Marine Recruiter Caught Pantsless Stabbing Girl, 11, During Sleepover Pleads Forgiveness: Court

In one of the case's more disturbing details, the 25-year-old first allegedly took his pants off downstairs before making his way upstairs in just underwear and a t-shirt, where he found the victim asleep on an air mattress in her friend's room.

Ricardo Perez Castillo, 25, was sentenced to 18.75 to 40 years in court last Wednesday, where he reportedly fell to his knees and pleaded for forgiveness, according to multiple news outlets including Fox affiliate WXMI, ABC affiliate WZZM, NBC affiliate WOOD, CBS affiliate WWMT, People, and Law&Crime.

The sentence, according to Judge Christina Mims, was toward the top end of what she was allowed to deliver after Castillo pleaded no contest in October to Assault with Intent to Murder, First-Degree Home Invasion and an added county of Second-Degree Assault with Intent to Commit Criminal Sexual Conduct, per the Kent County Prosecutor's Office. He must also register as a sex offender.

"This case is disturbing on so many levels," Judge Mims told Castillo on Wednesday. "It's disturbing that you would go into these people's home, that you didn't know, that you would arm yourself in their home, that you would almost kill a child who was only trying to sleep over with her friend."

"What you engaged in was -- just what comes to mind is a real-life horror movie or a horror show where you’re stabbing this child," she added. "It’s just by the grace of God that she wasn’t killed."

During the sentencing hearing, a letter written by Castillo's victim, who survived the brutal assault on June 15, 2024, was read out in court. "I remember being in a lot of pain on the floor," the girl wrote. "I remember seeing all my blood everywhere. I remember feeling warm running down my body from the blood. I remember the smell of it. I could still feel the sting of the pain."

"I remember being very scared and not understanding why this happened to me. I was terrified," she continued. "I never would have guessed an innocent sleepover would have left me in the hospital with bad injuries."

Authorities said that Castillo's night of crime actually began at a different residence when he broke into one Rockford home while highly intoxicated and was found in the kitchen by the homeowner. According to that witness, per court documents reviewed by WOOD, Castillo told him to "be careful" and "make sure you're armed" before leaving on foot.

Later that night, Castillo allegedly made his way to another Rockford home. Police received a call from this home just after 3 a.m. from a man who said that he'd found a man with no pants or underwear on in his daughter's bedroom. His daughter's friend, who was staying the night for a sleepover, had been attacked, he told the dispatcher.

The man held the suspect at gunpoint until police arrived. Detectives reported in court documentation finding Castillo with a bloody knife near him. Security footage from inside the home showed him walking into the home and immediately taking off his shoes, socks, and pants.

Then, in just underwear and a t-shirt, he grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer and made his way upstairs. "He went upstairs and the first room he checked was the parents, they were sleeping, so he shut that door," Kent County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Elizabeth Bartlett told People. He allegedly told investigators he moved on to find an "easier target," per WZZM.

"The second bedroom was locked. And then the third bedroom was the girls," Barlett told People. She said that Castillo told police that he found the friend sleeping on an air mattress in the middle of the room, while the homeowner's daughter was in a top bunk. So, he started stabbing the girl on the floor, she said, "he thinks in her neck, but it's her shoulder and then her arm."

The girls' screams woke up the one's father, ending Castillo's violence, but he allegedly told police he'd not intended to stop there. "To be honest, in that moment of the incident, I was going to try and kill the whole f--king family," he said, per Bartlett. He purportedly said that the female was the weakest to explain why he started with the girl.

Court documents also stated that before stabbing the 11-year-old, Castillo removed his underwear and climbed on top of her. When asked why, Bartlett said he told investigators, "I think I was trying to sleep with the girl once she was dead." Court documents affirm his plan "to kill [the victim] and then have sex with her dead body."

There was no connection ever made between Castillo and the victim or the family whose home he was found in, according to investigators, making it a truly random attack.

Among those who spoke out in court was the homeowner who caught Castillo in his daughter's bedroom. He shared that his daughter is still afraid every day that someone will break in and attack, according to WZZM's courtroom report.

"We had to move. We've had to clean up just blood and mess. We've heard what he has wanted to do to our family and what he wanted to do to my daughter and daughter's friend, and that's just not okay," he said. "This should not be taken lightly."

The man also addressed the surprising reaction he's received for his decision to not shoot the defendant when he found him in his house. "I get so much [backlash] for not shooting him. I'm a man of God, and I did not plan on doing that, but I also realized that it would have caused more damage if I did shoot him," he explained. "It's in the middle of why I didn't, but God was there telling me not to. I wish that this didn't happen."

The victim's stepfather also spoke out in court, saying that the whole experience has been "unimaginable to the point that it almost didn't seem real until you live with it and experience it and see it and taste it and smell it and the true horror that comes from it."

He said that he's worked with hundreds of Marines struggling with mental health and alcoholism, but has "never seen somebody highly trained, willing to kill, willing to rape in such horror."

He said that he and his wife struggle to explain topics like sexual assault to their daughter, and that it hurts every time he sees her wound scars knowing "that's somebody who's trained trying to kill, not somebody who's just intoxicated and winds up in a house and seeks somebody to destroy and do this act of terrorism."

"The defendant in one night has completely terrorized these families, changed these girls' lives forever and changed the community's perspective on what safe means," Bartlett said in court, per WZZM.

Castillo's attorney said that his client struggled with alcoholism after losing his brother to the disease at the age of 23, and that he was intoxicated when he gave statements to detectives after the attack, "so the things he said in his statement, he's trying to understand them himself, of how things happened."

The attorney also claimed that Castillo, in his intoxicated state, thought the apocalypse was happening and the world was ending. Acknowledging that the victim would carry her scars the rest of her days, Castillo's attorney said his client had ruined his own life, too.

"It's going to follow him for the rest of his life. Your Honor, his employment is stained. His goal of being a lifelong member of the military is his shot. Yes. Judge, it's all because of his actions under his intoxicating state, but this man, Your Honor, has value in life. He's going to be a member of society. He's going to forego alcoholism for the rest of his life, alcohol use, but judge, he has value."

When it came time for Castillo to speak, he turned from facing the judge and spoke directly to the people in the courtroom, according to WZZM's coverage. "I ask for forgiveness. I know I don't deserve it. I can't imagine all the nightmares. I can't imagine anything that you have felt for the past 15 months," he said, "but I'm sorry. I'm truly from the bottom of the heart. I was a lost person."

He reportedly fell to his knees while talking. "I have found God and made me realize how much, how much I truly am lost. I ask for forgiveness for all of you, for both families, for the whole community of Rockford, I ask for forgiveness. Sorry. I'm sorry."'

The judge told Castillo and his attorney that the assertion that he believed the world was ending at the time of the attack actually made his alleged choices even more concerning. She disagreed that he should receive a lighter sentence, as his attorneys argued, but cited that at 25 years old, she also didn't feel "that throwing you in prison and throwing away the key is necessarily the correct approach."

He was given 530 days credit for time already served. He must serve a minimum of 15 years of his 18.5 to 40 year sentence before he'll be eligible for parole consideration. He was also sentenced to 7-20 years for home invasion and 1.5-5 years for criminal sexual contact, with these terms to run concurrently.