The Last Meal: Defending an Accused Mass Murderer

court.

ONE

The Son Who Didn’t Come Home

It was seven thirty, his wife’s dinner had filled him, and Manny Castro was exhausted. He owned a small silk-screen business. It had been a typically long workday. Manny usually stayed up until Michael, his sixteen-year-old son, returned home in the evening from a part-time job. But Manny had left for work at 4 a.m., and he could barely keep his eyes open. He saw no reason to wait for Michael that Friday, January 8, 1993. He knew his son’s routine. Michael would show up shortly after he finished his job at 10 p.m. That is what he always did; there was no reason to believe the teenager would be late.

So Manny went to bed.

Michael Castro worked mostly nights at Brown’s Chicken and Pasta Restaurant, a fast-food joint near his home in Palatine, Illinois. He washed dishes and handled a cash register, among other duties. Brown’s Chicken was a place where you could pop in for a quick dinner, a snack, or a soda. The restaurant was clean, the décor tasteful, and customers felt at home. Families looking for a wholesome, inexpensive meal often ate there. You could buy a chicken dinner— four pieces, french fries, cole slaw, and a soft drink—for less than six dollars.

The part-time job didn’t pay particularly well but it gave Michael a bit of spending money that he otherwise would not have had to buy gas for his car. Other teenagers worked there as well. The older employees, particularly Lynn and Richard Ehlenfeldt, the middle-aged couple who owned the restaurant, seemed to be good role models for the teenagers.

Palatine, a suburb located northwest of Chicago, was experiencing growing pains in 1993, with petty crime and drugs on the rise. But it remained the kind of place where parents still believed their kids were mostly immune from the serious troubles that plagued so much of the Windy City. Families seeking to escape the pressing urban problems moved to towns like Palatine, when they could afford higher housing prices and the other costs associated with life in a middle-class community.

Yet those who moved had to know that it was probably fiction to believe any neighborhood, no matter how seemingly insulated from the world it might be, would be completely safe. Still, many families considered suburbs like Palatine to be virtual protective cocoons where children could grow up without enduring the frightening experiences associated with neighborhoods where gangs often held sway.

Manny Castro was streetwise himself, and he kept a tight rein on his son. Even though he trusted Michael, the father realized any teenage youth could disobey and do stupid things impulsively. When they talked at three that afternoon, Manny once again reminded Michael, an eleventh grader at Palatine High School, that he expected the youth to be home immediately after work. Michael had reason to obey—staying out of trouble was one of the conditions his father imposed in allowing Michael to have his own car for school and work.

Remember what I told you, Manny told Michael as their brief conversation ended.

I’ll be home on time, the son promised.

See you later, his father responded, Love you …

Love you, too, Dad.

It was the last time he would ever hear his son’s voice.

____________

Sleep came ever so slowly. Manny had barely dozed off when his wife, Epifania, slipped into the bedroom and nudged him awake.

Michael isn’t home yet, she whispered. Even in his groggy condition, Manny could hear a nervous edge to her voice.

What time is it? Manny replied, his voice barely audible as he struggled to open his eyes. He peered at the bedside clock. It was 11 p.m.

Manny thought to brush off Epifania’s concern, to tell her Michael probably was still at work. Sometimes, the restaurant had late-arriving customers and the staff couldn’t clean up until they left. Maybe the owners weren’t satisfied with how the workers were treating customers or the way the place looked at closing and decided to talk it over before releasing them.

There were other maybes as well floating through Manny’s mind in his sleepy stupor. He wanted nothing more than to be left alone, to pull the covers over his head, to doze off again. It would be such a waste, wouldn’t it, to get up and try to find Michael, only to have the boy show up safe and sound. Better to stay in bed and chew him out in the morning if that was called for.

Then Manny began to have second thoughts. Perhaps something was wrong. Perhaps Michael’s car had broken down and he had no way to get home. Perhaps Michael had lied to him and made plans to join some friends after work. If the kid had disobeyed, Manny would show up at one of his son’s teenage haunts, surprise Michael, and order him to head home immediately—even, if necessary, embarrassing the teen in front of his friends to make a point.

I have no idea where he is, Manny mumbled again as he sat on the side of the bed. I’ll look for him.

