Kerry Ray Casto, a 58-year-old White male, was killed on June 20, 2025, in a shooting near Wellsburg, West Virginia. Although some information associated with the case places him in the Wellsburg area, law-enforcement reporting identified Casto as being from Mingo Junction, Ohio, while his obituary listed him as a resident of Richmond, Ohio. He was working at a small trucking-company garage on Fowler Hill Road near Wellsburg when the violence unfolded. Casto had been working on a tractor-trailer that Friday afternoon when his coworkers suddenly heard gunshots.
When the coworkers went to investigate, according to the criminal complaint, they found Michael Allen Groch sitting in the parking lot. Witnesses reported seeing Groch toss a pistol away from himself. The employees detained him there until law-enforcement officers arrived. Brooke County sheriff’s deputies attempted to provide medical aid to Casto, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
His body was subsequently transported to the West Virginia state medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.
Groch, then 39 and a Wellsburg resident, was taken into custody immediately after the shooting, processed and arraigned before a Brooke County magistrate. Authorities charged him with first-degree murder and initially held him without bond at the Northern Regional Jail. Investigators did not publicly announce a motive in the immediate aftermath. Brooke County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Douglas Mills said investigators had developed preliminary information about what might have led to the shooting, but officials were not prepared to release it while the investigation remained active. The Wellsburg Police Department, Follansbee Police Department, West Virginia State Police Crime Scene Team and Brooke-Hancock Drug Task Force assisted the Brooke County Sheriff’s Office.
A preliminary hearing for Groch was scheduled for June 30, 2025. The case later moved beyond the initial arrest stage. In November 2025, a Brooke County grand jury returned an indictment against Groch for murder, with reporting describing the grand jury’s allegation as the deliberate shooting and killing of Casto at the Fowler Hill Road trucking garage. The account of the evidence remained consistent with the original criminal complaint: Casto had been working on the tractor-trailer, coworkers heard the shots, and Groch was found outside with the pistol before being detained.
Casto’s obituary provides additional background on the man whose workday ended in the fatal shooting. It states that he was born December 11, 1966, in Melbourne, Florida, to Lawrence “Sluggo” Casto and Bonnie Sue Britt Casto. His mother had died before him, as had his wife, Michelle Firm Casto, who died in 2019, and several siblings. He was survived by his sons Jake Casto and Kyle Casto and his brother Lawrence “Corky” Casto. His family chose to hold private services.
The most recent online reporting located on the criminal case shows Groch formally indicted for murder after his arrest and first-degree murder charge. The available reports reviewed do not describe a subsequent plea agreement, completed trial, acquittal or conviction, and they do not identify any additional suspect as having been arrested or charged in Casto’s killing. The publicly reported case therefore centers on Groch as the sole accused person, with the murder prosecution having advanced at least through grand-jury indictment.
