PHOENIX—In a blue-collar Phoenix neighborhood known for gang and drug violence, Margarito Castro’s 19-year-old son Manny was learning to be a welder just like his father. Father and son carpooled together to work until June 10, when Manny was shot dead as he sat in his car in front of his girlfriend’s house by a suspect identified this week as the city’s first serial killer in a decade.
Now Margarito Castro goes to visit Manuel “Manny” Castro Garcia’s grave daily, mystified why someone targeted his son and killed six other people since April. Police say all were shot by a thin, lanky man with a handgun who is probably in his 20s and that there is no known motive.
He is possibly Hispanic, like many of the 208,000 people living in the Maryvale neighborhood where all but one of the killings happened after dark and just before dawn.
