When the victim arrived at the meeting place that evening, Castillo apparently had no intention of returning the money. Instead, according to CMPD Det. Brent Koeck, Castillo had the victim withdraw a large sum of money from an ATM. Investigators believe Castillo drove the woman to a remote, heavily wooded area outside Charlotte, where she was shot in the head and her body dumped in a ravine. Castillo and his new girlfriend then fled the state in the victim’s car.

The families of the victim, Castillo, and his accomplice all filed missing persons reports with the police when their children did not return home, and it took a week before the victim’s body was found and identified. The victim’s vehicle was located after the murder by the FBI’s Phoenix Division at a bus station in Arizona.

Castillo and his accomplice had driven to Arizona and then crossed the border in Nogales into Mexico. Two months after the homicide, the woman who was with Castillo turned herself in to Mexican authorities and is now back in North Carolina facing charges related to the homicide. Castillo remains at large, and investigators believe he may be in the cities of Pabellón de Arteaga or San Francisco de los Romo, in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes. He may have also traveled to the Mexican states of Guanajuato or Veracruz. He is a fluent Spanish speaker.