Pregnant girlfriend murder trial heads to jury

Coleman’s defense attorney, Jonathan McDougall, argued that his client was guilty only of voluntary manslaughter, which he posited occurred at the pair’s San Mateo residence after Castle allegedly “lunged” at him. Coleman was notably excited to be a father, McDougall said, checking in on Castle and regularly attending her prenatal appointments, and thus had no reason to intend for her death. 

“If he wanted to be a dad, he had no intent to kill mom,” he said. 

The prosecution offered the jury a different version of events, citing texts in the day leading up to Castle’s death when she called Coleman abusive, a video of him punching the window of her car in the hours before and a cause of death consistent with strangulation or suffocation. 

The way in which Castle was allegedly murdered would have allowed Coleman the breadth of time to think through his decision — legally known as premeditation, a requirement prosecutors must prove to obtain a first-degree murder conviction — and shows an intentional decision to kill her, Deputy District Attorney Ryan McLaughlin said. 

“This can only be classified as a brutal domestic violence murder,” he said. 

Because the differentiation between manslaughter and murder rests so largely on the defendant’s mental state and intention, the prosecution would need far more conclusive evidence to obtain a murder conviction, McDougall said. 

“He is completely speculating. The prosecution, after 19 months, are guessing and they’re adding things,” he said. “How has the prosecution shown what was in this man’s head, what was in his mind?” 

McDougall told the jury that Coleman did not realize Castle had died, calling her multiple times on his drive to Los Angeles and asking to speak to her while being interrogated by investigators after his arrest. Coleman was also extremely intoxicated the day of Castle’s death, McDougall said, with little memory of what had occurred. 

“This is not conduct consistent with someone that purposely, consciously, for minutes on minutes, killed the mother of his daughter,” he said. 

Although Coleman was clearly drunk, McLaughlin said, he reminded a jury they could only take that fact into account when deciding between second-degree murder and first-degree murder. 

A voluntary manslaughter charge would have required Coleman to truly believe he was acting in self-defense — a claim that holds little water, McLaughlin said, given that Castle was nine months pregnant and Coleman was a trained boxer — or in the heat of passion. The heat of passion defense is only valid under serious provocation, he told the jury, “not because you’re generally mad or drunk.” 

“This is a murder. In fact, it’s two,” McLaughlin said. 

McDougall pushed back on the allegation that Coleman was physically abusive, pointing to prior texts in the months before Castle’s death where she apologized for calling him abusive and said she’d made the accusation because she was mad. The pair were in a dysfunctional dynamic with equal amounts of animus, McDougall said, repeating patterns of romance and anger nearly every day. 

He also emphasized to the jury that Coleman deeply wanted his child, who was to be named Indigo, playing a recording of a phone call with his mother from jail postarrest where he expressed sorrow about the death. Prosecutors failed to prove Coleman deliberately wanted to kill Castle and the baby, McDougall said. 

“There’s simply no evidence of premeditation, deliberation or malice,” he said. “This is a manslaughter case.” 

Though DNA evidence in the case had been sparse — which is not uncommon, McLaughlin said — he pushed the jury to remember that Coleman had also fled to Los Angeles after the alleged murder. He also took Castle’s safe — which contained $30,000 and her children’s passports — and called his uncle and asked for help leaving the country to China. 

In the prosecution’s theory of events, Coleman would have allegedly seen Castle go limp and lifeless as he strangled or suffocated her, McLaughlin said. 

“It was slow,” he said. “He was up close and personal.” 

The jury entered into an hour and a half of deliberations after closing statements concluded and will resume Tuesday.