Crime Weekly - A Long Island Woman Was Lured to Her Death - Her Brother-in-Law Is Accused

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Victoria Castle, a 25-year-old Stony Brook University Ph.D. student, was found dead on June 29, 2026, in the North Massapequa home she shared a building with family. Her brother-in-law, music teacher Joseph Horner, has been charged with second-degree murder after prosecutors alleged a years-long obsession with her. The case remains pending in Nassau County. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: https://www.Chime.com/CrimeWeekly - Join millions who are banking fee-free TODAY! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. And you might be wondering why Stephanie doing the intro to Crime Weekly News. She fired me, guys. I said, do you mind if I do it? Because no, she said, I'm doing it. Shut up, sit there and don't say a word. And I said, okay.

I'm pretty sure Shannon has it on video. What I said? Nope. Stephanie's on my side. I mean, Shannon's on my side. She's got my back on. Stephanie's also on your side. But okay. Sometimes. So this case is once again close to home to me.

It's happening in New York. And I have to wonder. What's going on? Yeah, what the hell is going on in New York, man? I'm getting real frustrated. As we're recording this, though, Taylor Swift is getting married in New York, so there's a positive. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go, like, I love Taylor Swift, big time Swifty.

Even Derek said, we know. Derek said I'm the biggest Swifty he knows, and I'm even annoyed by the amount of coverage her wedding is getting when there's things like this happening, right? Yes. So what happened here? I saw it. And of course, once again, I'm on Facebook and stuff. So people in my area are talking about it because it's not super local, but the victim

went to school close, pretty close to where I am. So I wanted to talk to you, Derek, and kind of pose some questions to you, because you have a brother, right? I do. I do last time I checked. You've got a brother, and you and your brother are pretty close. We are, yeah. So let's say you and your brother, you're close all your lives. You're so close. You have such a good relationship that when you become adults, you decide to live together in the same house, but in like different units, right? Yeah, okay. And you got married. and one day you go off to kind of go out of town because you're going to the bachelor party for another friend of yours. And you come home to find out that your brother, while you were gone,

your wife called your brother and said, hey, can you come to my apartment and help me with something? Okay. And then while your brother was there with your wife, your wife strangled and murdered your brother and sexually assaulted him. Wow, that took a turn. That took a turn. I did not see that going that way. I thought we were the start of like porn hub at first,

and now you just totally went a different direction. Because, well, right. So I'm looking at this from all angles, this case, because the victim in this case is 25-year-old Victoria Castle. And this is pretty much exactly what happened. Okay. So gender reversal is here. Gender reversal, yeah.

So what we're talking about is a... The wife goes out of town for a bad. bachelor's party. Okay. Sisters upstairs or in another unit. Her sister's in another unit, but they live in the same house. You know, they're all pretty close. Yeah. And then the husband, 27-year-old Joseph Homer, he calls his sister-in-law, Victoria Castle. He's been married to his wife for about three years. He calls a sister-in-law, Victoria Castle. He says, I need help moving a piano. In my apartment, will you come help? And of course, she's like, yeah. I mean, I don't know why you're calling her, why you're calling a 25-year-old girl to help you move a piano.

in your apartment, but she's like, yeah, I'll do what I can, right? Yeah. So she goes into the apartment, and the next thing anybody knows, Joseph calls the police, the Nassau Police Department, because this happened in the Long Island area. And when they arrived, he's sitting on the stoop, and he told the police that he had been interested in his sister-in-law since 2017, and he acted on his urges because his wife was away on a trip. And when Victoria came into his apartment, he choked her, she passed out, he raped her, and then he killed her. He then called the police on himself, but he changed his clothes first,

and he called the police on himself. But let's talk about all the reasons that this is incredibly disturbing. First of all, Joseph Homer is a music teacher, an elementary school music teacher at Oceanside School District in the Long Island area. And he's telling the police I lusted after my sister-in-law, you know, since 2017. She's 25. How old would that have made her in 2017? So she, this is 2026. I'm not a great math guy. So she's like 15 years old, 14 years. 16 at the most, right? Yeah, something around there. Yeah. He's an elementary school teacher. So that's, that's something. He's been lusting after her for all of this time. His wife goes out of town and he's like, now is my chance.

