Texas fugitive caught with guns
SHAWNEE — Guns, a gas mask and a magazine on serial killers were among items found in a home last month where authorities tracked down a registered sex offender who fled from Texas after being charged with sexually assaulting a child.
Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said he was notified by the U.S. Marshal’s Service that Eric Masters Castillo, 38, was thought to be in the area after cutting off his ankle monitor and fleeing from Texas.
“He’s a bad dude,” Booth said.
Pottawatomie County deputies and U.S. marshals determined that Castillo was at a home on Sept. 26 with his girlfriend and her two children near Kings and Westech roads, Booth said.
“We were able to hit the house, and thankfully get him in custody without incident. He did have a loaded pistol on him,” Booth said.
“He had lots … of firearms that he had accumulated inside the house. He had a gas mask, a bulletproof vest, a helmet (and) he had … a Time-Life magazine, it said ‘most notorious serial killers’ … so that was a little concerning.”
Castillo is wanted in Medina County, Texas, and has been charged on four counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, one count of failing to register as a sex offender and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, court records show.
He registered as a sex offender in Bandera County, Texas, on Aug. 29, 2000, in connection with the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s sex offender registry.
With the number of weapons seized and the charges he faces, Booth said he didn’t think Castillo had any intention of going back to Texas.
“I mean, he’s looking at four life sentences,” Booth said. “He’s looking at some time and I don’t think he was planning on doing any of that time.”
Booth also said Castillo had assumed another identity while in Oklahoma, adding that he told deputies that his name was “Tyler Durden.”
“There’s no telling what he was planning,” Booth said.
He was being held Thursday in the Pottawatomie County jail on complaints of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and carrying a firearm in commission of a felony.