Day 10 update

This trial is not going to be over before next week's issue. I can write than with great confidence. Barring a rapid acceleration of testimony from medical officials - since Wednesday morning, the defense in the Alvaro Castillo trial has brought forward three witnesses, the first two having been on the stand for a day or more - I'll be here for a good part of another week. We still have the prosecution's medical experts to get to, which will be at some point early or mid-week next week.

The defense's medical experts have agreed upon a number of points - Castillo suffered or suffers from both a schizotypal and schizo-affective disorder (my undergraduate-level psychology courses involving the DSM-IV have come back to me this week). Under this diagnosis, Castillo was aware that shooting people was both illegal and would hurt or kill them, but he thought God wanted him to "sacrifice" the students and his father, so he was not subject to the laws of man, witnesses said.

Two revelations from Castillo's nearly three-year incarceration have come to light in recent days that add a previously unknown wrinkle to the defense's testimony. One is his reaction to the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech - two witnesses who worked with Castillo during that time said Castillo was excited about the shooting and the "sacrifices," obsessive, they said, to the point where Central Prison staff took away his radio.

The second is Castillo's reason he stopped firing his weapon at Orange High School on Aug. 30, 2006. Witnesses for the prosecution have theorized his weapon jammed, and that Castillo was addressing the jam when a school resource officer reached him and subdued him. However, in testimony this afternoon, the jury has learned Castillo felt a pain in his chest that he interpreted as a sign from God to stop shooting. Castillo felt God spoke to him, witnesses testified, through signs but did not speak to him directly.