Original subtitles

September the 1st is set to be a big day.

It was Erin's birthday.

She was having the time of her life.

It was her time to shine, and it was amazing.

Erin has been counting down the days to her 19th birthday.

She plans to celebrate.

She knew who she was. She had a lot of confidence, which I admired.

Erin gets ready to go out dancing with her friends. Her favorite thing was to

dance. I think it was kind of a big deal that she was able to go to a place like

that.

Erin was looking for a wonderful birthday celebration and night out with

friends. The celebratory mood shifts when Erin's on -off boyfriend, Joshua

Garcia, arrives.

This was not a good relationship.

I was definitely uneasy about Aaron going out that night, knowing that Josh

going to be around.

I told her I don't like him, I don't think it's safe, and I don't want him

because I don't think he's a good person.

His friend was going to be driving them, and I said, well, you've got precious

cargo. He said, absolutely, you can have a good time and we'll be home early.

No one knew it would be her last night out.

Like something in me, like my soul, you.

She was gone.

In San Antonio, Texas, 18 -year -old Erin Castro eagerly awaits her birthday.

Birthdays are always a big deal in our family, but Erin had a way of making her

birthday a bigger deal in our family.

So it was exciting because she's the baby, and we always like to shower her

a lot of love.

Erin loved the bus.

Loved it.

It's her day, and we are doing everything Erin loves to do.

She was like, I'm so excited.

I'm going to be older.

There was a lot of positive things that were coming up for Erin. We were looking

for a car for her.

She was looking to go to school.

There was a lot of things that were exciting to make this birthday extra

special.

She was working at her mom's restaurant.

She loved it there.

We worked as waitresses together.

It wasn't so much work for us. It was more just hanging out with family.

She made sure to let everyone know that her birthday was coming up.

The customers loved her. She would be laughing, joking, doing the things, and

it'd be like, Erin, you have to get to work.

They loved her, and she loved them.

She had regular customers Monday through Friday.

But she wanted everyone to make sure they came back on Saturday for her

birthday.

On Saturday, September 1, 2018, Erin turns 19.

She has a shift at the hot diner.

No bother that it was her birthday and she was going to work.

It was exactly where she wanted to be that day.

Everybody that she told came in throughout the whole day and would come

her happy birthday and bring her gifts. It was like a whole thing.

She always was super giggly and really radiant. She was just so positive and

just full of life that I loved about her.

We all came to the hut to come see her, and we spent hours

sitting at the table just talking to her.

She was having the time of her life.

I was like, aren't you supposed to be working?

And she was like, yeah, but it's okay.

She wanted to spend time with my great -grandmother, and she wanted to spend

time with us.

We were there with her all day long, and at the end of the day, her stepdad had

bought her a cake with a bunch of animals on it. It looked like for maybe

preschooler, but it was perfect for her.

We all sang her happy birthday. They sang her happy birthday quite a bit

throughout the day.

This place was crowded.

We would close at 3, but everybody was just enjoying time, spending time seeing

her. So I don't think we closed until later because of that.

It was just a great day.

The past year hasn't been easy for Erin.

A turbulent relationship with her high school sweetheart has caused a lot of

heartache.

Erin and Joshua met when Erin was 14.

This was not a good relationship.

It was toxic. It was controlling.

Nobody liked Joshua Garcia.

Nobody wanted her to spend time with him.

I told her I don't like him because I don't think he's a good person.

One of the things I think that was hardest for her friends and family was

kind of rollercoaster relationship, not only in terms of the dynamics, but in

terms of them breaking up and getting back together.

On the evening of her birthday, Erin plans to go dancing.

She and her friends had been talking about going to Club Lush for about a

and they decided they were going to go the night of her birthday.

She loved, loved dancing.

Even her mom was telling her, you know, if you don't end up with a career, you

don't get a job, you should be a backup dancer, because she was great at it.

So there was like an 18 and up club.

I think it was kind of a big deal that she was able to go to a place like that.

Erin's friends arranged to meet at her home before getting ready together.