Very disturbing. So the police said they found a 25-year-old Victoria Castle not breathing in a ground floor apartment attached to the apartment building on North Oak Street in Massapequa. And Joseph Homer lived on the second floor apartment at the house. So he asked Victoria to help him move a piano when without warning and unprovoked, he attacked her from behind, placed her in a chokehold until her body. went limp. Prosecutors then say that Joseph Homer sexually assaulted her, changed his own clothes, called 911. The male caller requested police in an ambulance to this location for a deceased female. So it's kind of like what happened here. Did she go unconscious and then you assaulted her and then she died? Or did, because they just said he choked her until she went unconscious and then

he sexually assaulted her. Or did you know she was dead? Or did you call the police because you thought that she was going to die because she didn't wake back up? Was she breathing when he called the police? There's so many things we don't know here at this point. But I'm going to kind of dive into a little bit. What I do want to say, though, was Victoria Castle. I've been looking into her a little bit. And she was just an absolutely, like, amazing person. She was a rock star. She graduated in 20, 24 with a bachelor's degree in geology. She was pursuing research at Stony Brook University for her doctorate. This week, she was actually planning to submit a proposal to NASA to date sediments on the surface of Mars. And if she was selected, this would have funded her doctoral studies.

She was a really just amazing young woman. She had a lot going for her. She was going to become a brilliant scientist. Basically, everybody who knew her said, this girl had a ton of potential. She was doing a lot of things. So at this point, we have this, you know, brilliant young woman. As far as I could tell, she had a cat. She loved her cat. She loved going to concerts. She loved hanging out with her friends.

She was a normal, exuberant, happy, beautiful 25-year-old woman who also was brilliant and was going to become a brilliant scientist and worked really hard at school and worked really hard towards her future. And this is how she meets her end at the hands of a man who she should have trusted. because it was her brother-in-law, married to her sister, right? And then this man, because he's been secretly lusting after her since 2017, he's like, now's my chance because my wife's out of town. Do you believe that, by the way?

That he took his chance or that he was secretly lusting after her? No, I just think there's more to the story. Like, I see a scenario, and I'm interested to hear what you guys think as you start to weigh in on this, But I see a scenario where in his mind, he has felt like there might be a mutual attraction. And he sees this as an opportunity to take advantage of those feelings, maybe feelings that he thought were mutual. And so his wife leaves. No, because he came up behind her. That's what he's saying.

Hear me out. Yeah. Okay. Wife goes away. Now in his mind, he's been thinking about this for weeks, months, maybe years, an opportunity where he would be alone, with Victoria and she comes downstairs. Maybe he's dressed up. Maybe he's got some cologne.

Whatever the case may be. And he puts the move on her. And rightfully so, Victoria turns him down. What are you doing? Are you out of your mind? Like, you're married to my sister. You're a scumbag.

And I'm going to tell her, I'm going to tell her when she gets home. And as she turns her back to him to leave, that's when he chokes her out. Like I don't think, I think that in his sick mind, he maybe felt like it was like the feelings were going to be reciprocated. Yeah, and we've seen this before.

I mean, we kind of went back and forth with this on Anna Kepner, too, like whether her stepbrother kind of made a move thinking that there was some reciprocation there, like his twisted head that, oh, yeah, she wants it, you know? Right. Yeah. I think she says, no, absolutely not. And that's why he has to choke her out at this point because he knows she's about to blow everything up and he loses his mind at that point. He chokes her out. Yeah, well, he loses his mind because

then he calls the police on himself. So I mean, would you rather have her tell your wife that you try to make a move on her, which you could plausibly deny and be like, oh, no, she completely misread that. Or would you rather choke her, rape her, and then call the police on yourself and then you lose everything and you're in prison? He lost control and I think he panicked in that moment where maybe it was a surprise to him, but she goes, wait, what are you doing? Why did you just try to kiss me? What's wrong? What's wrong? with you, you know? And at that point, she's like, I'm out of here. You're sick. Turns to walk away. And that's when he attacks her. But on the other side of it, he admitted to murdering her. So what's the difference between saying I came on to her and she said no and just saying I got her from

behind before she even had an opportunity to know what my intentions were. I just attacked her when she wasn't looking. I guess there really wouldn't be much of a difference. But these sickos, in their mind, they may rationalize it like it's an ego thing. Like she didn't turn me down. type thing? I don't know. I always struggle to rationalize the irrational with these people. Yeah, I mean, according to the prosecutor, he without warning attacked her, placed her in a chokehold until her body went limp. He then placed her in a bed, had sex with her. And afterward, he called 911. And he said it was, he needed an ambulance for a deceased woman. But apparently she was transported to the hospital where she died shortly after at 925 a.m. because the police got the call at around

