HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A Harris County Precinct 5 deputy constable is under investigation after a burglary victim’s MacBook Pro ended up in his home. Deputy Celso Castillo is still on the force, but he is not doing street patrol, according to Constable Ted Heap’s office.
The saga began Oct. 28. Nathan Kilcourse, pulled into his Westbury home from work at about 2 am and went to sleep. When he opened his truck later that morning, his heart sank.
“As soon as I opened my door I saw the center console, and I knew what happened. I looked in my backseat, and I knew my backpack was gone,” Kilcourse said.
Kilcourse recalled that his MacBook Pro was in the backpack. Right away, he called the constables and made a report.
The deputy who took the report told him that several neighbors had their cars broken into as well. In addition, he was told that another deputy had stopped some suspicious teenagers early that morning, but no items were found.
Kilcourse then turned on the “Find My iPhone” app, hoping his laptop would ping it. Shockingly, that night, while he was still at work, it worked.
“At about 9:30 pm and I got a physical address of my MacBook, I got super excited and was like, ‘Yes, I’m going to confront this guy and get my MacBook back,'” he said.
On Oct. 29, Kilcourse followed the ping from his Westbury neighborhood all the way to Katy, and was shocked at what he discovered.
There was a Precinct 5 patrol car parked out front of the home where his laptop had pinged. Kilcourse knocked at the door and Deputy Castillo answered.
He confirmed to Kilcourse that he investigated the car break-ins, but did not have Kilcourse’s laptop.
“He says he interviewed two teens, but he didn’t have my MacBook,” Kilcourse recalled. “I tell him like, ‘My MacBook says it’s here and you’re telling me it’s not.’ And he says again, ‘I don’t know where your effing MacBook is at, but it’s not here.'”
Kilcourse says Deputy Castillo at one point invited him to “look around” in his home and opened the back door of his patrol car to show no laptop. Feeling uncomfortable, Kilcourse left, and called Precinct 5 supervisors.
A short time later, he says Castillo called him, claiming that he did a thorough search and found the laptop in the trunk of his patrol car. The laptop was later returned to Kilcourse by a supervisor.
Precinct 5 says Castillo told supervisors he forgot to catalog and turn on the laptop at the end of his shift. However, he says that explanation just doesn’t match his MacBook’s location history.
“At 9:30 at night you have to turn it on for it to ping, you have to know where it’s at,” Kilcourse said.
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