A Bucks County man was charged with homicide and related crimes late Tuesday after prosecutors said he killed his father, mother, and sister inside their parents’ Northampton Township home.
The charges came a day after authorities arrested Kevin Castiglia following an hourslong standoff at the home where his relatives were found dead.
Castiglia, 55, was taken into custody after he barricaded himself inside the two-story brick house at 26 Heather Road, where police later discovered the bodies of his 53-year-old sister, Deborah, in the kitchen and his parents, Frederick, 90, and Judith, 84, in the basement.
Authorities have not said how they died.
Castiglia is charged with three counts each of criminal homicide and abuse of a corpse, as well as making terroristic threats, and related crimes.
Police were dispatched to the house about 2:15 p.m. Monday after Deborah Castiglia’s boyfriend called 911 to report that Kevin Castiglia had threatened him with a large chef’s knife when he arrived at the home looking for his girlfriend, authorities said. The boyfriend told police Deborah Castiglia had been missing for several days, according to the affidavit of probable cause for her brother’s arrest.
After officers arrived, the affidavit said, Kevin Castiglia came to the front door armed with two knives, one of which an officer believed had blood on it.
According to the affidavit, Castiglia spoke incoherently and did not respond when officers asked about his family. He pointed the knives at the officers, who deployed Tasers to try to subdue him — without success, the document said.
Castiglia pulled the probes from his body before slamming the door shut and locking it, the affidavit said.
Officers called for a tactical team to break into the house. As police secured the area, neighbors were ordered to shelter in place.
David Deleo, 41, was shoveling snow from his driveway when Northampton Township police arrived, he said in a phone interview Tuesday. Within minutes, he said, officers blocked off Heather Road. Police vehicles and emergency crews from neighboring towns and counties soon lined the street, surrounding the house and establishing a perimeter, he said.
From inside her home next door, Erica Titlow, 35, said she looked out a window and saw the man standing at the front door of the house, which has French doors with large glass panes. He was in his underwear, she said, with blood on his chest and stomach. Deleo said that he also saw the man and that he was holding a knife with blood on the blade.
“I had no idea what was happening,” Titlow said. “I thought maybe he was having some kind of mental breakdown and had hurt himself.”
After the man retreated from the doorway, police used a bullhorn to call out to him, Titlow said, urging him to come outside. He did not, and the standoff continued for several hours.
Officers surrounded the house but were unable to enter, Titlow said. Shortly before a SWAT team forced its way through the front door Monday evening, officers went door to door, asking Deleo and Titlow if snipers could use their second-floor windows to provide cover to officers on the ground. They agreed, they said.
Titlow said she spent more than an hour hiding in her basement with her 2-year-old daughter while snipers were positioned inside her home. “I didn’t want her to see any of it,” she said.
Even after officers entered the house, the man was not immediately removed, Deleo said. He watched as police deployed gas canisters inside the home and heard them detonate. Firefighters later connected a hose to a nearby hydrant and sprayed water into the house, according to Deleo and Titlow.
Sometime after nightfall — the exact moment was difficult to recall, Titlow said — officers pulled the man from the house. He was restrained on a stretcher as authorities wheeled him away, she said.
By Tuesday morning, police were still at the scene, Titlow said, though the activity had slowed. “It’s a lot quieter now,” she said.
Staff writer Robert Moran contributed to this article.
