A Montgomery County father engaged in a custody battle brought his three children to an Inner Harbor hotel and apparently killed them yesterday, Baltimore police said.
The bodies were discovered after the man called hotel security about 1:15 p.m. from his 10th-floor room at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards, saying that he had killed his children and was considering harming himself, said Officer Troy Harris, a city police spokesman.
When security personnel entered the room, police said, they found the three dead children: Anthony Castillo, 6; Austin Castillo, 4; and Athena Castillo, 2.
Their father, identified by police as Mark Castillo, 41, was taken to University of Maryland Medical Center with what appeared to be minor self-inflicted cuts, authorities said.
Sterling Clifford, a police spokesman, said homicide detectives are investigating the possibility that the children were drowned, suffocated or strangled. Clifford said they were not shot or stabbed.
"There is some evidence that something happened in the bathroom. What that is, I do not know," he said late last night. Detectives were awaiting autopsy results. Clifford said it was likely that Castillo would be charged overnight.
Police executed a search warrant yesterday at Mark Castillo's home in Montgomery County.
Castillo's estranged wife, Amy Castillo, also lives in Montgomery County, a police source said. She was interviewed by detectives last night.
Mark and Amy Castillo were separated, and online court records indicate that they have been involved in a long-running custody battle in Montgomery County.
In the Silver Spring neighborhood where Amy Castillo lives on Waterford Road, the lights were on throughout a two-story brick house, though no one responded to knocks on the door. A shattered window by the door was held together with duct tape.
Neighbors, just learning of the news, reacted with horror. One next-door neighbor who identified herself as a friend burst into tears, sank down in her doorway and sobbed upon hearing about the deaths.
The news generated similar dismay in Baltimore. Mayor Sheila Dixon slipped out of a community meeting at a Little Italy restaurant yesterday afternoon to take cell phone calls about the dead children. She returned minutes later and spoke with emotion in her voice.
"There are some things we have no control over," she told the crowd of about 100, referring to the killings.
