A San Jose man has been charged with murder after police say he confessed to killing two men along the Guadalupe River — slashing one’s throat and bludgeoning the other with a rock — then led detectives to their bodies, one of which he buried in a shallow grave.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday filed two murder counts against Marcelino Castro, a 28-year-old San Jose resident. The two victims have not been formally identified, in part because their remains were in an advanced state of decay, according to a probable cause affidavit by San Jose police detectives that accompanied the criminal charges.
Castro, who was scheduled to be arraigned in a San Jose courtroom Wednesday afternoon, was arrested Saturday and booked into the county Main Jail, where he was being held without bail.
According to the affidavit, Castro went to the San Jose Police Department parking lot on West Mission Street around 5:15 p.m. Saturday and flagged down officers, and told them “that he murdered someone and wanted to turn himself in.”
Castro said he buried the victim’s body in a creek across from the Tamien Caltrain station; officers drove him to a spot near Lelong Street north of the Highway 87 off-ramp, detectives wrote. From there, Castro reportedly led officers through an opening in a wire fence that led to a riverbed for the Guadalupe River, and then to a shallow grave near a trail.
The officers found the grave about 10 feet from the roadway surface and started to dig; soon after they uncovered “the odor of decay, a human foot, leg, and knee.” They identified body as belonging to a man, and observed a “visible horizontal laceration across the neck.”
Castro told officers that he knew the victim and went to the location to smoke methamphetamine with him, and that “without provocation, he strangled John Doe 1 and slit his throat,” and buried him, according to the affidavit.
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Detectives wrote that Castro then proceeded to tell officers about a second man he killed, also near the Guadalupe Park Trail, but about three miles north near Coleman Avenue and Autumn Parkway. Castro led officers to a “decayed human male body” wrapped in a red tent, a victim referenced in the criminal charges as John Doe 2.
“Marcelino told us that he lured Victim John Doe 2 to a secluded grassy area near the Guadalupe River to smoke,” detectives wrote. “Once there, he strangled him and struck him with a rock, killing him. He then wrapped the body in the red tent, and dropped it in the tall grass near the Guadalupe River shore.”
Police have not disclosed any suspected motive for the homicides. A man who said he casually knew Castro, and whose name is being withheld for his privacy and safety, told this news organization that Castro was unhoused and periodically lived in encampments around the crime scenes. The man said that when he spoke to Castro about a month before the killings, Castro appeared tired and stressed out.
“He looked worn out,” the man said.
Court records show that at the time of his arrest, Castro had at least six felony convictions dating back to 2019, including a family violence conviction, and had two active felony cases from April and June of this year.
The murder charges are accompanied by an allegation that “the defendant’s prior convictions as an adult and sustained petitions in juvenile delinquency proceedings are numerous and of increasing seriousness,” which if found true by a jury that convicts him could increase his potential prison sentence.
Anyone with information for investigators can contact the SJPD homicide unit at 408-277-5283 or email Detective Sgt. John Van Den Broeck at [email protected] or Detective Amanda Estantino at [email protected]. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or siliconvalleycrimestoppers.org.
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Staff writer Grant Stringer contributed to this report.
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