Trial begins for man accused of murdering his mother

December 07, 2015

A man accused of killing own mother in 2008 in the family's Hialeah home is at last headed to trial.

A. Castro is facing second-degree murder charges for the stabbing death of his mother, M. Hernandez. An emotional Castro was in court on Monday, Dec. 7, 2015 as his murder trial began.

Homicide detective B. Hernandez testified Monday that she remembered Castro saying that his mother did not deserve what he did to her, and that he had a lot of built up anger.

It was Castro's stepfather who found his wife in a pool of blood after the attack, and the widower broke down as the audiotape of the police interview was played in the courtroom.

Castro used a kitchen knife to stab his mother in the heart and lungs, according to the authorities. In addition to stabbing his mother, he stabbed himself in the neck.

Castro's defense lawyers claim that he was insane when he attacked his mother. Since his 2008 arrest, Castro has been in a psychiatric hospital awaiting trial.

According to NBC 6, Castro was diagnosed with schizoid affective disorder with bipolar features. However, the prosecutors noted how Castro told detectives that he was sorry for killing his mother and that he seemed to know what happened to her.

Castro's attorneys decided to forgo a jury trial and instead chose to have a Miami-Dade judge decide on Castro's fate. If convicted, Castro faces up to 25 years either in prison or in a psychiatric hospital, NBC 6 reported.
Matricide is a Very Rare CrimeFor more than 20 years, Kathleen Heide from the University of South Florida has been analyzing homicides involving children who kill their parents. In the United States, about five parents each week are killed by their biological children.

Matricide (where a child kills their mother) and patricide (where a child kills their father) are very rare events and make up just 1 percent of all homicides in the U.S., Psychology Today reports.

According to the latest federal statistics, matricide and patricide are primarily committed by teenage sons between the ages of 16 and 19, and rapidly declines as sons get older. Since patricide is nearly twice as likely as matricide, it is suspected that divorce and parental alienation are partially to blame for the killings.

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