He rubbed his eyes and peered again at the illuminated clock on the nightstand. Manny slipped on a shirt and trousers, donned his heavy winter overcoat and boots, and headed to the garage. As he started his car, Manny again reminded himself there was a likely explanation for Michael’s tardiness. Maybe the restaurant had not closed on time. He would arrive at Brown’s Chicken to find his son still helping to clean up. Then he would feel like a foolish father, not trusting Michael.

____________

As he drove to Brown’s Chicken, Manny shivered involuntarily as he waited for the car’s heater to warm him. It was frigid, the ground covered by dusting of fresh snow, the wintry temperature hovering in the mid-teens … normal weather for this time of year. Traffic was light as he headed for Brown’s Chicken. He shielded his eyes every time a car approached, hoping to catch a glimpse of Michael’s auto. However, none of the vehicles resembled the boy’s two-door red 1987 Nissan Sentra coupe.

Yawning now, Manny turned on the car radio. A late-night newscast was in progress. He listened carefully, not expecting, on the one hand, to hear anything about his son yet mentally bracing himself, on the other, in the awful event that he did. The newscast ended uneventfully, the announcer declaring the high temperature for January 8 had hit twenty-eight degrees. Even as the car’s heater began to pump warm air across his face, Manny felt a chill in his spine. Was it the wintry cold or a premonition?

In a few minutes, he arrived at the restaurant. The one-story white brick building sat at the corner of Smith Road and Northwest Highway, major arteries slicing through Palatine. There were a supermarket and a few smaller shops located behind the restaurant. The lights from the broad partially lit shopping parking lot reflected off one corner of the restaurant. As Manny turned into the Brown’s Chicken parking lot, he saw several cars parked along one side of the building. One was Michael’s car. Manny stopped next to it. He could see no one inside the vehicle. He got out and tried the car’s doors; they were locked. A layer of frost covered the windshield.

The interior of Brown’s Chicken was dark save for a dim light over the customer counter. Manny strained his eyes in the darkness, hoping to see some sign of activity inside the building. There was none. A few Christmas decorations still adorned a wall leading to the counter where customers placed orders.

Castro rapped on one set of customer doors. Perhaps some employees were somewhere at the rear of the building, working in the kitchen, and could not hear the knocking. He tried again, harder this time. No one responded. The father hung around for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do next. Frustrated, he drove away.

____________

He’s not at the restaurant, Manny told his wife. But his car is there.

The couple decided he would take another drive, this time to visit places where Michael and his friends liked to catch a snack after school. But a quick tour of the joints produced nothing.

Manny was becoming increasingly alarmed. Where was his son? Why hadn’t he called? Was he in trouble? Was he unable to call?

It was now about 1 a.m. Epifania was pacing the floor.

No sign of him, Manny muttered.

Where could he be? she replied. This isn’t like him.

I know, the father answered. I’m going to call the cops.

He dialed the non-emergency number for the Palatine Police Department. Shrugging, Manny tried to relieve a cramped muscle beginning to throb between his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, Manny saw his wife rocking back and forth on the sofa. He wanted to tell her to cool it, but he realized he was having trouble controlling his own nervousness.

The number rang three times, then four.

Come on, Manny growled impatiently. Answer it.

Finally, he heard someone announce, Palatine Police Department. The officer on the other end was all business as Manny explained his predicament.

It’s not like my son to stay out without telling us where he is.

We don’t usually take missing-person reports until someone has been gone for twenty-four hours, the officer replied.

That’s way too long, Manny responded. His frustration rising, he asked, Isn’t there anything you can do right now?

What’s he look like? the officer asked. I’ll ask our patrol officers to keep an eye out for him.

Manny described his son: clean-shaven except for the hint of a mustache, about five-feet-four-inches tall and stocky—maybe one hundred eighty pounds. Oh, and yes, Michael had brown hair and eyes.

My wife says he was wearing a brown leather jacket with patches on the arms and a Brown’s Chicken work uniform underneath.

Then, almost as an afterthought, Manny remembered: His car is still in the Brown’s Chicken parking lot.

I’ll ask an officer to swing by the restaurant, the officer replied. He’ll take a look around.

Thanks, Manny said as he ended the call. Then he told Epifania:

No sense sitting here. Let’s go to Brown’s Chicken. They’re sending a cop to check out the place.

