Killer found guilty in minutes
Jury quickly reached verdict in little girl’s 2016 shooting death
A Harris County jury quickly convicted 20-year-old Philip Battles of capital murder for the 2016 shooting death of 4-year-old girl Ava Castillo during her mother’s purse snatching, just one of four armed robberies a violent crew pulled in one evening.
Battles did not react as visiting state District Judge Leslie Yates announced the jury’s verdict, which came after only 20 minutes of deliberations. Castillo’s family members wiped their eyes after an emotional morning of closing arguments that included a photo of the toothy 4-year-old child just days before her death.
In a tearful victim impact statement after the verdict, Castillo’s mother described losing her daughter.
“There’s an emptiness inside me that can never be filled because of Ava’s death,” said Diana Gomez, who was shot seven times during the robbery. “I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye. She was gone before I knew it.”
Gomez broke down on the witness stand as she talked about the girl who was killed almost instantly when she was shot in the head
in a hail of 13 shots fired from an assault rifle-style weapon. Ava’s older sister was shot in the stomach and survived.
“My little Ava was always happy and always had this big smile on her face,” Gomez said through tears. “She could just light up the whole room.”
Battles was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole for his part in the Nov. 14, 2016, robbery with two other men who sprayed an apartment parking lot with 13 bullets, killing the child and wounding her mother and sister.
‘He made bad decisions’
Throughout the trial, prosecutors have presented evidence to show that on the day Castillo was killed, Battles, along with two other Houston teens, committed a total of four violent armed robberies. Battles acknowledged to Houston police he drove the car during the robberies.
“It’s because of Philip Battles and his crew that Ava Castillo is no longer with us,” prosecutor Shannon Drehner told jurors in closing arguments of the week-long trial. “What we know about Philip Battles is that no one is off limits, not even children.”
Battles’ defense team argued that he was guilty of aggravated robbery, not capital murder, because the trio of men were trying to rob Castillo’s mother, not kill anyone.
“There was no conscious objective, other than to rob,” defense lawyer Mack Hochglaube argued. “Unless there is a conscious objective to kill, it’s not a capital murder.”
After the verdict, Battles’ attorneys said he is intellectually disabled and made bad choices.
“It’s a sad situation for everybody, both sides,” Jerald Graber said. “It’s a young kid who is intellectual disabled and had a lot of troubles and burdens for being intellectually disabled, but he made bad decisions and the jury felt that it was sufficient to prove capital murder.”
Jurors did not answer questions as they left the courthouse.
Investigators said the three men first pistol-whipped a man and stole his black Honda Accord about 6:45 p.m. near Cypresswood. That car had a set of keys with a Bluetooth GPS locator and a phone, both of which police later used to plot the vehicle’s path. Prosecutors said Battles bought the .22 caliber semi-automatic assault style rifle just days before the crime spree.
“He acquired the gun, he acquired the bullets, he set this whole thing in motion,” Assistant Harris County District Attorney Cameron Calligan said. “He acquired that tool of destruction.”
String of crimes
After hijacking the car, the group then went to the Greenspoint-area apartment complex where the girl and her family were unloading groceries in the parking lot. Witnesses, including Ava’s mother, Diana Gomez, said three men tried to take her purse and allegedly opened fire, killing the 4-year-old girl about 8:45 p.m. At that crime scene, the robbers left a backpack that had been in the stolen car.
Two hours later, investigators said, the crew was near Crosswinds and Sam Houston Parkway where they allegedly robbed two men who were working on a car, stealing among other things, a credit card later found in the stolen car. While striking one of the robbery victims with a gun, bullets were dropped that later matched the caliber and manufacturer of the bullets in the weapon that killed Castillo.
Minutes after that assault, they allegedly pistol-whipped a man while robbing him. It was during that assault that the gun was fired again, leaving behind a spent shell casing that matched the casing found at the complex where Castillo was killed.
After he was arrested, Battles told police he was only the driver. Under Texas law, all parties to a crime can be charged with the same crime, whether they fired a shot or even just acted as a lookout.
“That defendant is guilty of capital murder and so is every member of his crew,” Calligan said.
Charged in other deaths
Battles has also been charged in the 2016 shooting deaths of Ignacio H. Ortega, 62, on Nov. 7 and Melvin Enrique Bonilla-Fuente, 31, on Nov. 8. Officials have also confirmed an eyewitness reported seeing Battles during an unrelated September 2016 fatal shooting.
The killings took place during armed robberies. Battles is considered a suspect in more than 20 armed robberies, sources said after he was charged with Castillo’s death. The jurors did not hear about those other allegations and heard little about the other two men.
Earlier this year, Ferrell Dardar pleaded guilty, received 60 years in prison and will be eligible for parole in 30 years. Marco Anthony Miller is awaiting trial.