Our friends started coming over, a couple of her girlfriends, and you heard

in the other room laughing and having fun and doing all the things that girls

together.

She had music playing loud, putting on makeup.

That was one of the main things, putting on makeup. It took forever, now that I

think about it.

She had ordered a beautiful dress and some shoes to go, and

that was what she was going to wear to go out, and she looked stunning.

Erin's mother, Raina, is surprised by the appearance of one guest.

I go in to check on, you know, just to say hi, and Josh was there.

I was under the impression it was going to be her and her girlfriends.

But it's her day, and by all means, I wanted her to have a good time.

Garcia wants Aaron to ride with him, and her friends are strongly encouraging

her to ride with them.

I said, would you like me to Uber you? He said, no, that his friend was going

be driving them.

And I said, well, you've got precious cargo.

The phone calls almost immediately started.

She tells Rena, Mom, I'm in the car with Joshua.

And she starts talking about that she's getting concerned and that things are

getting bad.

Now I just wanted her home and started to tell her, let me go get you.

Let me go pick you up.

Forty minutes later, her mom gets another call.

hysterical, crying, that he had hit her.

She's screaming.

And all of a sudden she says, he stabbed me.

And that's when I heard like the

worse gut -wrenching scream.

The phone went dead.

Erin Castro's birthday celebrations have taken a terrifying turn.

What should have been a night of dancing has descended into violence.

Her mother, Raina, is frantic with worry about her youngest child, Erin, the

baby of the family.

Erin had two older sisters and an older brother.

She was funny.

She could be a little annoying at times.

But at the end of the day, I saw her as like my baby.

I even had her saved in my phone as the baby.

Growing up here in South Texas, we've got...

Hardly any winter, so it's warm all year long.

A favorite thing for all the kids to do was we'd always gravitate to my parents'

house, to the swimming pool.

Erin was fearless. She did everything 100%. She had a lot of confidence, which

admired. And for her to be so young and for me to be the oldest one, I admired

that from her.

I love you, Aaron.

I thought she was beautiful. She

was just an amazing person.

I honestly didn't believe that anyone could make Aaron feel bad about the way

she looked.

I didn't.

feel that that was possible because of how high

she held herself in her standards.

But when that dam broke, it came rushing down. It happened so fast.

14, Erin enrolls at John Marshall High School where she meets Joshua Garcia.

Erin loved school.

She didn't have to put in too much effort.

It just came naturally.

She told me she had a crush.

I think she thought that I would have said something as in like, you're too

young.

So she would just tell me, she's like, oh, I have a crush and that's it.

She knows me too well.

I guess a little bit furthermore into their relationship was when I started

noticing, because she would go on dates and stuff.

Getting a little older, you know, she'd ask for a little bit more space.

But I trusted Erin, and I trust her judgment.

I took them to the movies, and I picked them up.

I was like, well, as long as he's making you happy, then I'm happy for you.

Erin's boyfriend's life is very different from her own.

They didn't really have much in common from my understanding.

She comes from a very, very supportive family, very loving family.

His family is much more complicated, much more chaotic.

I have other opinions from other people that have said, you know, that Josh is

sweet and, you know, kind and stuff like that. I never saw that side of Josh. I

don't think the people he hung out with were...

that good of a crowd.

As the relationship continues, those around Erin sense a change in her.

And I didn't see anything until, I would say, her junior year. And it was very

subtle.

It was just something wasn't right.

She'd be like, hey, can you pick me up from school? I don't want to be here.

So I thought that was a little weird, and that's why I was like, well, aren't

you, like, isn't your boyfriend there? Don't you want to spend time with him?

And she'd be like, no, I just want to go home.

I definitely saw a change in her confidence.

She would brush it away and always have an explanation for it.

But I definitely saw changes even in her makeup, in her clothes.

She was like, I don't want to wear makeup, and it kind of shocked me.

because she was the one that was, like, very presentable.

Hey, what's wrong?

Like, are you okay?

She'd be like, yeah, I'm fine.

I just didn't feel like wearing makeup, which was really weird.

It doesn't take long for Erin to start confiding in her friends about what's

going on behind the scenes.

