The Signal Mountain Murders

Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries Tales from Appalachia. I'm gonna be so relaxed. Well, we're live.

No. See, my vocal cords are just super relaxed. Fishermen's friends. Friends.

Why is it marketed towards fishermen? Maybe because they're out there in the cold abyss hoping to score that drought. Maybe. I don't know.

I don't know. Someone I know who sings up on a large stage, kind of semi-professionally said that you should try this because it does help like we're lecture vocal cords and it really helps your clarity and you can project. Okay. Listen, I'm gonna be out there, you know, you're just gonna be just fine.

You know, you're gonna be hoarse because you haven't had fishermen friends. Once you put a fisherman's friend in your mouth, no, it doesn't sound right. I mean, do you do whatever feels most comfortable for you? But when you pop a lot of sausage, lotion.

I can say that word. Lo-ji? Lo-singe? Lo-singe.

That's our first. Honest, we haven't been drinking. We really haven't. It's only 7.52 p.m.

Yeah, I have water. And we have coffee and that's it. And fisherman's friend. And fisherman's friend.

Listen, if you guys want to sponsor us, we're like, yeah, I'm gonna sub. Are you out on cold, hirky water? Do you need something for your voice? Hailey, I'm feeling a little bit clipped.

And then you can say, well, here, trucker for this friend. The puffer's from his friend in your mouth. Let's talk about it. Get it back in there.

I will. Way back in my throat. Anyway, that was filthy, Hailey. How dare you?

I mean, all things I said were accurate. That's true. That is true. Yeah.

Yeah. So, uh, reach out to us. We're available. Welcome back, friends.

We're sorry. For so many things. Basically everything. Um, well, we're here.

So what's your story about? I am sitting in my boat, waiting on my catch, listening to this podcast going, what are we going to talk about? I hope it's murder on a boat. It's it's murder, but not on a boat.

Well, then I'm safe. Okay. So you're good. Okay.

Okay. Don't get in. Well, let's just hop right into it. We are going to travel to Hamilton County, Tennessee this week.

Sounds good. I'm going to take my mouth because it started getting a little intense. Oh, okay. I put that that way right.

Okay. Well, yeah, take your time. It's but it's that nice feeling that when you take a big deep breath in, it's very cool. Oh, it's kind of nice.

Okay. Yeah. So pretty soon, you're going to have a fisherman's friend right in your room. Right in my throat.

I don't know if I'm ready. I'll have to. I don't think you've had both of us. Okay.

Okay. All right. So Hamilton County, Tennessee. That's where we're going.

Let's do this this week. Okay. On the afternoon of July 9th of 1988, Kenneth Gryphin and Earl Smock, they are two members of the Usain Air Force Squadron. They're on weekend leave visiting, um, Sir Griffith's father-in-law Richard Mason, okay, at his home in Hamilton County.

So the three of them, Kenneth Earl and, um, Richard, decide that they're going to travel out to this local swimming area on Signal Mountain. Um, it's called the Blue Hole. Okay. And the only way you can get there is by ATV.

So that's all train vehicles. So like a four-wheeler or a side-by-side. So there's just like too much dense. Yeah, it's one of those like, and in this part of the country, like there's so many trails around that are only accessible by ATV or walking or horseback or whatever.

So this is not unusual. Um, so there's like, hey, we're going to go there. So they have to borrow an ATV from a friend, um, and actually Mr. Mason, Richard Mason's neighbor, Stanley Nixon.

So they're going to work. Just to go to the Blue Hole. Yeah. So I mean, I'm sure part of it was like, you know, because driving ATVs can be kind of fun.

It is. I mean, what a pain in the butt. Like excuse me, extra narrow your ATV. Instead of like, can I borrow a cup of sugar?

Can I borrow your really expensive ATV? Yeah. Yeah. I'm coming back.

Yeah. Like we own, like my family owns one. Um, and it's a, we use it more for like, courting wood back and forth because my grandmother burns, um, Chazza wood stove in her house that she heats with partially in the winter. So we use it to like haul wood back and forth or if we need to like go check, um, anything on the property that you can't really get to.

