Prosecutors are arguing Lexie Castile’s fiancé fatally shot her in 2012; defense is arguing suicide
Tim Hahn
Erie Times-News
Published 7:59 a.m. ET Jan. 28, 2025
An autopsy done a day after Lexie Castile’s death on Sept. 16, 2012, determined the 20-year old Erie resident died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Castile’s live-in boyfriend, Anthony S. D’Onofrio, would tell his mother, a 911 operator and police that Castile shot herself while the two were in their garage apartment on West 24th Street in the city with Castile’s 3-year-old son.
Nearly a decade after Castile’s death, the forensic pathologist who performed Castile’s autopsy said he received new information that authorities claim contradicts D’Onofrio’s suicide claim.
Specifically, Eric Vey, M.D., said he now had the gun.
Vey, who retired as Erie County’s forensic pathologist in June, testified during the second day of D’Onofrio’s homicide trial Monday morning that he compared the gun’s muzzle with the bullet’s entry wound on the right side of Castile’s head and a small indention near the entry wound he believes was left by the gun’s slide rod. In doing so, Vey said he determined how he believes the gun was positioned against Castile’s head when it fired.
The positioning, Vey first said and then showed to the jury, had the handle of the gun pointed toward the back of Castile’s head at an awkward angle. It would have been difficult to get a finger on the trigger and was unlike any other self-inflicted, contact gunshot wound to the head that he had seen in his 30 years as a forensic pathologist, according to Vey.
“It’s possible for me to do it, but I’d have to be hell-bent on doing it,” Vey said under questioning by First Assistant District Attorney Jessica Reger as he contorted his body to show the jury how it would be possible to fire the weapon that way.
Following Vey’s reexamination of Castile’s death after investigators supplied him with the gun, detectives in July 2023 charged D’Onofrio with criminal homicide, first-degree murder and other offenses in his former fiancée’s killing.
Prosecutors are arguing that D’Onofrio shot Castile in the head during some sort of altercation in their garage apartment in the 1100 block of West 24th Street after the couple and Castile’s son had returned home from visiting a relative of D’Onofrio’s the previous evening.
D’Onofrio and his lawyers, Doug McCormick and Chad Vilushis, are arguing Castile’s death was a suicide.
More: Jury to determine homicide or suicide as trial opens for man accused in 2012 Erie killing
The trial opened Friday with testimony from Erie police officers who initially responded to the shooting scene. It resumed Monday morning with testimony from a gunshot residue expert, who said testing on a T-shirt taken from D’Onofrio found some evidence of residue, and from Vey.
Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook had listed the manner of Castile’s death as undetermined following Vey’s autopsy in September 2012. Cook said after Erie police charged D’Onofrio in July 2023 that he ruled the death a homicide following Vey’s review and shortly before the charges were filed.
Where did Castile’s bruising and abrasions come from?
Vey also testified Monday about some bruising found on Castile’s wrist, finger and thigh at autopsy, as well as two parallel, inch-long abrasions that were present across Castile’s forehead. He said under questioning by Reger that the abrasions correspond to the rear sight on the gun, and that in examining photographs from the scene he did not see any other items close to where Castile was found in the apartment that would have corresponded with the abrasions.
In addressing the bruising on Castile, which Vey said appeared to be fresh, or caused within
24 hours of the shooting, he said in terms of the wrist bruise, it could appear to be a defensive wound. The bruise to her finger was of the type that typically occurs when someone strikes something or someone, according to Vey’s testimony.
Vey said under questioning by McCormick in cross-examination that a gunshot wound to the head is compatible with a suicide, and that the trajectory of the bullet, which traveled slightly upward and back from the right side of Castile’s head, doesn’t rule out suicide versus homicide.
McCormick also questioned Vey on the absence of his theories on the gun’s positioning, the bruising and the forehead laceration in Vey’s initial report done after autopsy. Vey agreed that the theory of the gun’s positioning and the forehead abrasion originated with Erie police when cold case investigators later presented him with the gun.
Vey testified that the forehead abrasion was fresh, meaning it occurred a few minutes before or after being shot. When questioned by McCormick on whether hospital personnel would have seen and noted the injury after Castile was taken to UPMC Hamot following the shooting, Vey said Castile’s head was bandaged and he did not know when it was bandaged or if hospital personnel would have removed the bandage and seen the wound.