When an ex-con recently tried to assure police everything was good inside his East Harlem apartment, the reality turned out to be the opposite.
The unhinged Carlo Castillo had just killed his longtime girlfriend as their three children watched in horror — with the oldest son opening the door to let police inside after cowering with his siblings inside the bloody residence — prosecutors charged.
A criminal complaint described the frantic minutes before police discovered the lifeless Marisol Duran, 32, bleeding beneath a blanket in her 14th-floor apartment on E. 112th St. near Lexington Ave. early Saturday morning.
Police arrived around 6:20 a.m. after a 911 call reporting someone was injured during an assault in progress. Castillo, 36, tried to shoo the responding officers away with the claim that “Everything’s OK,” opening the door just a crack before closing it again, according to the complaint.
But two women, including the accused killer’s sister, arrived and began pounding on the door and shouting for the suspect to “open the f—ing door!” Castillo shouted back, “We good!”
The call for help came from Castillo’s oldest son, 13, after he heard Duran’s screams, according the victim’s sister Sol Moreno. When the boy opened the door to his room, he was told by a distraught Duran to call police.
The teen had also FaceTimed his aunt — Castillo’s sister — who reached out to the Moreno with word that something horrible had happened to Duran.
About 11 minutes into the tense standoff, the aunt pleaded to the officers, “Bust the f—in’ door down. Like come on, what are y’all waiting for? She’s in there bleeding!” according to the complaint.
Police entered the apartment about four minutes later to discover blood on the floor and Duran’s body covered by a blanket in the front room, with the teen and two other children, ages 12 and 4, present.
The woman was pronounced dead at Metropolitan Hospital at 7:30 a.m.
Duran’s devastated sister said the horrific assault came as a shock. The couple had argued in their 12 years together and Duran had once asked police to intervene, but the sister told the Daily News that she was unaware of any past physical abuse.
“He never hit her,” said Sol Moreno. “He never laid his hands on her in 12 years. To go from no violence to killing her in front of her kids?”
Prosecutors said Castillo yelled back at some point during the standoff, shouting, “She hit me! She hit me!” and refusing to let the open the door.
“Melo, open the f—ing door! What the f— is wrong with you?” yelled one of the women outside.
Castillo’s 13-year-old son from a prior relationship remains traumatized by feelings of guilt after staying locked in his room for several minutes before coming out to check on Duran, Moreno said.
“He feels like if he would’ve opened the door faster she would still be here,” she said. “But his dad was there so he was scared. He felt like he would’ve saved her if he had opened the door [of his room] fast enough.”
Castillo, found in a back bedroom, initially blamed the death on a mystery suitor, according to the complaint, insisting the man knocked him unconscious before shooting the victim. He later told another officer that two men in ski masks entered the apartment before smashing him with a bat in the head and leg.
According to the complaint, Castillo claimed he passed out and didn’t know what happened next. He also told a lieutenant, “I’m high on dust” at one point, the complaint alleged.
Duran called police to the apartment once before in recent months because Castillo was acting erratically, but she didn’t want him arrested, Moreno said.
She told the cops, “He didn’t hit me, I just want him out my house,” recalled Duran’s sister. While he was removed from the apartment, police didn’t take Castillo’s key and he returned 20 minutes later.
Duran, who went by the nickname “Marita,” was born in Hartford and moved to New York with her mother and sister at age 16.
“From there on, we was together,” said Moreno. “She was my best friend, my everything. We did everything together. She’d always be around with the kids. She was always about her kids, working, family … But due to him leaving the kids alone while she was at work, she had to quit her job.”
Moreno, a mother of four, said she’s taken custody of Duran’s 12-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter, who she had with Castillo. The 13-year-old is staying with his mother in Boston. She recalled the victim as a doting mom who took her kids to the park, to Chuck E. Cheese and water parks.
“She just took them to see the ‘Super Mario’ movie on Easter,” said Moreno. That’s the last thing she did with both of them.”
Castillo was charged with murder and arraigned at a Monday hearing where he was held without bail pending a Friday court date. A spokeswoman for the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, which is representing Castillo, did not comment Wednesday.
“All these years and then for him to murder her in front of her kids,” said Moreno. “I’m just glad that at that moment he didn’t panic and hurt the kids. I’m just glad that he didn’t hurt my niece and nephews. What he did right there, he took away my heart.”
Castillo has a criminal record dating to 2007, including several drug-related busts, police sources said. He served two stints in state prison, one for attempted assault in 2016 and the other for weapon possession in 2019.
“I’m gonna make sure that he pays for what he did. He’s there for a long time and never sees his kids again,” Moreno said.