Slaying victim found near job (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Slaying victim found near job
Salvadoran man last seen taking out dirty linens at Lucks Lane pizza shop
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008 - 12:08 AM Updated: 09:56 AM

By MARK BOWES
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER


A Salvadoran immigrant was found stabbed to death late Sunday not far from where he had been working in a strip shopping mall in northern Chesterfield County.
Eduardo Castillo, who would have turned 26 yesterday, was pronounced dead at the scene after a restaurant worker dumping trash discovered his body shortly after 10 p.m., police said.
Castillo, who worked as a weekend dishwasher at Nuccio's Trattoria and Pizza in The Shops at Lucks Lane, disappeared about 8:30 p.m. after taking out a bag of dirty linen, said owner Nuccio Giambanzo.
He left out the back door to place the linen outside for pickup, Giambanzo said. About 90 minutes later, Giambanzo discovered that his employee had been killed.
"I was the last one to see him and the first one to identify him" after he was found slain, Giambanzo said. "It shocked everybody. I'm completely devastated."
Castillo had worked part time at the restaurant for about a year. "My employees are my family," Giambanzo said.
Castillo "was very short on talk but . . . very polite with everybody," he added.
Castillo was found with numerous stab wounds in a grassy area adjacent to the Latin Ballet dance studio, which is on the opposite end of the strip mall that backs up to Lucks Lane at Courthouse Road.
An employee of the China Taste restaurant, in the same line of shops, discovered Castillo's body after walking outside to a trash bin, said Chesterfield police Capt. Paige Foster.
"It appears the attack took place in the rear of the shopping center, about halfway down" the line of shops off Luck Lane, Foster said. "There's evidence where he was fleeing or stumbling away from that general area to where he was finally located."
Investigators haven't determined a motive, Foster said.
Giambanzo said it appeared someone was outside waiting for Castillo when he left the restaurant. He had dumped the trash earlier and was preparing to leave for the night.
Castillo, who had a wife in El Salvador, was staying with several other Hispanic immigrants in a house in the 3300 block of Wyntrebrooke Drive, Foster said. In addition to his restaurant job, he worked during the week as a construction worker.
"He had a nephew up here, and through the nephew was staying with some friends," Foster said. "The nephew was his closest relative living here."
Chesterfield authorities notified the Salvadoran consulate of Castillo's death, but police have not determined his legal status, Foster said.
Castillo is Chesterfield's second homicide victim of the year and the fourth Hispanic immigrant to be killed in the county in 15 months.
The other victims include Esteban L?pez-Le?n, 20, an illegal Mexican immigrant, who was shot to death during a robbery after he returned to his apartment after Christmas shopping Dec. 22, 2006. His two assailants were arrested and convicted of murder; one has been sentenced to life in prison.
In May, Nicolas Morena-Pantoja, 24, also here illegally from Mexico, was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting on Chippenham Parkway near Belmont Road. Then, in November, Marino Reyes Martinez, 34, another illegal Mexican immigrant, was shot to death inside a Bensley-area apartment in the 7100 block of Wentworth Street. The latter two slayings remain unsolved. Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or mbowes@timesdispatch.com.