapons in the truck, one with 29 shots (bullets) and one with seven.”

Neighbors said Helvy, who lived in a trailer home with his wife and two young children, had been babbling incoherently about religion in the days leading up the shooting. The only apparent connection between Helvy and the Castillos, according to authorities, is that they were all scheduled to testify for the prosecution in the same case.