It's easier to drive from that little thing than it is. We have ATV. Oh, yeah. As in television television.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll just drive that thing everywhere. It's amazing.

And like, I grew up driving and writing four wheelers and taking those. It's really fun. We're home with though. Please.

We're home at safety first. Anyway, so they take off on these ATVs. They borrow that one from Mr. Nixon and they unfortunately never return from their dream.

So this is, this is where we get going. Okay. On Sunday morning, July 10th, 1988, there's a search party organized to find these three men because they're having to come back. Officer Larry Snead of Hamilton County Sheriff's Department responded to a call and found three ATVs dumped in an illegal dump site.

Two of the ATVs are covered in blood, bone chips are covered from one of the ATVs. These were later found to be pieces of a skull that have been hit by a bullet. So it's not looking great. No.

Police refer to this area as crime scene one. So we're gonna have multiple crime scenes we talk about. So crime scene one is where we found the ATVs. Okay.

After finding out that the ATVs have been found, Lee Griffin, who was actually one of the victim's brothers, he's headed home to tell his mom that they found the vehicle like he wants to tell her in percent. So he is driving home and his vehicle starts having some type of like mechanical issue and he breaks down on the side of the road. He stops a Jeep that is driven by Frank Castile and asks for a ride. Mr.

Castile was like, yeah sure, pick him up. So he picks him up, gives him a ride. And as he's in the vehicle, as he's in the Jeep, he notices that the Jeep is wet in the back. And he's like, that's really weird because it's not reigned recently.

Like, why is it wet? So we kind of described this Jeep. Is it like a Wrangler? That's like, oh, I think so.

I think it's that's kind of what they're describing is like no doors, no, right? Yeah, or they just take in the cover off kind of thing. I don't know. I've been in a few Jeeps like that and it always confuses me start like taking things apart.

It also strange to me that, I mean, I know it's 1988, but you're just sure hop on in buddy. Yeah, you know, like, well, and it's like a small ish community. So I think did they know we tried? I don't think they did though.

But I don't know. Maybe it's not something they were really thinking about. Okay. So, you know, we were all about to be on the same deal.

We're not doing that. Okay, so they're starting the search party on the 10th. On the 11th, the search party began searching the Helican Road, which was a trail that actually crossed through Frank O'Sill's property and led to the Blue Hole. So they begin searching this road and they arrive at what's what they call a gate, but it's not really a gate.

It's an area where a gate used to be. But everybody like knows it as that's the gate, but there's no gate. The invisible gate. Kind of like heaven, you know?

Yeah. Maybe they're real. Like, you don't see them. I don't know.

Who knows? So they've got this gate or one gate used to be. And they notice that the area around the Quotenquot gate has been like really taken care of. Like it's really well kept.

It's manicured almost like the grass is cut, like weeds are pulled up, which is weird for this trail apparently because it's pretty overgrown, like everywhere else. But this spot is really clean. And this is on this man's property, the one who's the G-boner. Yes.

Okay. The one who owned the weird wet Jeep. Okay. So they find the search for this is like this is weird.

Let's look around more. So they find spots of blood that later are identified as brain tissue. A more thorough search and covers a pocket knife belong to one of the victims. And a little bit outside of that like well kept area there are large pools of blood.

A police dog later found more blood in the area and police start calling this area crime scene two. So now we have a second location where it looks like we've got these big pools of blood. It looks like whatever happened happened here. But there's no bodies.

Okay. So we found maybe the site of something and we found the ATVs. So it seems likely that we could smize that they got out of the ATVs and they started walking towards the fence gate that didn't exist. Right.

And then something horrible happened to them right around that. Yeah. That's kind of what they're thinking. Okay.

But then they're like well where are the bodies? And that's also hard. Three against one. But one put them down.

Yeah. I mean I guess if it's a gun. That's true. That's true.

