Naman Shrestha
In March 1983, shockwaves were sent across the entire community of Redford Township, Michigan, when 19-year-old Christina Castiglione suddenly disappeared. Her loved ones’ worst nightmares came true when her remains were found several days later. During the investigation, the detectives noticed that Kimberly Louiselle’s 1982 homicide was also quite similar. It was only after decades that the case was cracked wide open, thanks to the advent of advanced technology. The entire case and the decades-long investigation that followed are explored in a detailed manner in Investigation Discovery’s ‘On the Case With Paula Zahn: Vanished into Darkness.’
Christina Lynn Castiglione Was on Her Way Home When She Was Abducted and Eventually Killed
Christina Lynn Castiglione was born on March 8, 1964, and raised alongside her older sister, Anna Castiglione, in a warm and loving household. Apart from being academically bright during her time at Redford Union High School, she was also active in different sports, especially basketball. In the summers, she also taught basketball to children. Being a sociable person, she found it easy to make friends. Her caring nature extended towards animals and children, too. The Redford, Michigan, resident was also involved in a stable relationship with her boyfriend.
After graduating from high school, the 19-year-old was working as a clerk in the research department of the Detroit Edison Company. Hoping to serve the nation, she also reportedly contacted an Army Recruiter. Unfortunately, a tragedy befell the Castiglione family when 19-year-old Christina went missing on March 19, 1983, after spending the entire afternoon with her friends. She was supposed to get picked up by her boyfriend, but she decided to walk back home when he didn’t show up. On her way back home, she stopped at a payphone and called one of her friends to let her know that she was going to her house.
When Christina failed to show up at her friend’s house or her own, her parents reported her missing the following day. Several days later, on the afternoon of March 29, 1983, her remains were discovered by a hunter in the Oak Grove State Game Area on Faussett Road in Deerfield Township. The authorities found her partially clothed in the remote wooded area, with signs of strangulation and sexual assault. The medical examiner concluded that she was sexually assaulted before being strangled to death. Upon further inspection, no defensive wounds were found on her body. During the autopsy, an unknown male’s DNA, possibly belonging to the killer, was also collected and preserved.
Kimberly Louiselle’s Death Had Many Similarities to Christine’s Crime Scene
While investigating the gruesome murder of Christina Lynn Castiglione, the police found several similarities between the killings of Christina and Kimberly Louiselle, a 16-year-old girl who was killed a year prior to the former’s death, in April 1982. Born on March 3, 1966, to Joanna Louiselle, Kimberly Sue Louiselle grew up amongst her sisters, including Cindy Arthurs. She is described by her loved ones as someone who loved poetry with a bright future ahead of her. According to reports, on March 20, 1982, she was on her way home from her boyfriend’s place and informed her mother about the same. However, she never made it home, leading her family and friends to conduct an extensive search for her.
When Kimberly was nowhere to be found, she was reported missing to the Green Oak Township Police Department the next day. Three weeks after her disappearance, on April 14, a couple walking their dog found her partially clothed remains in a field behind a parking lot at Grand River Avenue and Kensington Road in the Island Lake Recreation Area in Green Oaks Township, a few miles away from her house. Much like Christina, 16-year-old Kimberly had also been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Given the similar nature of both homicides, the authorities launched a joint investigation into the two cases.
Christina and Kimberly’s Alleged Killer Was Identified Decades Later Using DNA Evidence
In the process of interviewing Christina Lynn Castiglione’s family and friends, the detectives also interviewed her boyfriend at the time. He admitted to seeing her walking home on Five Mile Road around 8 pm on the fateful night while he was driving around with a bunch of his friends. He told the detectives that he got out of the car a short distance ahead and waited for Christina to arrive, but she never did. As per the boyfriend’s accounts, he then searched for her in the area, but without any luck. It turned out that the reason he drove past her was that he was allegedly doing drugs with his friends, even though he had promised her he never would. While the investigators suspected him of being involved in Christina’s murder, they eliminated him as a suspect when his story was corroborated by others and he passed his polygraph test with flying colors.
In 1986, the case went cold as the detectives were short of leads and evidence. Several decades later, in 2022, the homicide case was reopened, and the evidence was reexamined by a new set of eyes. Eventually, the DNA evidence found on Christina’s remains was finally linked to a man named Charles David Shaw with the help of advanced forensic genealogy technology. Later, his DNA also matched the DNA evidence found on Kimberly Louiselle’s remains. Upon digging deeper into the suspect, the detectives learned that he resided only a few miles away from Christina’s house at the time of her murder. He was described as a sex addict and a troubled individual with mental illness and gender identity by his family.
His run-ins with the law reportedly began in 1973, when he was arrested on a breaking-and-entering charge. In the following years, he got involved in other crimes, including drug possession and larceny of women’s shoes from a Kmart store. In 1981, he was arrested for the attempted abduction of a woman in the Fowlerville McDonald’s parking lot. After spending a couple of weeks for the crime, he pleaded guilty and received a reduced sentence of two years of probation. Unfortunately, he could not be brought to justice for the deaths of Christina and Kimberly, as the 26-year-old suspect passed away on November 27, 1983, just a few months after allegedly killing Christina. The cause of his death was deemed to be accidental sexual asphyxiation.
