- Police said 27-year-old Karina Castro was brutally beheaded outside her California home on September 8.
- The suspect, Jose Raphael Solano Landaeta, is her ex and is being held on homicide charges.
Martin Castro said he warned his daughter that her ex-boyfriend would snap one day.
That day came on September 8, when Jose Raphael Solano Landaeta brutally killed 27-year-old Karina Castro right outside her house in San Carlos, California, according to authorities.
Landaeta, 33 and who goes by Rafa Solano, beheaded her, reported KGO-TV, an ABC7 affiliate, and he's now being held on homicide charges. The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office called the tool used to decapitate her a "stabbing instrument" while local media said it was a sword.
Neighbors witnessed the horrific incident, Castro told Insider. His daughter had been "screaming and running around the car, begging for help," he said.
Other neighbors detailed to KGO-TV the grisly scene they had witnessed.
Chapel Thorborne, for example, told the outlet that Karina's "head was underneath the car and she was laying in [the] back of the car, just severed, and then they covered her up."
Landaeta and Karina had a 1-year-old child girl together, and Karina also had another child, a 7-year-old daughter. When Castro died, Child Protective Services took custody of both children.
The two always argued and fought, Castro said
In an interview with Insider, Castro said he always had a bad feeling about Landaeta.
Castro said he wasn't surprised that neighbors didn't come to Karina's rescue because she and Landaeta were always fighting. "It was a known thing," Castro said.
He added that family members told him often of the two of them getting into arguments.
"I'm one of those dads that if you yell at my daughter, I'm coming at you," he said. "I want to know what your problem is. Why are you yelling, and don't get in her face. So any little thing I heard about them fighting was always a little bit of a trigger for me."
The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office said witnesses called the police to the scene after seeing Karina get decapitated. But by the time officers had arrived, she had already been dead.
Karina in April had taken out a restraining order against Landaeta, KGO-TV reported. But the two had continued interacting afterward.
Leading up to her death, Landaeta and Castro exchanged a series of contentious messages over Snapchat, KGO-TV reported.
Karina told Landaeta that she'd reveal his criminal conviction, which involved in part raping a minor, per KGO-TV. Landaeta then gave a stark warning: "Fuck around and find out," he told her, per the outlet.
Castro also said she would disclose that Landaeta had had sex with another man, the outlet said.
"Dude, go head try and take my ass out," she wrote to him.
Hours later, KGO-TV reported, Landaeta struck.
The 'bad feeling' Castro had about Landaeta
Castro can't remember a time when he didn't want his daughter to stay away from Landaeta.
He said he's been telling his daughter to stay away from him since she met him because something always felt off about him.
"I had a bad feeling that he was going to do something, beat her up, whatever," Castro told Insider. "I didn't think it would go like this."
But every time he told her how he felt, Karina dismissed him, he said. When she noticed her dad walking into a room that Landaeta was in, she asked him to leave the room to keep them apart, Castro recalled.
Castro said his stepdad was violent toward his mother growing up. He watched him throw furniture on top of her and "break things around the house," he said. He got a similar feeling about Landaeta.
"I knew this guy had the potential to do something bad," he said.
In private, when Castro confronted his daughter about Landaeta's presence, Karina used to tell him that she wanted her 1-year-old child Isabella to have access to both parents.
Castro is distraught and having trouble sleeping
Castro learned of his daughter's death eight hours after it happened because his other daughter had forwarded an article to his mother.
After police cleared the area, he went back to Karina's house to collect her belongings. He saw that her car had blood spatters on it.
"I want to keep it and have it repainted because it's something she spent a lot of time in," Castro said. "But on the other side of it, I have a hard time even looking at the car because her blood's all over it."
He also noticed that a door panel in the car was "wide open," holding a pocket knife Karina used to carry with her.
"She was trying to get to it when he got to her," Castro believes.
Castro said he lost 13 pounds in the nearly three weeks that Karina's been dead. He's had trouble sleeping and he's not sure whether to work.
"I feel dead inside," he told Insider. "I keep telling people, 'I don't know how one person can feel so numb but hurt so bad all at the same time.'"
The coroner's office told Castro that Karina had been "about 90 to 95% decapitated," but still had "some skin and tissue holding her head on."
"Thankfully she died immediately," Castro said.
Castro said Karina would have turned 28 in November. But instead of starting to plan for her birthday, he began planning her funeral.
Earlier this month, Landaeta's attorney petitioned the court for a mental examination to determine if he competent to stand trial, which was granted, per KTVU.
"He seems dead set and ruminating at this point in time," Attorney Robert Cummings told the outlet. "It is sadly a soul that is riddled with schizophrenia and I'm hoping that these doctors can come back with an evaluation that will lead us to get him to where he needs to be in the system."
Castro said he thinks about Landaeta a lot these days. He said he wants to "make him suffer more than he made my daughter suffer."
"I would love for me to be the last thing he sees," he added.