Modesto homicide victim’s family tells of attack two weeks ago

About two weeks ago, Andrea Castro narrowly escaped death at the hands of her boyfriend, Jose Cuevas, said her mother and another family member Monday.

“She told mom that Jose put a pillow over her face and she passed out, she was unconscious,” said Carmen Garcia, sister-in-law of Castro’s mother, Maribel Martinez.

Sitting in Martinez’s home on Eureka Street in south Modesto, Garcia served as translator for the Spanish-speaking woman, three days after her daughter was found dead at a home on Moselle Court.

“Whenever she woke up several hours later, she called an ambulance and was taken to the emergency room,” Garcia said. “But of course by the time she was at the emergency room, Jose kicked in and said, ‘Oh, it was because of her anemia.’ She couldn’t give all the details, however she was filing a restraining order and filing for custody of her kids.”

Police on Monday evening could not confirm the family’s account, but the Stanislaus County Superior Court online case index shows that on Jan. 13, Castro filed a declaration of domestic violence and an application to establish child support. She had a temporary restraining order against Cuevas and court hearings scheduled for Feb. 4 and 18, the website shows.

But Andrea Castro, 19, died Friday afternoon in her father’s home on Moselle Court. Cuevas, 23, was taken into custody several hours later in Bakersfield and remained in Stanislaus County Jail Monday, held without bail on a murder charge.

The young woman, who was born in Modesto, attended Bret Harte Elementary and Hanshaw Middle School. She was a 13-year-old student at the latter when she became pregnant, which brought her education to an end. Cuevas is the father of her two children, 5-year-old Alexis and 16-month-old Jayleen.

Jayleen was in the home with her mother when Castro was killed, family and police say. Both children now are in the care of Martinez and her husband, Carlos.

Castro moved in with her mother and stepfather on Jan. 10, but she was at her father’s home Friday because she’d been staying there and was gathering the last of her belongings. One of the doors showed signs of a break-in, Garcia said. The family believes Cuevas was looking for her and saw her car there.

Police have not revealed the cause of Castro’s death, and Garcia said the family has been told only that there were no bruises or other signs of trauma and that she was unconscious and died at the scene despite life-saving measures by medical personnel. Officers had responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at the home.

Castro was a loving mother who “always had her kids with her,” Garcia said. “They’d take family trips to the Bay Area, to Tijuana to visit Jose’s father. ... She was pretty much staying at home but also working for her mother-in-law. She sort of had her own business, they would sell fruit at farmers markets. Only weekends she would go and help out.”

By all appearances, Garcia and Martinez said, Castro and Nuevas had a good relationship most of the time they were together. But about four months ago, she began speaking up about his controlling behavior, the women said. “She (Martinez) started hearing ... that he was even stopping her from coming to see mom. He would take her phone, keys, sometimes lock her in the house.”

The women said Castro indicated this was a new behavior, not a long-term pattern. And Martinez and Garcia said they never saw any physical signs of domestic violence, such as bruises, on her.

At Martinez’s home on Monday, little Alexis played with other young family members on hand-held video game devices just after his little sister awoke from a nap. Garcia and Martinez said he has no idea yet what happened to his mother, whose picture sat on a table nearby with a flowers and a lighted candle.

They’ll be consulting a psychologist shortly to decide how to break the news to him. For right now, Garcia said, the 5-year-old believes his mommy is “on a trip.”

The family has set up a GoFundMe page is at www.gofundme.com/qvkxgdb9.

This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 7:54 PM with the headline "Modesto homicide victim’s family tells of attack two weeks ago."