WINFIELD, W.Va. — A Putnam County man spent 16 minutes in a woman’s apartment in September 2015 and the encounter ended with the victim dead of a gunshot wound, a prosecutor told a judge Tuesday in Putnam County Circuit Court.
Judge Phillip Stowers accepted a Kennedy Plea for first degree murder from Philip Casto in the death of Jennifer Evans. The two had been involved in an affair but Evans had gotten back together with her husband and tried to break it off with Casto, Putnam County Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia told the court.
“They (Evans and her husband) had moved past the Philip Casto issue and the evidence is Mr. Casto didn’t move past it,” Sorsaia said.
Instead, according to the evidence, Casto, of Scott Depot, told a friend on social media that he was leaving town for Boston but before he left he was going to do something “brutal.”
Sorsaia said he purchased a gun and the following afternoon went to Evans’ Hurricane apartment.
“We could have had a forensic argument that she may have been on her knees when she was shot in the head. She had a bruise on her bicep, so he may have grabbed her by the arm, she fell to her knees. Her put a gun to her head, he shot her through the head and the bullet hit the cabinet, ” Sorsaia said.
Casto was arrested hours later near Boston.
Casto entered a Kennedy Plea where he admitted guilt but the details were provided by the state not by the defendant, Sorsaia said. As part of the plea bargain, Sorsaia will stand silent at sentencing. Judge Stowers will decide if Casto gets life with mercy or if he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Sentencing is scheduled for March 30.
Sorsaia has spent 28 years as a prosecutor but said he never gets over these types of crimes.
“Someone’s little girl died and it’s just a tragedy,” he said. “Unfortunately it’s the business of being a prosecutor.”