____________

The Castros arrived at the restaurant shortly before 1:30 a.m. Manny drove past his son’s car. At a corner of the building near the shopping center parking lot, the couple saw a police cruiser. It was empty. Fumes from the exhaust pipe spiraled into the pitch-black sky. Just then, an officer, flashlight in hand, came into sight and headed toward the Castros’ vehicle. They saw him approach one set of customer doors. He tugged vigorously on the handles. Nothing budged.

Then the officer came over to their car. Rolling down her window, Epifania said, My husband called the police station about our missing son.

The place is tighter than a drum, the patrol officer declared.

Epifania gestured toward the red Nissan Sentra: That’s our son’s car. The officer peered inside with his flashlight, then returned to the Castros.

Maybe your kid went to a party with some buddies. Maybe he knows that when he gets home, he’s going to get it so he’s staying out until you’re both asleep. Or maybe he’s already home by now…

The officer’s remark—maybe he’s already home by now—struck a hopeful chord. Epifania turned expectantly to her husband, seeking some sign that he agreed with the officer’s assessment. Manny didn’t acknowledge the officer’s comments. He shifted gears from park to drive and the car began to roll away.

Let’s hope he’s home, Manny muttered as he drove off. It seemed to clear to Epifania that he didn’t believe it.

____________

The couple drove in silence. Each envisioned Michael now sitting at the kitchen table snacking on a late-night bowl of cereal. Epifania would hug her son tightly; Manny would snarl, where have you been? Then he would breathe a sigh of relief and pat Michael affectionately on the shoulder. He would wait until that afternoon to deal with the disobedience.

____________

But Michael had not returned home. The parents said nothing at first, each trying desperately to quell a mounting panic. Finally, breaking the silence, Manny announced, I’m calling the cops again. I don’t want them to make us feel better. I want them to find him.

This time, sensing utter dismay in Manny’s voice, the dispatch officer promised to send a police officer to the Castro home. He arrived shortly after 2 a.m., a clipboard and missing persons case report in hand. He began jotting down information: Michael C. Castro—age (sixteen and a half), home address and telephone number, student at Palatine High School, works at Brown’s Chicken. Under cause of absence, the officer wrote unknown. He noted the time and date at the top of the case report: 2:39 a.m., January 9, 1993.

I still don’t understand why his car is parked in the Brown’s Chicken lot, Manny told the officer.

We usually don’t put out a notice to other police departments for twentyfour hours, the officer said as he signed the missing person’s report. But I’ll tell our men on duty to keep an eye out for your son.

The officer could see his words were having no calming effect on the couple. Manny avoided his glance, staring blankly into space, and Epifania twisted her hands nervously.

Tell you what, the officer continued. I’ll run over to the restaurant. Maybe your boy has returned to pick up his car.

As he rose to leave, Manny announced, I’ll follow you. The father couldn’t wait for something to happen. He had to keep the fear swirling deep in his gut from overwhelming him.

There’s no need for you to come along, he said to Epifania.

I’m coming, she announced in a tone that cut off any objections her husband might have had.

Manny grabbed her hand gently. Then the couple followed the patrol officer out the door.

____________

It was now a few minutes after 3 a.m. The early-morning streets to the restaurant were deserted. It was even colder. A few snowflakes were falling, but the Castros, so tightly wound, did not notice much of anything as they focused entirely on their missing son. The Palatine officer already was at the restaurant by the time they again drove into the Brown’s Chicken parking lot. He was out of his cruiser, flashlight in hand, and had begun walking around the building.

Stay here, Manny told his wife, then fell in behind as the officer tested the customer doors. They were locked. So was a metal door on the northwest corner of the building.

The officer now made his way to a second metal door at the northeast corner of the building. He tugged on the handle. It gave. Manny could sense his surprise as he began to open the door. The patrol officer turned the beam of his flashlight into the building. Then he stepped across the threshold. Manny was right behind.

The beam of light reflected off a tall gun-metal gray shelf. There was a leather coat draped across the top.

That’s Michael’s jacket, Manny called out. He began pushing past the patrol officer, but the officer shoved him away from the door.

Get back.

Manny again tried to slip into the building.

You can’t come inside, the officer said, forcefully.