8.45 a.m. So it looks like at the time when he called the police for the ambulance, she was still alive, still breathing. And it was not until they got her to the hospital that she died shortly after the 911 call. So it kind of feels like he, did he intend to kill her? He choked her until she went unconscious and then had sex with her. So this is going to be a thing where it's like, oh, I choked her until she went unconscious. And then I was like, no, what have I done? And then I called the police. No, you took the opportunity of her being unconscious. conscious to now apparently follow through on this sexual desire you've had for her since 2017, which is when he met his wife.

So that's how long he's known the sister. He's lusted after her since he met his wife. So there's a lot to kind of talk about here and a lot to go over and certain things that have been alleged. But let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Chime. And you guys know we hate unnecessary fees. Yeah, as you should.

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For more information on APY rates, My Pay, SpotMe, and Travel perks. Go to chime.com slash disclosures. So we're back. As of the latest reporting that I could find, Joseph Horner's been charged with second-degree murder. in Victoria Castle's death. Some outlets also describe the alleged sexual assault. They're calling an alleged sexual assault, but the clearly reported formal charge is second-degree murder. Fox noted that the felony complaint alleges he intentionally caused Castle's death while prosecutors discuss the alleged sexual assault at arraignment.

So I guess it's kind of, I'm looking at it, which is second-degree murder. Why is this second-degree murder and not first-degree murder if he intentionally caused the death. That's kind of what I was just saying, right? Like the difference between first degree and second degree is premeditation. That's the only difference. And so if we're to believe his story exactly, well, then he planned on her coming downstairs. And as soon as she turned her back to him and started looking at the piano, he was going to choke her out, put her unconscious, rape her, then kill her.

Well, that's first degree all day long. Because that would be premeditated, right? talking about. But if she came down and he had in his mind thought this was going to be the first opportunity for them to finally take advantage of these feelings that have been building up for so many years, even though the reality was they were not reciprocated. It was only in his mind. Well, she comes downstairs. His plan is to have sex with her, but have it be a mutual thing where they both wanted it. This was the first time they had the chance. And yet when he realizes very quickly that she's not on the same page.

That's when this rage overcomes him and he chokes her out, rapes her, and then realizes what he just did, and now he has to kill her because in his mind there's no other choice. That would be more aligned with a second-degree murder, a crime of passion where in a fit of rage he murdered her. And that appears to be what they're doing here.

So, yeah, it doesn't sound like they completely believe his story. Well, they don't believe his story, but why would you tell that story then? You know, I guess if it's something, if it's something that makes it second degree and not first degree, then why would you, why would you tell this story? Stephanie, I think it's ego. I really, really do. Like, he doesn't want people to know he got rejected? Yeah.

And as dumb as that sounds where he's on trial for murder. I mean, you're a man. You'd know more than me, I guess. But this is even about man or woman. It's about like sane versus insane, right? Like, this guy doesn't think like you and I. Yes. I suppose also.

I also kind of think it's man versus. woman, though, because a woman's not going to be like, I will take the higher murder charge so that no one knows I got rejected. You don't think there's women out there that are just as crazy as he is? I just think in general, like, their way of rationalizing something isn't the way you and I do, right? Like, it's something where it's better for him to paint the picture that he didn't even give her an opportunity to, and maybe if he had, she would have reciprocated these feelings.

but instead he didn't even give her the opportunity and that's why it went down the way it did. He had wanted it to be this way all along when for me it just makes more sense that this weekend he was excited about it because he thought that they were going to finally be alone. Like consummate their underlying. So somebody, first of all,

somebody who's this disturbed, you might be right. Like he may even be lying to himself about what happened to avoid the, you know, the blow to his ego or to his. like identity. Yeah, it's a tuberous for sure. And he may be even lying to himself because somebody who would marry a woman while lusting after her sister and then continuing to hold that lust for the next, I mean, almost 10 years. And you're waiting, you're waiting now for this moment that you two can have together and you think that this feeling you have might be that you're bananas. You're out of

