Sister Of Murdered Portuguese Showman Castro, Dumps his Remains Down a Subway Grate

Santos for News

Fernanda Castro (l.) and Maria Castro, sisters of slain Portuguese journalist Carlos Castro, released his ashes into a Times Square subway grate Saturday.

 

Friends and family of the Portuguese journalist who was castrated in a Times Square hotel dumped his ashes down a subway grate Saturday just steps away from the scene of his gruesome murder.

Fernanda Castro and Maria Amelia Castro kneeled down and poured the ashes of their brother, Carlos Castro, into the grate at W. 44th St. and Broadway as onlookers walked by.

Some of the ashes scattered into the wind at "The Crossroads of the World."

The trio was following Castro's wishes when they traveled to Manhattan after his funeral in Newark to spread his ashes.

"I feel like I'm dead with him," said Claudio Montez, 54, a friend who helped the sisters with the solemn ceremony. "He was like a brother."

Castro, 65, was found face-up in a pool of blood on Jan. 7 inside his 34th-floor room at the InterContinental Times Square Hotel on W. 44th St.

His alleged killer, Renato Seabra, a Portuguese male model, was arraigned on a single murder count on Thursday. Seabra, 21, is being held in Bellevue Hospital.

Police believe the two men had been dating, but Seabra's family insisted the chiseled hunk was straight. Castro had been choked, stomped and had his head slammed into a TV monitor before his testicles were cut off with a corkscrew, court papers show. The beating was so severe he had shoe prints on his face.

"Let's not talk about the circumstances of his death because we all die," the Rev. Joao Antao said during the service at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church.

About 120 people attended the funeral, including about 20 friends and family who flew in from Portugal and about 20 members of the international media.

Wanda Pires, a friend of the family, said she dined with Seabra and Castro the week before the brutal killing.

She also went to the hotel the night Carlos' body was found to check on her friend.

"We lost a great man and I lost a good friend," she said. "He touched tons of people's hearts and the community loved him."

Friends said the family got permission from the city to leave Castro's ashes in Times Square. Castro wrote about his desire to have them spread there in his biography.

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