CEO 'beat his wife to death then hung her body from the ceiling so it would appear to be a suicide'

Braulio Castillo is charged with brutally murdering his estranged wife and mother of five Michelle Castillo on March 19



Police say Castillo hid inside her Ashburn then beat and strangled her before hanging her in a basement bathroom

The couple had been separated for a year and in the middle of a contentious divorce



Castillo came under fire last summer as CEO of security company Strong Castle Inc., a contractor accused of bilking the IRS for millions

A controversial Northern Virginia CEO was arrested Tuesday and faces charges he brutally beat and strangled his estranged wife then hung her from a ceiling to make it look like a suicide.

Police say Braulio Castillo, who came under intense fire last summer after his company allegedly bilked the IRS out is seen in surveillance footage entering Michelle Castillo's posh Ashburn home March 19 just before she arrived home. She had a protective order against her husband.

Castillo reportedly exited the home alone after midnight March 20 then returned the next morning and asked a neighbor to go inside and find her after their four young children were unable to find their mother and called him over.

Horrific: Northern Virginia CEO Braulio Castillo (right) is charged with brutally beating his wife Michelle (left) to death then trying to cover it up by hanging her body from a ceiling

The neighbor was initially unable to find Michelle Castillo and called police after sensing something was amiss.



'That was certainly suspicious,' Loudon County Sheriff Mike Chapman told NBC Washington. 'When he left with the children, the neighbor didn't feel things were right and it was the neighbor who called the sheriff's office and we responded and ultimately found her hanging in the bsasement bathroom downstairs.'

It was not long before investigators revealed it was not a suicide.



'The evidence shows she was beaten and suffocated before she was found hanging in the downstairs bathroom,' Chapman said. 'That hanging was not the cause of her death.'

Divorcing: Michelle Castillo had five children with her husband and had accused him of beating and threatening her in the past. She had an order of protection against Castillo at the time of the murder and they were in the middle of a nasty divorce

Surveillance: Castillo is allegedly seen in a neighbor's surveillance footage entering Michelle's Ashburn, Virginia home just before Michelle arrived. He then left the home alone just after midnight on March 20

Sad: A neighbor's surveillance footage reportedly shows Castillo entering Michelle's home despite his restraining order and leaving hours later on March 20. He would later ask a neighbor to look for her in the home after the children called him to say they couldn't find their mother

The divorcing couple was slated to appear in court the day before her murder, according to Leesburg Today.



NBC Washington reports that in the past Michelle had accused her CEO husband of physical abuse and of making threats leading up to their separation.



'[He] wakes me up at 2:30 in the morning yellling, pointing his finger in my face and telling me not to talk to my friends about him,' Michelle said according to court filings. 'He also says that if I keep doing it, he is just going to crash this plane and sink this ship.'

Grilled: Castillo was grilled in 2013 by the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee over his friendship with an IRS contracting official which investigators said led to his company winning $500 million in government contracts

'Regarding our company or our marriage or our life,' she wondered.



The answer may have become all too clear.



Castillo's past troubles with the government revolved around his close ties to IRS contracting official Gregory Roseman.



A House of Representatives reports accused him and his company Strong Castle with using that friendship to win some $500 million in business from the federal agency.