your mind. Why would you marry a woman whose sister you're lusting after? Were there signs? I would like to know, were there signs? You know, that the wife saw or the wife noticed that Joseph had, was harboring these feelings. Victoria might have told some people some stuff too that may come out where she's like, oh, man, Joseph was being weird toward him. Very similar to Anna Kepner, right? Right. He made some comments. This guy's kind of a creep. You know, just to put it out there, another angle here would be for law enforcement in the prosecution, it could be, you know, that the intent was a sexual assault where his intent was for her to come down and he was going to rape her. That was the plan all along. And during that sexual assault, while strangling her,

he killed her. That could also be the angle they're going with where you have the deliberate act where you're assaulting her, but the intention wasn't to kill her at the time. I don't know what picture they're going to paint, but it's one of those two angles. That's why they're coming to the conclusion of second degree versus first degree. I mean, I'm just so, pissed off about this. I'm really genuinely, genuinely hissed off and angry about this. His attorney basically pushed back on the public image created by the allegations, quote unquote allegations. And the attorney was like, Horner is a tenured teacher at Oceanside who's very well loved by the students and the colleagues. Yeah, the students and the colleagues. And the allegations are not in line

with what his community, friends and family believed about him. And it's like, okay. Okay. So, What? So what? Like, we don't have some misidentification thing here. We don't have a man who the police busted in on found Victoria dead in the same house. And they were like, it must have been you. And he's like, no, it wasn't me. He called the police and admitted to it. So like, what does it really matter if the image that he had at his school where his coworkers and students loved him? What does that matter? Well, now, in hindsight, maybe the defense is going to be going after a claim of this statement was made under duress or there was something. there where the confession is actually inadmissible because of the circumstances surrounding it. And this is actually a good guy. I'm sure his DNA is going to be all over her. No doubt, no doubt. I mean, listen, and I said we hadn't talked about it yet. So let's talk about it now because I do think there's a bigger story here for all of us.

Obviously, we want justice for Victoria. But I, he was an elementary school teacher. That's the point, right? Like, I know sometimes it comes off as paranoid, but you really don't. know who you're around and they could be someone who, and I'm talking specifically even about Victoria here where this is someone who you're close to. You've known for almost 10 years, probably longer. They were married for 10 years, right? No, they've only been married for three years. He met her in 2017. So 10, 11 years. So they've known each other for that long, probably.

Living in the same place, you should be able to trust this person. Their family and in their mind, you don't know, but behind closed doors, this person is a monster and it just goes back to the whole point of you really can't trust anybody you really can't and i know that's a shi way to move through life but and i don't even know if there's a way to avoid it like what are you supposed to do not go downstairs when your brother-in-law calls you and needs help no how would you know yeah of course you're going to go down there but it's just a scary world that we live in man and you think about this person where yeah he had eyes on victoria but what other thoughts that he have about the children that he was teaching at school that's what i'm saying that's

what I'm saying because a creep like this, the creepiness knows no bounds. And this is, this is once again another thing that really bugs me because this is as of last reporting. The school district, Oceanside, they confirmed he was an elementary school music teacher, and they confirmed that he was placed on administrative leave effective immediately pending further review. Well, I mean, I think that's the general statement they make, but he's fired. Yeah, but generally the statement you should be making is like this man will never be around the children of this school again because one way or the other either he raped her and accidentally murdered her or he planned to rape her and then murdered her because she fought back or he planned to rape and murder

her like either way these things are all the the options that he had and it's not like he's once again it's not he's not a completely innocent man regardless of the outcome here he's not coming. Maybe their lawyers told them they had to frame it that way for whatever. Who knows? You know how lawyers are. We've talked about it before. Like they just, you know, they're there to protect it, but sometimes they get in their own way. I mean, I'll be interested to see how this investigation unfolds on more of a macro level because they're going to go into his computers and his phone. And I'd love to know the type of searches he was making. What was he looking up? I'm sure he was into porn. Oh my God. I don't even want to know what's on his computer and devices. Oh, we need to know.