That's not what you're going to do against that. Okay. So following these discoveries the search party continues searching the area around the gate. Less than a mile from the gate they find a campsite that was actually Frank Castile's.

So apparently he had been camping out there as well. So they find his campsite. When your house is like just like on your own property. I mean this is a really big property.

Maybe but that's still kind of like my fantasy is like oh I can't wait to open my backyard. Like right. You know you get a hotel. Yeah.

I mean so the house that I rent now has this weird little like flat area behind it. And apparently that's where like the family that owns the house. Like they used to go camp out there. Like with your kids.

Like I would never. And I mean that's kind of one thing to be like oh I'm gonna go camping my carpet. I mean this is weird. It is bizarre.

Yes. So they have this campsite. They're looking around it. They find in the fire pit.

Burt blue plastic and a metal grommet. So like I mean you know what a grommet is. It's like a little metal ring that's in tarps and stuff. If you don't know.

Can you use grommet for like curtains. Yeah. Yeah. Different types of things.

So please collect this stuff because they're like well it's kind of nearby. I guess we'll pick it up. Kind of had a punch I guess too. Yeah.

And they're like that's weird. So they collect it. Okay. So Porsche McDowell she lived about 12 14 miles away from Blue Hole on Big Fork Road.

On Monday July 11th of 1988. Miss McDowell was taking her normal walk along Big Fork Road. Something she did like every day. Takes her little walk.

As usual she passed an illegal dump site on the side of the road. So I'm imagining like. Yeah. This is a place where people like don't they're shit.

Good. Well wouldn't take it or you couldn't take it to the dump. So people just chucked out. Overfrigirator.

We've all seen that. Yes. Yes. There's a several in my town.

No but we are turning into a frickin used car lot. I've yeah. Oh my god. A lot of cars there.

A lot of cars at my house. Yes. And some random blue barrels. I don't know.

Water collection. My brother brought them home in his truck one night and I said all right. So another little property as well. It's really strange.

So we've our kind of becoming the dump site. You're gonna have to camp him out. Yeah. Yeah.

He's gonna have to camp in the backyard. He's gonna have to go in the backyard. Oh yeah. Anyway.

Okay. So she's walking past this dump site. She's like normal. Everything's good.

So she's walking by it and she's like huh the dump site looks a little different. Like this seems a little weird. The plaid couch is gone. Yeah.

Apparently it had been cleaned. Like so when you say cleaned I was like what do they mean by cleaned and I couldn't find any other like description as to what they meant by cleaned as I don't know if maybe everything was like hauled away or was it like organized joke. Cautious on the left. Yeah.

Refrigerator. Right. Like was it like set up differently? I don't know.

But apparently it was cleaned. Seems like gone. That's what I'm thinking. But they've taken the things away.

Yeah. Like who had like there's actively searches happening for these men and and stuff like belongs cut and things are moved and it's like okay. This is weird. Like it's all very strange.

Yeah. So everything's cleared out assuming maybe that's what they mean by cleaned. Yeah. And there's a really bad smell coming from the dump.

So what I'm imagining is like maybe like the little remnants around it are kind of picked up but like the overall like big items are still there maybe. So the couch is still there and the refrigerator your deep breeze are still there. Okay good. But like your random little like the microwave's gone.

Microwave and bag to trash. The rug. Yeah. That's out of there.

Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Yeah.

So there's this really bad smell. So Miss McDowell tells her husband Bernie about the smell. So she goes, Bernie, this is on Monday, on Monday that she tells him about this. He says you know what?

I'm gonna give it a few days. He might get up out of his chair. No. So on Wednesday two days later, July 13th, he's like all right I'm gonna go take a look at it.

Just a while. I'm out. Gonna check it out. He finally got up off the couch.

So he also noticed the really bad smell and now there are flies. Oh that's not bad. He's like oh this ain't great. So but he's like I'm gonna go investigate because what else?

I mean I would do the same bad smell flies. I'm looking around. Of course you are. Probably suspecting I'm gonna find a dead animal or something like that.

