Peter Castillo, 26, was arraigned and held without bail in Suffolk Superior Court on February 5. The Salem man was charged with first-degree murder and unlawful possession of firearm in the 2012 death of Stephen Perez, a 22-year-old army veteran of Revere. Castillo pleaded innocent to the charges.
Salem News reported that Castillo allegedly shot Perez in the back with a handgun after a fight broke out in the Theater District.
Perez was a student at Bunker Hill Community College. Family and friends told the Boston Globe that he hoped to transfer to Boston University to pursue a career in federal law enforcement. He previously served in the U.S. Army as a sniper in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A few months after Perez’s death in April 2012, Boston police released a cell phone video showing Castillo and Perez in a fight at a parking garage on 290 Tremont St.
For more than two years, the Boston police and U.S. Marshals Service have been searching for Castillo. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, Castillo fled to New York and later to Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, “where he has extensive ties.” He was added to Marshals Service’s 15 Most Wanted Fugitives list in October that year. On Jan. 15, 2015, the manhunt ended with the help of the Dominican Republic’s Direccion Nacional Control de Drogas Fugitive Task Force members. He was captured and escorted back to New York.
Castillo is expected at Suffolk Superior court on March 12.
A press release from Conley’s office is below:
BOSTON, Feb. 5, 2015— A Salem man was held without bail during his arraignment today for fatally shooting 22-year-old veteran Stephen Perez, Jr., in the back, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.
PETER CASTILLO (D.O.B. 8/6/88) was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on a charge of first-degree murder in Perez’s April 28, 2012, killing. At the request of ADA David Fredette of the DA’s Homicide Unit, Clerk Magistrate Gary Wilson ordered Castillo held without bail.
Fredette told the court that Perez, a U.S. Army veteran who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was out with friends in Boston’s Theater District into the early hours of April 28, 2012, when he became involved in an altercation in a Tremont Street parking lot. Though Castillo was not involved in the initial altercation, he and others were summoned by phone from a parking garage. As members of the group confronted Perez, Castillo came from behind the victim and shot him in the back. Castillo and other members of the group then fled.
Perez was rushed to Tufts Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Through the course of their investigation, Boston Police homicide detectives identified Castillo as the assailant and on June 7, 2012, obtained a Boston Municipal Court warrant charging him with murder. Suffolk prosecutors continued the investigation before the grand jury and indicted Castillo later that month.
Castillo, however, had fled to the Dominican Republic shortly after the shooting, leading to the cooperative efforts of Suffolk prosecutors, Boston Police, US Marshals Service, the US Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, and Dominican authorities to capture Castillo and return him to Massachusetts. Last year, the US Marshals Service added Castillo to their 15 Most Wanted Fugitives list and developed information that led to Castillo’s capture in Santo Domingo on Jan. 15.
Also charged in connection with the case are LUIS SEPULVEDA (D.O.B. 8/15/84) and JANICE HARDY (D.O.B. 12/12/90), both of Lynn, who were indicted for misleading an investigator and perjury for allegedly lying to police and then to the grand jury investigating Perez’s murder.
Katherine Moran is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Castillo is represented by John Galvin. He returns to court March 12. Sepulveda and Hardy return to court Feb. 26.
