Luis Garcia, a 60-year-old Hispanic/Latino male, was discovered dead on October 1, 2019, inside a home on Ridgemont Drive in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Garcia was a well-known pastor at New England Pentecostal Ministries in nearby Pelham, remembered by congregants for prayer services and community outreach. The state medical examiner determined he died from a single gunshot wound to the neck, and authorities immediately treated the case as a homicide.
Garcia, born in Puerto Rico and known to friends as “Kiko,” had come by the house that day to help with a painting job, part of the easy rapport he kept with members of his church beyond the pulpit.
Within a day, investigators arrested 24-year-old Brandon Castiglione, who lived at the home where Garcia was found. Castiglione had attended Garcia's church and participated in prayer meetings he led, and the two had spent time together outside church as well, even visiting firing ranges. Prosecutors initially charged Castiglione with second-degree murder for recklessly causing Garcia's death “under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life.” He was held without bail after waiving arraignment, and investigators kept details of motive close as they gathered evidence.
The case moved slowly but deliberately through the courts. In May 2023, a jury convicted Castiglione of two counts of second-degree murder in Garcia's killing. That summer, a judge sentenced him to a stand-committed term of 42 years to life in prison, a punishment that acknowledged the gravity of the crime while leaving the unanswered question of why the shooting happened. Reporting from the trial underscored that prosecutors had not established a clear motive, even as they outlined the men's connection through church and the mundane reason Garcia had been at the house that day.
The aftermath rippled through the congregation. Later in October 2019, during a wedding at Garcia's church, Garcia's stepson was accused of opening fire and wounding attendees—a violent echo that prosecutors noted while making clear it was a separate episode from the pastor's death. For Garcia's community, the loss remained both intimate and public: a pastor slain without an evident reason, his accused killer first a worshipper and then a defendant, and, ultimately, a convict facing decades behind bars.