That's what I would think honestly. Yeah. I mean like a dead raccoon. A deer.

A deer. A dog. Cat. Cat.

Something like that has jig and died. Or is it a dumb sight? Maybe somebody's like tossed out a dead animal. That's true.

Or something. That's true. Like could could be. Right.

So he's like looking around and he finds the victim's bodies. All three. All three. So please turn it up.

I heard. He calls it in. He's like listen. This is bad.

Got the bodies. Interesting to know that we might could have found them on Monday. But it's not a watch of basketball. I have more.

He had a rest. I don't know what was happening. This man was busy. But we wait until Wednesday.

I don't know why he checked it out. I'm glad he did though because I am too. And I'm actually glad it wasn't her. You know.

Yeah. Yeah. Not great. So he finds them.

And now police are calling this area crime scene three. Gotcha. So we have crime scenes one, two and three. One is ACB is two is that weird blood around the gate.

And then three is now we've got the bodies. So we have lots of pieces together. Okay. Dr.

Frank King who is a medical examiner. He performed autopsy on the bodies. He found that the skull fragments that were discovered at crime scene two, which is where we had the blood and like brain fragment tissue and I guess there were some bone fragments or two. They matched the skull of Kenneth Griffith.

He died from a gunshot blast to the head, which left a portion of his head missing. Richard Mason also died from shotgun blast. But Mr. Mason was shot in the chest.

And then Earl also died from shotgun's shotgun blast. But he was shot once with bird shot, which is a smaller pellet. And then once with a buckshot, which is a larger pellet. So maybe the first one didn't get he didn't die.

Right. And then they did the larger one. I don't know. Weird.

Super weird. Okay. So on Monday, July 11, so back end up a little bit before we found the bodies on the 11th, detectives needed asked all property owners in the area, all property owners to come to the area they were searching. Okay.

So like if you own property in this area, come on out. Come talk to us. Yeah. So Frank Estiel comes in the afternoon.

I bet he does. He asked to clean enough that don't fail. Just out there. Just organized in the couch.

Yeah. So the detective asked to see his vehicle. Apparently percated a friend's house. So they go with him to see the Jeep.

Yeah, he walked. I don't know how he got there. I mean, is his property. So maybe I don't know.

I was holding it for a friend. Really weird. Okay. So yeah, he gave the detective permissions to search the Jeep.

So inside the Jeep, detectives found a log book that belonged to Castile inside the book. He had recorded the details of several encounters that he'd had with trespassers, including most of the trespassers' names, telephone numbers, and license plate numbers. The detective asked, you know, hey, can I have this book? And Castile said, sure.

He then asked like, hey, by any chance, do you own a shotgun? And he was like, yep, sure do. So then they gave, he gives the detective permission to borrow the gun. The detective goes to the house to get the gun.

Ballistics tests are performed on the shelf regiments and wadding from the scene indicated that the gun may or may not have fired the fatal shots. Nobody knows. Apparently doing ballistics on a shotgun is like next to impossible. Interesting.

Unless there is something, I learned this recently, I can't remember if I was reading this or heard it on the podcast. Or it was my shotgun. I don't know. I don't know.

But apparently, you unless there is like a, like a deformity in the barrel or something or where the bullet's passing through, that can cause a mark on the bullet. Interesting. You can't, or on like the casing, you can't really tell what kind of gun it was from, unlike other handguns and stuff that have like different inspiration marks on them. It's really interesting.

It's really interesting. It's really interesting. The instructions of the bullet would be able to, you would be able to differentiate, tell things about. Apparently it's really, really hard.

Interesting. Yeah. Okay. So he becomes a suspect.

Absolutely. Obviously. Suspect number one. But he actually wasn't charged with anything until years later.

Years? Years later. Okay. So before he was charged, so we've gone from 1988, we're going to hop to 1996.

So he was charged in August of 1996 with these murders. They found him at the dump. Yeah. So Marie Hill, who was an old friend of Castiels, began having an affair with him.

I mean, why not? Why not? Nothing is sexier than someone who keeps up the gate. Cleaning the dump.

