“Operation Columbine”

Jurors in Hillsborough, North Carolina will resume deliberations Friday morning in the murder and assault trial of Alvaro Castillo. Castillo, now 21, is charged with shooting his father, Rafael, 65, several times in the head then driving to his former high school and opening fire on students, injuring two.
On Thursday, the jury of six men and six women heard more than four hours of closing arguments from the attorneys. At the end of the day, jurors deliberated for half an hour before being sent home. The jury foreperson is a man who used to work in a state crime lab.
Closing arguments focused on Castillo’s state of mind on August 30, 2006, the day of the shootings. Castillo, then 18, was mentally ill and had been treated for depression since a suicide attempt four months earlier. He admits that he committed the acts he’s charged with but says he should not be held criminally responsible. At trial, critical evidence introduced by the prosecution included eight hours of videos he recorded between April and August 2006 and his diary from 2006, all of which gave mental health professionals unique insight into Castillo’s thought processes and mental disorders.