She was telling me, like, you know, Josh was telling me, no, you're ugly, you're

fat, you have acne, things like that.

So he's constantly trying to control her. He's constantly trying to kind of

undermine and undercut her and make her feel like nobody else would want you.

You're lucky to have me.

Erin has kept Joshua's cruelty hidden from her family.

But when the school gets involved, that all changes.

Like most teenagers, her prized possession was her backpack with all her

in it, makeup, etc.

And somebody from the school had called.

Her boyfriend had been arguing with her. He'd taken her backpack away and

wouldn't give it back and fled the school because he didn't want her

makeup.

The relationship continues.

So do the calls from the school.

He was yelling at her in the hallway, calling her awful names in front

of everyone.

Then I'd hear that he had looked through Aaron's phone.

Aaron had got a text from another boy and that Joshua, who was looking through

her phone, had seen this text and actually attacked this boy and broken

nose.

We had mediations with the deputy that patrols the

school and makes sure the children are safe.

And I'll never forget that her senior year, he looked at her

to her face and said, one day he's going to kill you.

Raina presses charges against Garcia.

He's expelled from the school, and Erin stops seeing him.

Her sister encourages her to seek out less serious, less unhealthy

relationships.

She had crushes and stuff, and I'd be like, well, you should talk to him.

You should go for it. You're not married.

I thought she was moving on. I was, in a way, happy.

She was speaking to somebody else.

Josh. I guess ended up finding out that she was speaking to somebody else.

And he went and reached out to that guy and let him know, you know, to stay away

from Aaron. If he didn't, he was going to hurt him.

Aaron was, since he could talk, was excited about wearing big dresses and

makeup.

So I knew that prom would be a very important part of Aaron's school time.

Aaron, on the one hand, being starting to be told by...

Joshua Garcia, that she's not attractive or she's heavy.

She's unfortunately getting some confirmation of this because people who,

especially boys at school, will have nothing to do with her.

But the irony is it's because of Joshua Garcia. It's because of his actions.

They're afraid to be around Aaron because of what this guy might do to

I felt so bad for Aaron.

She was becoming isolated.

But us as a family, we always try to help each other.

And my amazing son -in -law, he said,

well, I'm not from here, Erin. Let's go.

Erin always looked beautiful. But that night, she glowed.

She just was so happy and full of hope,

you know.

Confident Aaron.

Joshua Garcia always has a strategy to get Aaron back.

Whether it be him calling and saying he was going to hurt himself or a sub story

about how his family didn't care about him.

She felt sorry for him.

She wanted to help him in any way because she was loving.

And I think she tried.

to change how he was.

An abusive relationship doesn't start when somebody hits you.

And it's so important for us to talk about the signs that are not violent

physically, because oftentimes the physical violence, it is the third

a football game.

There were instances that Erin would have bruises on her leg.

Or arms and she could always make an excuse for them.

Erin's friends believe Joshua Garcia is the one causing her injuries.

They also believe Erin is in real danger.

Erin had told me to pick her up. She was at the apartment of Josh.

We got to my apartment.

And she was bruised up from her arm because he was, like, grabbing her.

And she was crying, saying that he was being, like, ugly towards her.

I believe Aaron at first wanted to leave, and he wasn't letting her leave.

And he had to go gun out on Aaron.

So this was a serious domestic violence, which is really shocking when you have

somebody who is that young.

I was planning to go out to a house party with our mutual friend.

And Erin had called me on my phone that she was with Josh.

She said she was going to walk home.

It was just a 10 -minute walk.

We ended up leaving the party.

We tried calling.

We tried texting.

She never responded.

I felt like, I don't know if I heard a whimper.

So I turned on the light, and when I looked at her, her face was bruised.

She had awful road burn on her leg.

She tried to say that she got into a fight with some girls.

And I immediately said, no, Erin, no.

The truth is more shocking than they can imagine.

Erin has been subjected to a thickening attack.

He beat her, broke her nose.

Threw her out of the moving vehicle, ran her over, and then went looking for

her.

Aaron is terrified, and she ends up hiding in the bushes from him.

