Post date: Jan 08, 2011 7:0:38 PM
A prominent Portuguese journalist is found dead in a luxury Manhattan hotel.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 8, 2010) REUTERS - Prominent Portuguese journalist Carlos Castro, 65, was found dead at a luxury Manhattan hotel on Friday (January 7), police said, and news reports said he had been castrated and was left lying in a pool of blood.
A 20-year-old man was being held as a "person of interest" at Bellevue psychiatric hospital, a police
spokeswoman said on Saturday (January 8). A police source identified him as Renato Seabra.The New York Times quoted detectives as saying Seabra, a model from Portugal, had checked into the hotel together with Castro about 10 days ago.
The police spokeswoman said police were called to the scene shortly after 7 p.m. local time on Friday evening and they found the victim dead in his room on the 34th floor of the Intercontinental Hotel, a luxury hotel a few blocks from Times Square. The police source identified him as Carlos Castro.
The spokeswoman said he had injuries to the head but declined to confirm other details reported in the media.
The New York Post and other local media said Castro had been beaten and the attacker cut off his testicles, possibly with a broken wine glass.
"Well, last night we were coming home from a show and we saw a whole bunch of police activity in the lobby and a whole bunch of guests walking around and asking questions. Then as we were going up in the elevator, two of the other guests told us that there had been a murder on the 34th floor and that they thought it was... a man was murdered and that the suspect had fled," one guest at the hotel, Fred Sanroman, told Reuters on Saturday morning.
The New York Post quoted police sources as saying that Seabra, who recently appeared on a modeling reality show in Portugal, went to hospital with both wrists slashed later on Friday night. He was taken from there to the psychiatric facility at Bellevue, it said.
Castro was a well-known Portuguese journalist born in Angola who contributed to media such as Diario de Noticias, 24 Horas and Correio de Manha.