Cleaning the dump is out camping on their own property and leaves their vehicle at somebody else's house. I mean, that is sexy. So get me some of that. This makes me a little random.

But, right, but it's going to get weirder. So just hold on. Sure. So after this affair begins, which is like almost 10 years after this happened.

So we're cold to this point. So the affair, he's with this other woman. Ms. Hill gets two anonymous letters to her home that are accusing Castiels of committing the murders.

That's weird. Super weird. The letters also contained newspaper clippings about the murders. Is anyone trying to frame him?

Did he send it to her? It's weird. Who knows about this? Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So not long after the affair begins, Ms. Hill allowed police to install listening devices on her phone lines and in her house. So she's like, there are a lot of heavy breathing.

Some funky going on here. So I don't know like how this all came to be, but she agrees to let them. Because she probably has doubts herself. She probably like, is he guilty?

This is crazy. Yeah. On October 12 of 1996, Castiels wife comes to Ms. Hill's house.

Oh, there we are. And confronted Castiels and Ms. Hill. That confrontation turns into a five hour conversation between Castiels, his wife and his mistress.

What have we got to talk about though? Well, apparently, whatever it was, was enough to get a search warrant. So I don't know what was said. So that was never released.

Not that I could find. But whatever happened, she sent the letters to Ms. Hill. So here we go.

Thanks to your search warrant of Castiels residence in order to find the anonymous letter that Castiels had taken from Ms. Hill because they want to see the letter. So it's not in her house anymore. But they're like, we want to see it.

While searching for the letters, police seized 44 items, including a shotgun and ammunition. He was finally charged with the murders on April 15 of 1997 based on what they found. So how did we get here? How did we get here?

And why did it take so long? Right. Okay. So Frank Castiels, we're going back to when the murders happened 1988.

1988. He had recently bought property near the Blue Hole. On the afternoon of disappearance, Vince Brown was helping a friend back a moving van out of, you know, down a narrow road, had to stop traffic, all this stuff. He stopped Castiels, who was driving a muddy, Jeep scrambler.

I don't know exactly what that looks like. Okay. He says Castiels wife was awesome in the Jeep. Mr.

Brown and Castiels get into this conversation. Castiels tells Mr. Brown that he and his wife were going camping that weekend. Castiels then leaves later that evening between 6 and 8 p.m.

And Mr. Brown said he heard a rapid succession of gunshots coming near to Castiels land. And I'm sure he thought like nothing of it. You're hunting.

I mean, yeah, I live in a place where I mean, you can't shoot in city limits and I live in city limits. But the area around where I live, it's very mountainous of things echo all the time. So I hear gunshots all the time. And even target practice.

Oh, yeah. You know, like I hear them all the like they echo off the mountains and like I hear. Yeah, I hear Randy takes out a perp. I'm sure you don't hear me.

And if we do, I like Randy, Randy could get this perp. No, if we hear him all the time. So it's, I'm sure it's probably pretty similar in this area. You probably didn't think anything of it until there was something to think about, you know, right?

So yeah, so he hears his gunshots. All right. So next witness, William Wiggins, who is one of his neighbors, also reported hearing the series of gunshots on July 9th, 1988 between 730 and 830 is when he said he heard it. Okay.

Mr. Wiggins heard between five and eight shots, all of which were fired about 10 seconds of each other. Again, I would hear that and thank target Marcus. Right.

Sometimes later that night, Mildred Hines saw a jeep near Sawyer Road with one of the two ATVs in the back of it. So but again, probably didn't really think much of it. Right. Also on July 9th, 1988, Pam O'Neill was camping on property that was near the Castilles.

That evening, she heard ATVs cross her property. Shortly after that, she heard some gunshots around 2 a.m. the next morning at Miss O'Neill woke up and decided to go home. As she and her husband were leaving, they saw someone driving a jeep near Sawyer Road, the area where the ATVs were ultimately found.