And he is circling around and looking for her.

And he ends up finding her, and he wrestles her back in the car.

And he got her back in his car.

And then he stopped at the gas station by the house and was attempting to clean

her up and put makeup on her.

And then he proceeded to leave her off down the street from the house and had

walk home scared with a broken leg.

To see her like that hurt.

We called the police immediately.

made a police report, filed charges.

I took her to the hospital, and that was the second time that a complete

stranger would tell her to her face that he was going to kill her.

Sixteen -year -old Aaron Castro has been subjected to a violent and sustained

attack at the hands of on -off boyfriend, 17 -year -old Joshua Garcia.

He's charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and detained

his indictment by a grand jury.

With Garcia behind bars, Aaron's family are relieved to see an opportunity for a

fresh start, one without him.

Everybody was definitely involved in trying to have Erin know how much she

loved.

Maybe it was something awful that we were going to go through, but she was

to come out as a victor on the other side.

Finally, I felt like she was serious.

Your spark is back. You're happy. There's no reason for you to even think

talk to that person anymore.

Something was going to come out of it good, and it did for a while.

The phone calls started even when he was in jail.

And it was all directed at, it's your fault.

Everybody who knew Erin talked about what a giving person that she was and

a loving person that she was. And I think that's for the most part a

You have that personality and you encounter the wrong person.

That empathy and that compassion, it can almost be used as a weapon against you.

It was hard for me trying to stay and save her from him when she just wanted

save him.

I did start to see the anxious Erin came back.

You know, when that phone would ring, she'd have to get to it and be private

with it.

I found out later on that he recanted her story.

Erin submitted an affidavit saying that the injuries she sustained were not

Joshua Garcia's fault.

She caused them herself, she said. He was released from jail.

She didn't present any charges.

And it was really heartbreaking to watch that she still wanted to be with him

after he hurt her.

We had a lot of conversations about what was holding her.

I can remember us sitting on my bed and talking about it and her crying.

And I believe it was a fear that maybe all the things that he had told her

be true.

This kind of coercive control and abuse can wear anybody down over time.

Erin believed things will be different this time.

In reality, Garcia's behavior is getting worse.

There is no word that Aaron is safe from him.

I know he had broken into Aaron's house. I'm not sure if it was like once or

twice where Aaron was afraid sometimes to go to sleep.

It was just like chipping away from her inch by inch. That's what his goal was,

to just chip her slowly, bring everything down.

It was the hardest time I've had as a mother, wrestling with what to do.

And my baby, she was my daughter. I so desperately wanted to

fix it.

And I obviously knew that this relationship was going to continue.

So we were out one day, and we were going to go to lunch. And she said,

was going to hang out with Josh.

And I made the decision to ask her to invite him to come

with us.

I think I was desperate at the time, and I was just trying to be encouraging.

And I told him, you know, just be good to my daughter, and I'll be good to you,

and things will work out.

And it seemed promising for a while.

But then the whole, like, roller coaster of arguments started again.

There was an element of fear.

Aaron felt like he was omnipotent, that he could do anything he wanted to

without there being really any repercussions.

I recall one time he had told Aaron when she was at my apartment that he was

going to show up with a gun and kill us and things like that.

Erin kept watching through the window. She was scared.

It went downhill pretty fast, and before I knew it, it was her birthday was

coming up.

That morning, she woke up excited and happy.

She said, you know, I got to get to work.

I think she knew she had an audience that was going to be waiting for her.

I was not working.

I picked up my great -grandmother, and we all came to the hut to come see her.

I felt like she was in a good headspace.

I thought there was a click in her head that she's ready to move on and do the

things that she wants to do.

The conversation we had at the table, while she was working was about her

to college.

Erin wanted to be a veterinarian and loved animals ever since she was a

We had three adopted dogs that she had brought home.

I still have Lola with me.

As evening comes, Erin prepares for the next phase of her birthday celebrations.

She's going to get together with some of her friends and start celebrating with

them.

Erin has gotten all dressed up in a special outfit and done her makeup and

everything, and Joshua Garcia shows up.

