SAN ANTONIO — Editor's note: The above video was originally published in January 2020.
A man pleaded guilty to the murder of 19-year-old Erin Castro, receiving a 35-year prison sentence Wednesday.
Joshua Garcia was 20 when prosecutors say he stabbed his on-and-off girlfriend and ran her over with his car on September 2, 2018, just hours after she turned 19. He also received a $1,500 fine.
The victim's mother, Rena Castro, Castro confronted her daughter's killer in an emotional hearing on Wednesday, promising Garcia that she would be present at all of his probation hearings to be her daughter's voice.
She called police for help around 1 a.m., saying she was on the phone with her daughter when she was stabbed by Garcia and stopped responding. Police tracked Castro's phone to an area on Camp Bullis Road just east of I-10, where officers found her with fatal injuries.
Investigators contacted Garcia's mother, who said that he had admitted to her that he'd run over Castro. His brother told police that Garcia had called him for help after the couple had a fight, and said he witnessed Garcia run over Castro several times.
Castro's mother has worked to spread awareness about violence in teen relationships. She said that Garcia had broken her daughter's nose and thrown her out of a moving car before, running over her leg. She said she pressed charges, and he got deferred adjudication rather than jail time.
Court documents at the time of his murder arrest showed that Garcia was on probation for a felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon offense.