We have lots of people involved here. Okay, we got Jerry and Donna Anderson. They were also in the area where the bodies were discovered on the night of July 9th, and the early morning of July 10th. They were out actually looking for their son, who was supposed by camping in that area.

I don't know why they were looking for him or if they ever found him. I'm assuming they did. I don't know again why we were looking for him. This is some time before 1.30 a.m.

on July 10th, Jerry and Donna saw a jeep that was quoted down with weight in the back. They also said there was a tarp in the jeep, but they kind of explained it that the tarp was more of like the canvas cover over the jeep. But if it's that dark, you don't know. And can still be covering something.

Yeah. Yeah. He's like, it's okay, folks. I'm just headed to the dump site.

Yeah, I just got to dump these ATVs. Yeah. Yeah. So they identified the jeep to police and described Cascale's son, Donnie, as being the driver.

However, Donnie was like, was it me? I was at work until 11 p.m. And that was like, yeah, I never felt like it wasn't him. Okay, there were several others that came forward and said that they thought they saw a jeep in the area that night.

Janice Hill lived near Sawyer Road. She heard a large tired vehicle pass her home several times between 3 and 4 a.m. On July 10th, 1988, later that morning around 6 a.m. she saw a female driving the Cascale's jeep with a dog in the back, which is weird.

Another neighbor heard what he believed to be, hello. I excuse me, we must stop her. My phone, my watch. Oh, my aunt.

Oh, cool. All right. I'm sorry. I forgot to silence my mobile.

Okay. So the neighbor, another neighbor. Heard what he thought was the jeep on the road at 5 a.m. Another person saw the jeep at 6.15 a.m.

So I mean, like, this jeep is making moves. Yeah. We've spotted it at like 1.30 in the morning. He's not trying to be incognito.

No. Like driving like crazy. Hey, y'all and like having conversations with people. Yeah, it's really strange.

So the next day, Mr. John Lyons observes a woman washing blood out of the back of the jeep in a local car wash. Y'all. Mr.

Lyons asked the woman whether it was blood. And the woman replied that she had just taken a pig to the slaughterhouse. Because slaughterhouses were normally closed on Sundays, Mr. Lyons thought the answer was kind of suspicious.

So he writes down her license. She'll be a church. You don't need to be cleaning out your pig guts. But also another thing, like if you're used to rural living, I'm not.

Like if I pull up to even like the car wash in town that I live in and someone's rinsing blood out of the back of their truck, I'm probably not going to bat an eye. I'm going straight to the FBI because I'm going to think, oh, they killed a deer and they've hauled this deer out of the woods in their truck or like a bear. It's like something they've killed something. No, no, this is not my first thought.

My first thought is holy shit. There's been a dead body in this car. Why is there blood in the suburbs? This is not right.

Something something's wrong. I mean, maybe like I might like that might cross my mind because we do this podcast and how to come through your mind a little bit. But like the logical person in me is like, oh, like when I worked in public schools, I had kids come in all the time. Not all the time, but several times I've had like young boys come in and ask me for like a new sweatshirt or something because they're they've got blood on their clothes.

No, no. And it's because they were either out hunting that morning before school or they picked up a sweatshirt off their floor of their bedroom and put it on and it was something that had blood on it from being around deer. So I went to school in a city and if someone came to school in a bloody sweatshirt, it was like you were O.J. Simpson or something.

You're like, oh my god, he killed somebody. You know, if the sweatshirt don't fit, you must acquit. Like, I don't know. Like, this is crazy.

No, this is weird to me. I know that this is culturally, it makes more sense. But to me, it feels so like, what? But I do understand.

Well, and like we, you know, if we were in high school at the same time, we would have gone to high school like less than an hour away from each other. I know, but two completely different worlds. Two completely different worlds. Yeah.

Yeah. Because like, this was totally normal. Oh, I'm Gee, like me and Haley would have been in school together. I agree totally when I like knew each other.

But yeah, no, that was so normal. I have kids coming with blood on their hands and like stuff on their sweatshirts. I got blood on my hands, and this is Haley. This is weird.

