John Waters Jr./The Weekly Calistogan
Family members react as members of the Napa County Coroner’s office prepare to transport the body of Luis Octavio Carrillo, 24, who was gunned down on North Oak Street early Monday. His murder is only the third in Calistoga’s 124-year history.
Calistoga investigates third murder in 124 years
Shooting is first ‘real whodunit,’ claims former officer
By John Waters Jr.
Editor
For more than nine hours Monday morning Luis Octavio Carrillo, 24, lay across the sidewalk, his ankles hanging slightly above the curb and gutter, in front of the Saratoga Manor Apartments, the first murder victim in Calistoga since May 1987 and only the third in the city’s 124 years.
According to Calistoga Police Chief Jonathan Mills, Carrillo was gunned down just before 1:30 a.m. on North Oak Street, 75 yards east of the entrance to Logvy Park.
“We got a report that shots were fired at 1:30 a.m.,” Mills said. “When officers arrived at the scene they found the victim laying beside the road.”
Later, two small clusters of auto safety glass sparkled in the morning sun near Carrillo’s body. A tag attached by a string to the big toe of Carrillo’s right foot fluttered occasionally in the cool morning breeze. On his left foot a flipflop-type sandal sat askew. Except for the plastic bags covering his hands, Carrillo could almost have been resting beside the road. Investigators covered Carrillo’s hands with plastic bags in an effort to preserve any evidence.
At 10:45 a.m. members of the Napa County Coroner’s office lifted the stiffened body of a man who had only lived in Calistoga for “a few years” according to a cousin, and slid it into a plain white van for transportation to the Napa County coroner’s facility in Napa. A small group of family members and friends watched mournfully from beside a weathered wooden fence a few feet away — just inside the North Oak Street entrance to the tiny enclave of single-family homes, where the victim had been living with family members.
The news of murder in a small town where, in many cases, people have known each other all their lives, travels fast, picking up facts along the way that bear little resemblance to the story told by the evidence.
“So far, we have seen none of the evidence we expect to find when drugs or any kind of gang activity is involved,” Mills said. “Drugs and gangs do not appear to be involved at this point.”
No drugs and no weapons were found at the scene.
The Napa County Major Crimes Task Force had been called in early Monday and began processing the scene and gathering evidence. The task force is made up of members of each of the valley’s police departments, which means, Mills said, that members of the Napa and St. Helena police departments, the Napa County Sheriff’s Department, and others spent time investigating Monday’s shooting.
“What we have so far from witnesses is that a compact car — something like a Honda, maybe a Civic, one of those types of small cars — was seen speeding from the scene,” Mills said. “Another person, a male, was seen running in the direction of the Saratoga Manor II, away from the victim.”
Mills said they identified the victim from a photograph.
“We (investigators) began canvassing the area with a picture,” Mills said. “It wasn’t long before we found someone who knew where the victim was staying and that led us to the family.”
The family identified Carrillo from the photograph and requested they be allowed to view their relative before he was transported. The family’s anguished cries could be heard half a block away as family members recognized Carrillo, and then turned to console each other.
“He was a really good guy,” said Cesar Jaramillo, one of the victim’s cousins, who lives nearby. “There was never any trouble from him, and there was no reason anyone had to do that to him, (he) never caused anyone any problems.”
Jaramillo said he knew of no reason his cousin was out so late; it could have been he was just enjoying the cool night air by taking a walk.
“It’s really sad,” he said. “Everybody is so upset right now. It’s just for our family.”
Evidence is still being processed, the chief said. He added evidence compiled by the crime scene investigators seems to indicate someone was sitting beside the road in a vehicle when the shooting occurred.
Carrillo will be missed
Shortly after he came to the U.S. six or seven years ago, Carrillo started working for Jaime Cortez, owner of Vallarta Market on Foothill Boulevard.
“He was a very good worker,” Cortez said. “He was our butcher and one of our cooks.”
Cortez said Carrillo, who was still a teenager when he arrived in Calistoga, was from Pochotitan Nayarit, Mexico.
“He was very friendly with everyone,” Cortez recalled. “He had several cousins who worked here, they still do, and he was always smiling.”
Carrillo was success-oriented, according to Cortez, and would not have anything to do with drugs or gangs. About three years ago Carrillo left the Vallarta Market and went to work as a house painter with a firm in Napa.
“Octavio wasn’t the kind of man who would become involved in drugs,” Cortez said. “I just can’t understand who, or what kind of person would do this to someone like Octavio — he was a good man.”
“We will miss him very much,” Cortez said. “I still can’t understand how something like this could happen in this peaceful little town.”
A true ‘whodunit’
According to retired Calistoga police officer Doug O’Neill, only three murders have ever occurred within Calistoga’s city limits. The first was the murder of Mrs. Leopold Bizzini on March 20, 1888, three years after Calistoga citizens had voted to incorporate.
“That was pretty much an open-and-shut case,” O’Neill said. “It was a murder-suicide, and the police didn’t really have to work to solve the crime.”
According to The Weekly Calistogian, as this newspaper was known at the time, Leopold Bizzini, 31, had come home from lunch and found his wife in a new dress. They had gotten into fierce argument because he claimed the dress made her “look too pretty,” the account claims. He went back to work.
When he’d returned to their home on Railroad Street — known today as Fair Way — Bizzini’s wife had refused to cook her husband dinner. Bizzini drew a pistol and took his wife’s life, then turned the gun on himself.
The second murder in Calistoga happened nearly 100 years later, on May 24, 1987. In this case, too, O’Neill said, a man killed his wife. This murder, however, was arguably done without malice as his wife was in very poor health.
“It was, in a sense, a mercy killing,” O’Neill said. “The husband wrapped up his wife in cellophane and she suffocated. Immediately after that he called 911 and turned himself over to law enforcement.” As with the first killing, law enforcement didn’t have the challenge of finding a murderer.
There was one other murder that captured the attention of Calistoga residents. Although it involved Calistoga residents it did not occur within the city limits.
In late August 1980, William Bounsall Sr. murdered a man whom he believed was involved in a love triangle with his wife, Marion. Bounsall, according to O’Neill, knocked on the door of the man’s home in the 4600 block of Silverado Trail, near the location of the Paoletti winery today, and when Franklin Hiram Parks answered the door an argument ensued and Bounsall shot and killed the man with a rifle. Bounsall, who had a police scanner in his car, knew the police were after him shortly thereafter. He was apprehended by police officer Mike Dick, tried, convicted and sent to prison. Today he lives near Middletown.
Memorial for Luis Octavio Carrillo
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church
901 Washington Street
6 p.m. Tonight, July 2