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Police: Teen admits killing 4-year-old

MENDOTA, Calif. (UPI) -- A 14-year-old California boy told police he drowned a 4-year-old boy who said he would tell his mother the teen had molested him, court documents indicate.

Fresno County authorities have charged Raul Renato Castro as an adult with murder during a child molestation, sodomy, kidnapping and murder of a witness to prevent testimony, CNN reported Wednesday. Prosecutors said Castro faces other charges, including kidnapping, sodomy and child molestation.

In an affidavit filed by the Fresno County Sheriff's Department and released Wednesday, authorities said Castro told investigators he got his neighbor, Alex Christopher Mercato, to come into his apartment Friday "by telling the victim he had something to show him." Castro told investigators he got Mercato to come into the bathroom and sodomized him, and the boy then tripped and fell, hitting the back of his head on the bathtub.

"Castro said the victim started crying and told Castro he was going to tell his mother," the affidavit said.

Castro told investigators he panicked, ran some water in the tub and held Mercato's face under water for "2-4 minutes," getting into the tub to hold the victim down, the affidavit said.

Investigators said Castro hid the boy's body inside a clothes dryer. Mercato's family reported him missing Friday and searchers found his body in the clothes dryer Saturday.

An autopsy concluded the cause of death was drowning.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 11/05/2009

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