Amanda Murillo, 32, female, was found dead alongside her 15-year-old daughter inside a blue SUV parked on a vacant lot at a mobile home park on Chicot Road in southwest Little Rock. A property manager discovered the vehicle on a Monday morning in mid-May 2017 and called police; the coroner determined both victims died from gunshot wounds. The SUV, a blue Ford Explorer, had been seen over the weekend and was described as “covered in blood” when first reported.
Early police updates initially struggled to name the younger victim because she was a juvenile, but relatives soon identified Amanda, who had recently moved to Arkansas.
Investigators quickly began piecing together a constellation of events that stretched over two days in the same neighborhood. The day before the double homicide was discovered, officers found the body of 35-year-old Armando Castillo at the same mobile home park; his death was ruled a suicide. Within hours, authorities publicly said they believed the person responsible for killing Amanda and her daughter was “no longer a threat,” an early hint that the suicide and the homicides were linked. Family members told reporters that Amanda had moved from Nebraska to be with a boyfriend they believed was Castillo, adding a personal dimension to what police were treating as connected acts of violence.
By the end of that week, Little Rock police went further: they announced they believed Castillo had killed Amanda and her daughter before taking his own life. Detectives also said the same man was a suspect in a separate fatal shooting of a juvenile in nearby Mabelvale, suggesting a broader pattern that culminated in the murder-suicide. With the suspected gunman dead, there were no arrests in the case, but the department publicly tied the three killings and the suicide together as part of one chain of events.
Public records and memorial notices fixed the personal milestones around the crime: Amanda’s death was recorded in obituaries and memorial pages in mid-May 2017, reflecting the shock that rippled through family and friends. The city’s running tally of homicides marked the mother-and-daughter killings as among Little Rock’s 24th and 25th that year, underscoring how quickly a quiet mobile home community was thrust into the city’s violent crime ledger.