The beam from his flashlight momentarily blinded Manny. The officer motioned to the father: Move away from the door.

Then he repeated: Stay out. Understand?

Manny nodded and began pacing outside the door. He looked back toward his car, wondering if Epifania would leave the vehicle in order to see what was going on. She shouldn’t be here, he thought. Something’s terribly wrong. He had to know what the patrol officer saw inside that doorway. He tried yet again to enter.

You can’t come in.

I don’t understand, Manny said. I just don’t understand.

The officer did not answer. He was preoccupied, trying desperately to absorb what he saw inside the door.

____________

As the police officer’s flashlight beam illuminated the darkness, it landed on a startling sight. Several feet from the entrance, a hand and the bottom of a gym shoe jutted out of a wide metal door that was slightly ajar. There was also what appeared to be a wide, dark red stain across the floor in front of the metal door. The officer inhaled deeply. He drew his service revolver and carefully stepped around the stain and pulled at the metal door.

He would never forget what he saw.

____________

The officer’s flashlight shone into what first appeared to be a small storage room. High inside the back wall of the room, a metal exhaust fan whirled quietly. He lowered the flashlight beam. All across the small floor were bodies … grotesquely slumped over, intertwined, clots of blood caked over their heads and clothing … a ghastly, nightmarish mass.

Cold air rushed against the officer’s face. It took but a moment for him to realize the bodies were inside a small freezer, not a storage room. He did not know how many victims were crammed into the room, let alone if anyone was alive. His flashlight beam continued to dance over the mass of humanity … bodies slumped awkwardly, draped over one another, gashes and holes in every head.

Two of the victims, propped awkwardly against each other by a metal shelf in the corner of the room, appeared to be teenagers. Their eyes were partially open, staring but not seeing.

The officer could not believe how much blood there was. Every inch of the tile floor under the bodies appeared to be covered. He shuddered, hesitating to touch any of the victims. The only body he could reach, without pushing others aside and disturbing the scene, was partially obstructing the doorway. He could not tell if it was a man or woman. The victim, wearing a windbreaker, was slumped over, back to the door.

The officer had no idea what had transpired, not that he was ready to begin focusing on that. All he wanted was to bolt from the building and vomit.

But he would wait inside the door, not disturbing anything, until another patrol officer arrived. Then they would begin to search the premises. He shuddered realizing that he would have to negotiate his way through the pitch-black darkness to discover if whoever was responsible for the carnage was hiding somewhere inside the restaurant.

Even that didn’t make much sense to him right now. To be honest, the patrol officer was hoping that whoever had killed everyone inside that freezer had fled the place long ago. He was thrilled, as he thought about it later, that he had avoided a potentially deadly confrontation with whoever had massacred those people in the freezer. He did not want to become another victim.

____________

Just then, a second officer entered the building.

My God, he muttered as he looked into the freezer. What happened here?

The first patrol officer shook his head as if to say, I don’t know. Both officers, pistols drawn, began a careful search of the building’s interior. They pointed their weapons straight ahead, crouching slightly, and stepping cautiously.

The beams from their flashlights illuminated the kitchen area, then the customer counter and, finally, a darkened dining room.

In the kitchen they spotted a metal hood hanging over what they guessed was some kind of fryer. There appeared to be a dent made by a bullet. They also saw evidence of another bullet; this one had nicked the ceiling near the counter.

They headed toward the opposite side the building. Here was another small room. They opened the door. Long, narrow plastic strips hung over the doorway of what appeared to be a second freezer or cooler. They felt cold air as they aimed their flashlights and pulled apart the strips to step into the room.

There were two more bodies lying on the floor, a pool of blood beneath them. It appeared as though someone had positioned the adult males in opposite directions on the floor. One was wearing an apron; the other had on a checkered, red-and-black wooden coat. Each had several head wounds.

The patrol officers shook their heads in disbelief over the carnage.

____________

By now, other Palatine officers began arriving. Someone managed to count the bodies in the east-side freezer. There were five—four males and one female. Counting the other two victims inside the cooler on the other side of the building, seven were dead.

Palatine had never had so many homicide victims at one time.

