Riverside County Beaumont Man Extradited to El Salvador to Face Trial, Accused of Murdering Woman in Front of Their Toddler Son and Abandoning the Boy
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced on October 28 that Michael Alejandro Castillo Murga, 27, of Beaumont in Riverside County, California, was surrendered on Wednesday to Salvadoran authorities so he may face trial at the request of the Government of El Salvador. Castillo Murga, a dual U.S.-Salvadoran citizen, is charged in El Salvador with aggravated feminicide and imperfect homicide, and had been in U.S. custody since October 2024.
According to El Salvador's extradition request, on February 1, 2019, Salvadoran authorities discovered the body of a woman near a highway. Three days later, law enforcement learned of a boy, under the age of two, found in the vicinity of where the victim's body was found. Authorities treated the boy for dehydration and mental health and later identified him as the son of the victim and Castillo Murga.
Salvadoran authorities say Castillo Murga and the victim began a romantic relationship in 2014 and had their son in 2017. On the evening of January 31, 2019, he picked up the victim and their son from her mother's house, ostensibly to live with him as a family; Salvadoran law enforcement believes he then killed the victim and abandoned the child at the site of the murder. An autopsy revealed the victim died from a massive hemorrhage resulting from cuts to the veins in her neck, among other wounds caused by a plastic knife found at the crime scene.
The request also states that Castillo Murga's cellular telephone was in the area of the murder at the time of her death, and that two witnesses observed a tall, thin person attacking a woman in the back seat of a gray vehicle while she was kicking and screaming. Approximately four days after the murder, farm workers discovered the boy; medical personnel determined he was in a state of severe dehydration and starvation and showed signs of child abuse, with cuts on his face, dry lips and nose, and insect bites.
Salvadoran authorities also allege that Castillo Murga and others, including his girlfriend, his grandmother, and a lawyer, attempted to conceal the death and the abandonment, and that on February 2, 2019, with their help, he left El Salvador on foot for Guatemala, using his U.S. passport at a border checkpoint there.
In October 2024, the United States acted on El Salvador's extradition request and the U.S. Marshals Service arrested him. On July 28, 2025, United States Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym certified his extradition; District Judge John W. Holcomb denied his habeas corpus petition on November 5, 2025, the Secretary of State issued a surrender warrant, and Judge Holcomb denied his request for a stay of extradition on September 24, 2026.
Assistant United States Attorney John J. Lulejian and Trial Attorneys Reena T. Mittelman and Amanda Matey Pyles of the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs handled the extradition matter, and the U.S. Marshals Service for the Central District of California transported and transferred Castillo Murga to Salvadoran custody. The charges remain allegations to be tried in El Salvador.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加州河滨县 Beaumont 市政中心（被告居住地 Beaumont 的市政建筑）。YonderStone 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Beaumont Civic Center in Beaumont, Riverside County, California. By YonderStone, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
