{"id":473498,"date":"2026-09-23T22:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T22:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/473498\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T22:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T22:08:10","slug":"murder-charges-for-san-jose-man-in-guadalupe-river-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/473498\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder charges for San Jose man in Guadalupe River killings"},"content":{"rendered":"

A San Jose man has been charged with murder after police say he confessed to killing two men along the Guadalupe River<\/a> \u2014 slashing one\u2019s throat and bludgeoning the other with a rock \u2014 then led detectives to their bodies, one of which he buried in a shallow grave.<\/p>\n

\"MarcelinoMarcelino Castro, 28, of San Jose, was arrested Sept. 19, 2026 in connection with two homicides discovered three miles apart along the Guadalupe River, according to San Jose police. (San Jose Police Dept.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Santa Clara County District Attorney\u2019s Office on Wednesday filed two murder counts against Marcelino Castro, a 28-year-old San Jose resident. The two victims have not been formally identified, in part because their remains were in an advanced state of decay, according to a probable cause affidavit by San Jose police detectives that accompanied the criminal charges.<\/p>\n

Castro, who was scheduled to be arraigned in a San Jose courtroom Wednesday afternoon, was arrested Saturday and booked into the county Main Jail, where he was being held without bail.<\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, Castro went to the San Jose Police Department parking lot on West Mission Street around 5:15 p.m. Saturday and flagged down officers, and told them \u201cthat he murdered someone and wanted to turn himself in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro said he buried the victim\u2019s body in a creek across from the Tamien Caltrain station; officers drove him to a spot near Lelong Street north of the Highway 87 off-ramp, detectives wrote. From there, Castro reportedly led officers through an opening in a wire fence that led to a riverbed for the Guadalupe River, and then to a shallow grave near a trail.<\/p>\n

The officers found the grave about 10 feet from the roadway surface and started to dig; soon after they uncovered \u201cthe odor of decay, a human foot, leg, and knee.\u201d They identified body as belonging to a man, and observed a \u201cvisible horizontal laceration across the neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castro told officers that he knew the victim and went to the location to smoke methamphetamine with him, and that \u201cwithout provocation, he strangled John Doe 1 and slit his throat,\u201d and buried him, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Detectives wrote that Castro then proceeded to tell officers about a second man he killed, also near the Guadalupe Park Trail, but about three miles north near Coleman Avenue and Autumn Parkway. Castro led officers to a \u201cdecayed human male body\u201d wrapped in a red tent, a victim referenced in the criminal charges as John Doe 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarcelino told us that he lured Victim John Doe 2 to a secluded grassy area near the Guadalupe River to smoke,\u201d detectives wrote. \u201cOnce there, he strangled him and struck him with a rock, killing him. He then wrapped the body in the red tent, and dropped it in the tall grass near the Guadalupe River shore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police have not disclosed any suspected motive for the homicides. A man who said he casually knew Castro, and whose name is being withheld for his privacy and safety, told this news organization that Castro was unhoused and periodically lived in encampments around the crime scenes. The man said that when he spoke to Castro about a month before the killings, Castro appeared tired and stressed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looked worn out,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n

Court records show that at the time of his arrest, Castro had at least six felony convictions dating back to 2019, most of which involved theft and auto theft crimes, and had two active felony petty theft cases from April and June of this year.<\/p>\n

Those same records show that at one point Castro was being seen in the county mental health court, and that he was in and out of county jail for his convictions.<\/p>\n

The new murder charges are accompanied by an allegation that \u201cthe defendant\u2019s prior convictions as an adult and sustained petitions in juvenile delinquency proceedings are numerous and of increasing seriousness,\u201d which if found true by a jury that convicts him could increase his potential prison sentence.<\/p>\n

Anyone with information for investigators can contact the SJPD homicide unit at\u00a0408-277-5283<\/a>\u00a0or email Detective Sgt. John Van Den Broeck at\u00a03829@sanjoseca.gov<\/a>\u00a0or Detective Amanda Estantino at\u00a04339@sanjoseca.gov<\/a>. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or\u00a0siliconvalleycrimestoppers.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Staff writer Grant Stringer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Jose man has been charged with murder after police say he confessed to killing two men…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[237,10772,7359,186116,969,134,186104,1331,236,88,90,89,5569],"class_list":["post-473498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-arrest","tag-charge","tag-district-attorney","tag-guadalupe-river","tag-homeless","tag-homicide","tag-marcelino-castro","tag-murder","tag-police","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sjpd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}