HOUSTON, TX (KTRK) — A County 5 deputy constable in Harris County is under investigation after a burglary victim’s MacBook Pro ended up in his home. Deputy Celso Castillo is still on the force, but he does not do street patrol, according to Constable Ted Heap’s office.
The saga began on October 28. Nathan Kilcourse, parked at his Westbury home after work around 2 a.m. and fell asleep. When he opened his truck later that morning, his heart sank.
“As soon as I opened my door I saw the center console and knew what had happened. I looked in my back seat and knew my backpack was missing” , said Kilcourse.
Kilcourse recalled his MacBook Pro being in the backpack. He immediately called the gendarmes and made a report.
The deputy who took the report told him that several neighbors also had their cars broken into. Additionally, she was told that another deputy had arrested suspicious teenage boys early that morning, but no items were found.
Kilcourse then activated the “Find My iPhone” app, hoping his laptop would ping him. Amazingly, that night while he was still at work, it worked.
“Around 9:30 p.m. and I get my MacBook’s physical address, I got super excited and was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to confront this guy and get my MacBook back,'” he said.
On October 29, Kilcourse tracked the ping from his neighborhood of Westbury to Katy and was shocked by what he discovered.
There was a Police Station 5 patrol car parked in front of the house where his laptop had rung. Kilcourse knocked on the door and Deputy Castillo answered.
He confirmed to Kilcourse that he had investigated the car break-ins, but did not have Kilcourse’s laptop.
“He says he interviewed two teenagers, but he didn’t have my MacBook,” Kilcourse recalled. “I’m like, ‘My MacBook says it’s there and you tell me it’s not.’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t know where your goddamn MacBook is, but it’s not there.'”
Kilcourse says Deputy Castillo at one point invited him to “look around” in his house and opened the back door of his patrol car to show no laptops. Feeling uneasy, Kilcourse left and called the supervisors at Precinct 5.
Shortly after, he says Castillo called him, saying he had done a thorough search and found the laptop in the trunk of his patrol car. The laptop was later returned to Kilcourse by a supervisor.
Precinct 5 says Castillo told supervisors he forgot to catalog and return the laptop at the end of his shift. However, he says that explanation just doesn’t match his MacBook’s location history.
“At 9.30 at night you have to turn it on to ring, you have to know where it is,” Kilcourse said.
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