I feel like go wash your hands, we get you new sweatshirts. And I would be like, call the cops. He's murdered. Well, usually my SROs like, hey, let me see a picture of the deer.

And then you compare your deer, dead deer. And then they're comparing their dead deer pictures. Alarming in the hallway. I'm not because I don't hunt, but I mean, they're doing it.

I'm like, all right. You know, whatever. Yeah. SRO at my son's school yesterday yelled out, put your street bro wrong.

My son didn't really fast in the line. You know, put your street bro wrong. SROs, I see that the deer. So you're covering blood over there.

Let me see the dead deer. RSR. I'm just telling my kindergartner what to say about all. Yeah.

Okay. So, yeah, so they're washing blood out the car. Sorry. Yeah.

So he's like, okay, I could believe it. If it cracks me up a little bit about this is he's suspicious because this letter house is closed on Sunday. So he's like, oh, this is strange. That's that's what was weird for him.

Why are you in? Why aren't you in church? What are you doing? This is right.

Super weird. So he writes on license plate number. That's smart. Yeah.

So he later saw Mr. Castile driving that Jeep and he decides to check the license plate number and the number match the license plate that he saw at the car wash. Okay. So we've got some some sufficient from the town.

So now I'm coming going on. Okay. Back to the weird letter. Okay.

So he's been charged based on whatever we found in the house because of this letter. And whatever was sent. That causes to find the letters and all this other stuff. So we're at trial now.

He's charged. Okay. We're at trial. All of this stuff that I just talked about because come up has come up will come up in trial.

Okay. And then he spoke to us. Testify. Yes.

Yeah. They all did. So Susie Castile, who's Castile's wife, testified that she wrote the letters in an effort to sabotage the affair. But the Castile was innocent.

Here's the thing. I mean, if you loved your spouse, probably wouldn't want to say that they're murder. Right. So yeah, he would say, stop that affair.

You bad boy. So he files emotion. Testile does to change the venue due to the amount of publicity in the case. And it's like everybody in their uncle is involved in this case.

It does. It does. Everybody's around. I mean, you're not going to get a fair trial because there's a bias.

Everybody knows everybody's seen every day. Yes. Everybody was camping. Everybody saw this Jeep.

Everybody was going past the dump site. So he's got it. They got to change it. The court grants that motion.

It's fairly. Okay, fine. So the jury was selected and allowed in County and then brought to Hamilton County for the trial. So I still, which is, I find interesting.

Like we didn't move the whole trial. I don't know if that's like what happens in other cases, but they just selected the jury in another district and then brought the jury to the county. That's typically not common. Everything usually moves.

See, that's what I thought. That's why we're talking about it. The judge could be biased. Right.

You know, the attorney, I don't know. It just, there's a lot of weird things. Yeah, it's kind of strange. So, but they bring them all there.

Okay. Before the trial started, he, Castile moved to exclude any evidence of prior confrontations and trespassers with trespassers. The court denies his motion though. At trial 18 witnesses testified to prior confrontations they had with Castile when they came on or near his property.

So he's got it definitely a history of Yeah, I have issues with people coming to property, which like I get, but also, almost sounds like he was out there with a shotgun just waiting for them to come back. Yeah. Because it that's, I mean, I feel like that's kind of part of rural living too. Like, people find shortcuts to different places.

Yeah. Like I know I've watched other people's property, like a lot. Well, I tell you what, I was definitely out there with a Nerf gun just waiting for Haley to walk on my property and then that's it. Yeah.

Um, yeah. So, Castile maintains both before and during the trial that he had nothing to do with the murders. He testified that he was camping on his property near crime scene two on the night of July 9th, 1988. He testified that he and his wife went to blue hole that afternoon and they did not return to the campsite until after 10 p.m.

He testified that he and his wife just went to sleep that night and didn't hear anything unusual, which is weird because everyone else heard gunshots around you and you didn't hear them, you didn't hear them, but you slept peacefully. Right. That's weird. Um, but all right.