Juries to Begin Weighing Murder Cases Against 2 Cousins

Deliberations began Monday in the case of two Lynwood teenagers who police say plotted to kill in the style of Hollywood horror movies.

After a week of viewing stark photos of stabbing victim Gina Castillo, examining an assortment of soiled kitchen knives and listening to taped police station confessions of both defendants, one of two separate juries began considering murder and conspiracy charges against Samuel Jeremias Ramirez, 16.

The other jury is expected to begin considering conspiracy and murder with special circumstance charges today against co-defendant Mario Salvador Padilla, 17.

Prosecutors say the two boys surprised the victim, Padilla’s 37-year-old mother, by skipping school and sneaking up on her at home on Jan. 13, 1998. The cousins burst into her apartment, threw her to the ground and held her there as they attacked her with kitchen knives and a screwdriver, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rose. The prosecutor argued in court that the boys had hoped to kill Padilla’s stepfather as well, but discovered that he was not home that afternoon.

If convicted, Padilla, being tried as an adult, faces the prospect of life in prison with no possibility of parole. Ramirez, who was 14 at the time of the slaying and cannot be punished in the same manner, faces a sentence of between 25 years and life in prison if convicted.

Defense lawyers Paul Golub and Joan Whiteside Green do not dispute that their clients participated in Castillo’s killing, but they deny that it was first-degree murder and that the pair plotted to kill the stepfather as well.

The most compelling evidence in the case came from the mouths of both the victim and the defendants--tape recordings of 911 calls and detective’s interviews at the sheriff’s Century Station.

“My son, he’s 16. He just stabbed me,” a dying Castillo told the 911 operator in a raspy, labored voice. “Please come. Hurry, hurry. I’m bleeding. Hurry, I’m bleeding.”

Later that evening, police found the two boys in Torrance, and they provided investigators with taped confessions.

“We did it around 2:25,” a shaking Padilla told investigators. “She was eating at the time. She turned around and she recognized me. She was at the computer table. I covered her mouth and I stabbed her in the stomach. . . . After I stabbed her in the stomach, my cousin was holding her down and she was biting me.”

Ramirez, the younger boy, told police he helped to hold his aunt down for five to six minutes but did not inflict any of the 45 slashes and stab wounds that covered her body. He said he tried to call off the attack.

“When he covered her mouth, I said, ‘You know what, let’s call it off,” a tearful Ramirez told investigators. “I want to leave.’ ”

Still, Ramirez told police he got another knife from the apartment’s kitchen when one of the knives Padilla was using snapped in two.

Initially, prosecutors charged the pair with plotting multiple killings along with a third youth. Police said the killings were to be patterned after murders portrayed in the teenage horror films “Scream” and “Scream 2.” In a felony complaint filed last year, prosecutors said that the boys told sheriff’s officials that they planned to kill Padilla’s mother and stepfather by wearing costumes and stabbing the parents in the same manner people were killed in the “Scream” movies.

Prosecutors claimed that the youths called costume stores to price Grim Reaper masks and gowns and hoped to purchase voice distortion devices, all items that were used in the movies.

Ultimately, jurors were not told of those alleged plans, as defense lawyers argued that costumes had noting to do with Castillo’s death. Instead of donning costumes, the boys merely pulled their shirts over their heads. The third boy “chickened out” before the killing occurred, the prosecutor said.

Apparently concerned over how this element of the case would affect jurors, and its potential for attracting heavy media scrutiny, Compton Superior Court Judge John Cheroske barred any mention of the movies during the trial and prohibited the lawyers from discussing the case outside of the courtroom. He also forbade lawyers from referring to it as the “ ‘Scream’ case.”

When the trial attracted attention from such media outlets as Court TV and “CBS Evening News,” Cheroske sealed evidence in the case and banned all cameras from the courtroom and the entire 10th floor of the courthouse.

In the end however, an indirect mention of alleged Hollywood influence on the crime was admitted into court. The taped statement was made by Padilla, during his interview with police.

Initially, the boy denied any role in a crime, and said bloodstains on his pants were actually catsup that fell from a hot dog. When police told him of his mother’s call to 911, he quickly told police of the crime.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Padilla said. “What we were really planning to do was . . . get dressed up in a Halloween costume and do it.”

The plan never went very far though, Padilla said, because the boys lacked cash for the costumes.

Padilla told police that the plan to kill his parents was his own. “Because I was frustrated over being locked up,” he said. “They just didn’t let me go out anywhere.”