We need to know. That's how we better protect ourselves. moving forward, we need to profile this person, understand what we're dealing with, add it to the database, and also make the investigators on this case better equipped to handle this type of situation in the future because this is an isolated incident. There are many others out there like Joseph. They have yet to be identified. And they're secretly lusting after someone who they're just waiting for their opportunity to pounce. Before we finish up, I do want to finish with talking about Victoria. She was not just a student in a vague way. Like Victoria was a geology PhD student at Stony Brook University. Stony Brook is a great college. It's in my area. Her research shows that she

was interested in all sorts of everything rock. And in fact, her social media calls, she calls herself, I think, a professional rock lover or something like that. It was really cute. She also called herself an elder emo, even though she's only 25 years old. Yeah, she was really, really an impressive person. In plain English, her work was about figuring out how old sediments, landforms, and ancient deposits are by studying signals stored in minerals. She was into, like, luminescence dating, which can help scientists understand when sediment was last exposed to lighter heat, and this obviously matters when reconstructing ancient landscapes. Her undergraduate undergraduate research actually focused on deposits from terraces left by the Udanka

River in southern Poland. So it's very interesting. She was also presenting research publicly. So in 2023, she presented this Poland research at the Geological Society of America in Pittsburgh. She had a really impressive path. She graduated from Massapego High School, earned an associate's degree in science from Nassau Community College, then transferred to Stony Brook for geology. In 2023, Stony Brook Profiles, she was applying to graduate programs and wanted to contribute to geochronology, geomorphology and quaternary science. And like I said, by the time of her death, she was in the PhD program. She was also really interested in doing research in ancient architecture and archaeology.

She was, I mean, these are words I can't even pronounce. I don't know what they mean. No, no. Moral of the story, way smarter than us. She was brilliant. She had so many professional colleagues and personal people who came out and said, this was just not only was she brilliant, but it was like she didn't know she was brilliant. You know, she was down to earth.

She traveled a lot for her studies. She went to Brazil, Texas, Alabama, London, Georgia. She attended New York Comic-Con in 2025 in costume, including Adam Eve from Invincible, which is a great television show. And it's just like, it's weird because I'm relating to her. It's like, I love Adam Eve, too. People remember Victoria as someone who brought like all of this energy into every room. Like she was beautiful and brilliant and kind. And it was like she didn't know she was

all of these things, you know. So she just kind of thought she was a nerd and just a basic person. And like I'm nothing special, but she was something special. And that's what makes this whole thing feel so devastating. Like she was 25. But she'd already accomplished so much. And she was going to go on to accomplish so much more, so much more than this idiot loser Joseph Horner, who because of one moment of lust, you know, from the culmination of several years of lusting after her, he was like, well, I'm going to end her life. She's mine now. Had accomplished so much and had had so many more things that she was going to go on to do and had her whole life ahead of her.

And we talk about stories like this all the time where it's important for you guys to understand who these victims were in life because that's how we want to remember them. So number one priority with this case is to make sure that the investigation is airtight so that this guy goes away into prison for the. the rest of his life and can never hurt anybody else. And we get justice for Victoria. And I'm also just thinking about Victoria's friends and her family. I mean, we didn't mention her sister by name. I was looking up some articles while you were talking. There's not, I couldn't find a single article that mentioned.

I'm sure it's out there. But we won't mention her by name. I mean, her name's not being mentioned. So I'm not going to mention it. I did find it. But I'm not going to mention it. She's a victim here as well. I'm sure she's just absolutely like, mortified.

devastated, mortified, crushed, crushed, right? You lose your sister and your husband. So you lose someone you thought you knew better than anyone else. Yeah, you lose a person that you loved and were very close to and a person you thought you loved and were very close to. If there's a major update in this case, we'll definitely let you guys know. There will be, yeah. Just make sure you're keeping your circle small guys. I mean, this is one of those circumstances where I hate to say it, but there's not much you can do.

You're living in a two-story unit from what I'm seeing. If you can't trust your sister with your own husband and you can't trust your brother-in-law, like of all people, you know, Who the hell can you trust? Yeah. Think about how many times those two have had conversations together and interacted with each other over the years. Hung out, got drinks. Yep. Went to parties, family parties.

Yeah. Had social interactions. Just hang out at night because they live in the same house. Like, mm. We're thinking of everybody involved. It's a tough situation. And like Stephanie said, there will be an update on this one. There's going to be more to this story.

And when we have that, we'll let you guys know. We will be back later this week with Harmony, Mark Gumry, Part 3. It's going to be an interesting case. I was just briefly looking at the script, and we got a lot to cover. A lot of the actual details of the investigation and how they track down the whereabouts and the movements of both Adam and Kayla after the crime was committed because it's extremely relevant to how we got where we are and how Adam was ultimately convicted of the murder. So we'll be back later this week.

Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.