____________

Four of the victims in the freezer were Lynn Ehlenfeldt, forty-nine, Thomas Mennes, thirty-three, Guadalupe Maldonado, forty-seven, and Rico Solis, seventeen. Lynn’s body had blocked the freezer door from shutting tightly. When the emergency crew placed her body onto a long, plastic, zippered bag for transport to the medical examiner’s office, they discovered she also had a long, narrow gash—a stab wound—to her throat.

The fifth victim in the freezer was Michael Castro. His body rested awkwardly against Solis, and he had been shot several times in the head. Hours later, when the emergency technicians pulled his body from the freezer, they discovered that Michael also had a stab wound in the abdomen.

The bodies of fifty-year-old Richard Ehlenfeldt, Lynn’s husband, and Marcus Nellsen, thirty-one, an assistant manager, were on the floor of the second cooler.

In addition to multiple gunshot wounds to their heads, some of the victims also had bullet wounds in their upper torsos and hands. Officers speculated that a few had died with arms raised over their heads, as if to fend off the bullets that struck repeatedly with deadly force.

Except for the cooler and freezer and a small patch of tile floor outside the freezer, the inside of the restaurant was unscathed by the carnage. The dining room and kitchen appeared to have been cleaned before the murders occurred. Almost all of the blood was contained within the freezer and cooler. The killer or killers apparently had run a mop over the tile floor outside the freezer in an attempt to clean up blood splattered on it. The mop, its strings streaked with blood, was propped against a shelf.

____________

It took hours before Manny and Epifania Castro learned the awful truth that their son was dead. They stood shivering in the restaurant parking lot at first; then a police officer instructed them to go to the Palatine Police Department. They did not witness teams of medical personnel transporting seven body bags out of the restaurant and into ambulances destined for the medical examiner’s office.

It seemed forever until someone at the police station finally confirmed what the Castros didn’t want to believe and had prayed would not be true.

Their son was dead.

The Castros did not see Michael for another day. Manny identified his face on a television screen at the Cook County morgue. The next time he saw his son, Michael’s body was displayed in a casket before visitation at the funeral home.

It would be more than fourteen years before the Manny and Epifania Castro had the opportunity to confront their son’s killer.

TWO

A Quick Arrest—or None at All?

The police say the first few days of any criminal investigation are the most important, particularly when the crime is a homicide. Adrenaline is flowing, citizens are reporting tips, and the investigating officers, believing they can make an arrest quickly, are working around the clock. Sometimes, someone connected to the crime will turn himself in or finger others who did it.

Officers count on the cooperation of those with actual knowledge of what occurred and who was responsible. Good police work often is not enough to make a speedy arrest. There are many unsolved crimes. Unlike detective shows featuring clever police work that brings someone to justice years after a crime, solutions to so-called cold cases are rare. The break in a murder that may have gone unsolved for a decade or more occurs because a determined detective became curious and had the opportunity to re-examine the case file and the evidence.

____________

In the days that followed the killings at the Brown’s Chicken restaurant, there was no reason to believe investigators wouldn’t solve the crime quickly.

The Palatine police had plenty of help from neighboring police agencies, the Illinois State police and its crime lab, and even agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Crime-scene technicians found more than one hundred unaccounted-for fingerprints, the prints of two gym shoe soles in blood on the tile floor, a napkin containing what appeared to be a partial palm print, and pieces of chicken and other food and non-food items in the bottom of a trash receptacle.

The investigators who scoured the scene searching for clues, obvious and subtle, could not have realized that this horrible crime would take almost ten years to solve. It would become one of the Chicago area’s most frustrating police investigations.

The investigators brought their best minds to bear on the case from the outset. Many of them ultimately would form a loose-knit team designated as the Brown’s Chicken Task Force. Some would complain there were too many officers in the mix. The large number of officers on site during the first few days led to accusations, later largely refuted, that some of them may have mishandled evidence or, in the case of bloody shoe prints, trampled it underfoot.

____________

Crime-scene technicians worked at the restaurant for several days. They collected finger and palm prints from various surfaces, including restaurant windows, the safe, and drawers from two cash registers. Jane Homeyer, a technician whose specialty was finger-print recovery, also watched as an assistant manager for Brown’s Chicken opened the restaurant’s safe so investigators could determine what might be missing. The upper chamber of the safe still contained about one hundred dollars; the lower chamber had substantially more money— about six hundred dollars in paper currency and coins. However,