A three-day manhunt ended Sunday night in West Sacramento when a special police unit captured Paul Ray Castillo, who is suspected in the slaying of a Campbell woman and the shooting of a San Jose man.
"Details are sketchy, but he is in custody," San Jose Police Chief Chris Moore said Sunday night.
Sgt. Jason Dwyer said the department's covert response team found Castillo around 7:30 p.m. in a public place and grabbed him without incident.
"We have been working nonstop on this since noon on Friday," Dwyer said, adding that investigators believe Castillo left the South Bay on Saturday.
The San Jose parolee had eluded capture since Friday, when he is believed to have wounded one man at a Willow Glen gas station and later kidnapped and killed Cindy Nguyen, a popular Vietnamese-American radio host.
Police came close to getting Castillo, 33, on Friday night, when they spotted his vehicle at King and Berryessa roads in northeast San Jose and fired several shots at him. But he fled on foot and was able to get out of the city.
Meanwhile, colleagues of Nguyen, 60, are planning a memorial event for later this week. Nick Pham, a broker and owner of PN Real Estate, where Nguyen worked, said Sunday morning that a memorial gathering will be held in the next few days.
Police believe Castillo kidnapped the real estate agent around noon Friday at The Plant shopping center at Curtner Avenue and Monterey Road, where she had stopped to
report car problems but told a friend on a cellphone call that a man had come up to her offering his help. Her body was discovered Saturday morning at a house in the 500 block of North 12th Street.
The identity of the first victim, a 42-year-old San Jose man who suffered gunshot wounds in his abdomen while pumping gas Friday morning, remained under wraps Sunday. However, police said his injuries are not life-threatening.
Most shoppers and early diners Sunday afternoon at The Plant
said there appears to have been little Nguyen could have done to avoid her horrific fate. Cindy Ramos said the midday carjacking "sure scares me as a woman." But she took some comfort in the unusual circumstances of the violence. "Bad stuff like this just doesn't happen in the middle of the day."
On North 12th Street on Sunday morning, neighbors added a few more details about Castillo but requested anonymity, as he was still on the loose at the time and considered armed and dangerous.
One neighbor said Castillo occasionally would visit a house in the 500 block of the street but did not appear to live there. He said the occupants -- three adults and two children -- had resided there for only three or four months. They mostly kept to themselves, the neighbor said, and had not been at the house for a few days before the crime spree.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