Joshua and his friend are drinking.

He takes Erin aside to speak to her.

Within minutes, Her friends see that she's in tears and had taken off a

glamorous birthday outfit.

Before I knew it, she was changing. She said, well, I just didn't feel

comfortable in that.

It's all about him and him exerting control over her.

Josh affected her self -esteem and stuff like that.

He would tell her that she was bad.

And she was telling me, like, you know, Josh was telling me that my clothes

didn't fit me, that it was too tight on me, things like that.

Even on her birthday, which is such a special occasion for Aaron, that he is

only able to come in and to start controlling her, her mood, her feelings,

her demeanor, what she wears, but he's willing to do that.

I was definitely uneasy about Aaron going out that night, just knowing that

was going to be around.

Erin is supposed to ride with her friends. Now she says she will travel

Josh and his friend. They set off in the green SUV that Josh has borrowed from

his brother.

They've been gone less than an hour when Raina receives a call from Erin.

They were fighting and I said, well, it's your birthday.

You shouldn't be fighting.

The fighting escalates quickly.

Erin gets out of the car at a gas station and calls her friends.

Erin texts her friends, we're fighting, please come pick me up.

Her friends can't find out where she is exactly.

And they're also, you know, frustrated because they're calling her.

She's not answering.

Her friends, her thinking.

We've heard this song before.

I started to get the understanding that she was not with her friends and that

she was with him and his friends.

Really start to panic.

Josh has got Aaron back in his car. He's driving towards the Camp Bullis Road.

He called his brother to meet him.

He gets there driving the silver Lexus.

Initially what he sees is Garcia in the front seat hitting Aaron in the back

seat.

His friend manages to pull him out of the car. When he does...

And Joshua jumps in the back seat and continues to hit Erin.

I'm calling and calling and calling and calling, like, oh, just redial, redial,

redial.

All these texts that I was sending her, like, answer your phone now. Answer your

phone now.

Forty minutes later, her mom gets another call.

And Erin is panicked.

I can't get out of the car. I don't know where I am.

She's screaming, and all of a sudden she says, Joshua stabbed me.

I'm bleeding in my neck, I'm bleeding in my face, and I can't get out of the

car. And all of a sudden she hears this just blood -curdling scream.

At this point, Garcia grabs her by the hair, throws her on the ground, kicks

in the ribs, and kicks her in the head.

and she's not really moving.

And the phone goes, Dad.

I could see the time was still going, so she was on the other end.

And so I kept saying, Erin, Erin, and I didn't want to hang up, so I got the

neighbor to call the police for me.

Erin is laying on the ground.

She is behind the green 4Runner.

that they arrived in, and she's also in front of the silver Lexus that his

brother drove.

So his brother decides to get in the car and turn the 4Runner around, and all of

a sudden, Joshua Garcia jumped in the Lexus, accelerates, and rolls over

Aaron's body, runs over her, and then stops, reverses,

and rolls over her again, backs up over her.

He gets out of the car and he kicks her and they all drive off.

Her mom spends the next hour and 20 minutes or so hanging onto this phone,

desperately hoping that her daughter is going to come back on the line.

Police are triangulating Erin's phone and have been briefed to look out for

green SUV that Joshua's driving.

I thought, you know, if we just get enough information, we'll be able to

her and bring her home.

Police would basically track the signal where Erin's phone had pinged last.

And they drive to Campbell's Road. They find Erin on the side of the road in the

breakdown lane.

The police showed up at the house, and I think I just fell to my knees and said,

no, no,

no. Like, I knew, like, something in me, like, my soul knew

she was gone.

to think of having to go through life without my daughter.

I wouldn't think that was possible.

has been beaten and run over repeatedly.

Her injuries are too catastrophic to survive.

Just hours into her 19th birthday, she is pronounced dead.

Ex -boyfriend Joshua Garcia is the prime suspect, but he is on the run.

Police are on the lookout for this green.

you know, forerunner.

And they noticed a silver Lexus driving off kind of, you know, fast.

After they find Aaron and realize kind of what has happened, they become

concerned that perhaps this car was involved.

