The Triple Child Killer And Church Connections

Triple child killer Mark Castillo did more than drown his three young children in a Baltimore, Maryland, hotel bathtub on March 29, 2008. He also exploded common assumptions that such horrors engulf families mostly in seedy, drug infested, poverty striken underbellies of the American society.

As it happens, the children’s mother is a respected pediatrician in the Washington, D.C. area. Dr. Amy Castillo has also served in music, Bible study and singles ministries in local and South Carolina churches. But superb education, professional status and church engagement were not enough to save this family from slaughter – announced in advance as ex-wife torment strategy by Mark Castillo.

From my own clinical work with church communities, this I know: rare is the church that does not include families with similar traits. It’s not that they’re likely to generate blood curdling headlines. More likely is the opposite. Carefully, quietly, covertly to avoid outside observers, churchy abusers cultivate respectable, even saintly images, while savaging the hearts and minds of spouses and children.

Statistics show that Christian families are just as likely to suffer their own private holocausts as abused families in a surrounding culture addicted to violent imagery. When one such victim in Washington state sought help, church leaders told her to “submit more” and challenged the husband to “love more.” The wife tried compliance. The husband opted for murder, fatally shooting his wife and three children while wounding his elderly mother-in-law.

In such situations, the church not only fails to give refuge to the innocent but is used as a front and a weapon for the treacherous personality who, like Judas, may hang out with the righteous while privately plotting evil.

What can church leaders, counselors, congregational care ministers and concerned individuals do? A brilliant move would be attending this conference next October 10-12 in Takoma Park, Maryland: Partnering for Change: The Church Responds to Domestic Violence. Featured speakers will include Christian academics, intervention experts and government officials bridging those worlds. More information, as well as immediate gateways to research and guidance is available at http://www.peaceandsafety.com/.