CASPER, Wyo. — Murder charges against a Casper teen advanced to district court on Thursday despite defense counsel urging the state to reconsider the first-degree charge.
Eavan Castaner is accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend to death during a confrontation in the street by Buckboard Park in west Casper shortly after midnight last Tuesday. The victim had been accompanied by a family member who carried a baseball bat, though he told police he started to back away when he saw the gun, according to Casper Police investigators.
Defense counsel Ryan Semerad said at the preliminary hearing on May 23 that Castaner’s actions were “perhaps impulsive and hastily executed” and not the product of cold consideration and design, as the state has charged.
Judge Brian Christensen said the case would advance.
Castaner is presumed innocent unless proven or pleading guilty.
Semerad said that Castaner, then aged 15 and weighing 100 pounds, was being confronted by someone he didn’t know with a baseball bat. He said that the arrangement to meet that night had actually been made between Castaner and a person unknown to him. The unknown number belonged to the victim’s teen cousin, the person who arrived with a bat. The cousin, age 16, reportedly told police he was expecting “a fist fight.”
The victim, 17-year-old Lene’a Brown, had shared some of the violent and taunting messages she’d been receiving from Castaner, including, “I hope you die in the most painful way possible.”
Statements to police indicated that Castaner and Brown had dated for about a year. Castaner told police they had broken up 25 days prior, on April 18, and his friend said Castaner was upset about it.
“He was pretty specific about it,” said CPD Detective Jonathan Schlager, who testified about the investigation as the sole witness for the preliminary hearing. Castaner said he and his ex would continue to “talk crap” to each other. In one Snapchat exchange read on the stand, Brown told Castaner to leave her alone.
Schlager also described the statements of Castaner’s friend and girlfriend, both of whom tried to stop him from going to the meeting. His friend said he physically tackled Castaner at Buckboard Park as he approached the people who had gotten out of the white van on Buckboard Road, including the victim. .
When he couldn’t stop Castaner, he called out to the people that Castaner had a gun. He said he saw the person with the baseball bat stop some distance away as Lene’a and Castaner continued to approach each other. He said they “appeared to shove each other” right before the gunshot happened.
Police learned that the victim and her cousin had also been accompanied by two 18-year-old males, one of whom lingered with a gun nearby and fired twice after Castaner ran.
Police said Castaner didn’t mention seeing these other people, but Semerad highlighted them as part of the overall situation his client had been walking into while in a period of acute emotional distress. There was also evidence that Castaner had been drinking alcohol.
Castaner’s girlfriend said he had become increasingly agitated and had been making homicidal statements that night as an unknown third party began messaging him about his harassment of Lene’a and prompting a meeting.
“The real rub got going between [those two], didn’t it?” Semerad asked Schlager.
That was when Castaner began messaging his friend and said “I’m actually about to kill someone … like seriously I am,” Schlager said, reading the Snapchat exhibits on the stand. His friend urged Castaner not to throw his life away and asked whom he was talking about.
Castaner replied: “Idek he’s talking to Lene’a, he said he was pulling up tonight/ I’m shooting at his car/ on everything I am killing I’m tonight/ Him”
Police were responding to the shooting about half an hour later.
Semerad asked whether investigators had the messages between the people who arrived in the van, and Schlager said they didn’t yet.
“This is not the clean story the state would have you believe,” Semerad said during his closing statement, adding that the messages showed a teen in crisis and not a calculating killer.
District Attorney Dan Itzen responded by saying, “Clearly there was intent to kill this young lady and he carried that through.”
Castaner will next enter a formal plea to the charges at a district court arraignment, typically within 45 to 60 days of being bound over.
The hearing comes amid a week of community events honoring the victim, including a celebration of life. Her father said she will be buried in the Northern Arapahoe tradition in Riverton, where he dug her grave earlier this week.