And so they began looking for this car as well.

They were looking for him.

I had put him like an address that I knew.

We have Joshua driving the silver Lexus. And we have this brother, he's in the

green forerunner.

At some point, they stop at a Walmart.

And they switch.

Garcia is making his way back home.

He makes a phone call to his mom and tells her, essentially, that he has run

over his girlfriend.

They all meet back at this Studio 6 hotel.

CCC footage shows Joshua Garcia in the parking lot.

There's some video of...

Joshua throwing some shoes away in the gutter.

When police would show up initially, Joshua's not there.

But later on, they find out that he has returned to the hotel. They show up and

they arrest him.

The two vehicles are recovered.

A knife is found in the SUV and the Lexus shows clear damage as well as

bloodstains. but Joshua Garcia accepts no responsibility for Aaron's death.

When they bring Joshua Garcia in for questioning, he says Aaron suddenly

him as he's driving and that he doesn't know what to do, so he lets her out of

the car and drives off.

She may have fallen down, but he had no idea that she was dead.

Later, however, he acknowledges... He did hit Erin with a knife, only, of

course, because Erin is attacking him as he's driving.

And that, yes, he did run over her once with a car because he was afraid she was

going to call the police and he was going to have to go back to jail.

Charged with Erin's murder.

Garcia spends almost three years in Bear County Jail, his family unable to raise

the $200 ,000 bail.

On his 23rd birthday, he appeared in the 227th District Court. He pleaded

guilty to Aaron's murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

He will be eligible for parole after serving half that sentence.

The nature of death murder is...

Incredibly violent.

It is brutal.

He is literally trying to erase this person from the face of the earth and

leaving her on the side of the road like a piece of garbage.

They never ever even looked at us or to Aaron's mom or ever tried to apologize.

It's like Aaron's life didn't matter to him.

They gave him 32 years and I feel like he's only going to be 50.

He can still date and he can still live his life, and that's not justice because

she's not here. She can't have the life that she wanted or deserved.

Erin's loved ones will never know the truth of what happened that night, but

they believe Erin had finally had enough of Garcia.

That day on her birthday, I do feel like she was ready to leave.

I do feel like she was going to break up and move on

with her life.

I feel like there was an argument that happened because I know something had

to set him off, and I feel like that was the argument that she didn't want to be

with him anymore.

Joshua Garcia felt that Aaron was his possession, and he could essentially do

whatever he wanted to with her.

And that if she didn't go along with all the things that, in his mind, a

relationship was supposed to be like, that she deserved whatever she got.

They did show up to the funeral, but I couldn't walk inside. It was too hard

me.

I got a lot of support,

but I also got a lot of...

People that reached out to me and let me know that they had been in

relationships like this or their daughter was in a relationship like

And I know that it was becoming very

evident that this wasn't just an isolated thing with Aaron, that this was

problem.

My mom called me and was telling me that You know, we have to do something.

So we just grabbed all our family members and we talked about the idea of

starting a foundation.

If this family didn't do something, then who would?

The Aaron Rios Castro Foundation was established to tackle domestic abuse.

It aims to enlighten, educate and support young people.

giving advice and scholarships.

Those are conversations that have to be had.

We can't brush those things under the rug. We have to take them serious, and

need to educate early.

When I go speak at high schools, all these girls remind me of Erin.

They could have all been Erin.

And to try to help those, to try to help those that are going through something.

We want them to know that they're not alone going through this. And I feel

I should be one of the ones to talk about it.

My sister's life was taken because of this, and I'm going to say something

And I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

To share our story keeps her alive with me.

But I think the biggest thing is seeing how it's helped other teenagers.

Joshua Garcia's warped ideas of love meant that Erin's 19th birthday was her

last night out, leaving behind a family who strived to associate that

anniversary with positivity and love for Erin.

She wouldn't want to hide her story.

She'd want the world to know, and if she could save one life, then we're saving

everybody.

That's the spirit of Erin.

She'd never want one of her friends to go through what she went through.

She'd never want a stranger to go through what she went through.

That's Erin.