Law&Crime Sidebar - Former Vice Cop on Trial In Death of Sex Worker - The Story So Far

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Former Columbus police vice squad officer Andrew Mitchell is back on trial for the murder of 23-year-old Donna Castleberry. On the night Castleberry was killed, Mitchell allegedly picked her up in an unmarked police car during an undercover prostitution sting. Mitchell claims Castleberry stabbed him, so he shot her out of self defense — but prosecutors say she was shot while attempting to escape. Mitchell went to trial in the spring of 2022, but in April, a judge declared a mistrial. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy explains what we know about this case so far with Lacey Crisp, the CrimeTracker 10 Reporter for WBNS-TV. LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. This was not an officer firing to save his life. This was not an immediate threat. We will present expert testimony on this topic. Former Columbus, Ohio police officer Andrew Mitchell on trial a second time accused of murdering a woman in his custody. Donna Castleberry pulls out a knife. You're going to see that knife. It is not a small knife. She attacks my client with that knife. Will he be convicted after a hung jury the first time around? Welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. I'm Janette Levy. Andrew Mitchell was a member

of the vice unit in Columbus, Ohio's police department back in 2018 when he encountered a woman named Donna Castleberry. Castleberry had been performing sex work to support a drug addiction according to accounts her family gave to reporters. Mitchell picked up Castleberry one evening and some of their encounter was actually recorded by Mitchell on his cell phone. It's important to note that Andrew Mitchell was in an unmarked vehicle that night and he was wearing plain clothes. Prosecutors say Castleberry did believe Mitchell was a police officer, and she climbed into the back of his unmarked car and slashed Mitchell's hand as she called for help. Mitchell fired at Donna Castleberry, and he claims he acted in self-defense. Castleberry sadly passed away. Mitchell faces federal charges in a

separate case. He's accused of getting women to have sex with him in exchange for not being arrested. The prosecution and the defense laid out their cases quite quickly in opening statements. The The prosecution said this was not a case where Andrew Mitchell as a police officer fired at Donna Castleberry because he feared for his safety and his life. Cheryl Pritchard said Donald Castleberry is actually the person who feared for her safety. He did sustain a large slice to his hand. We don't dispute that. How it happened, we don't specifically know.

But Donna was screaming for help. She was screaming for a passerby to call the police. Call 911. She was begging. Help me. Help me. She was scared of him. She believed she was being trapped in a car by somebody who was trying to rape or harm her. Andrew Mitchell fired six shots. That fact is not in dispute. But Cheryl Pritchard said it was the way that those shots were fired that show that the shooting was not justified. She was hit by three of those bullets. The defendant here, he got angry. His decisions were based on the fact, not that she presented an immediate threat, but that he'd been cut.

This wasn't a legally justifiable use of force. The shot cadence here, 12 seconds to fire six shots, is not consistent with an officer firing to save his life. It's retribution. For its part, the defense told the jury that Andrew Mitchell's shoes. of Donna Castleberry was legally justified. Caitlin Stevens outlined what happened before Mitchell shot Castleberry. They were working prostitution under cover, dressed in plain clothes, not in marked cruisers.

You're going to hear that Andy picked up a woman who he suspected was a prostitute. He did this according to his training. Something very common that the vice unit did. He begins his audio recording. recording so that he could record the interaction on his city issued cell phone between himself and Miss Castleberry. Again, according to his training, you're going to hear that Donna Castleberry directed him where to go. Again, according to his training. Stevens went on

to tell the jury how they should look at the evidence. The judge will tell you, you cannot put yourself in Donna's shoes, not in Miss Pritchard's shoes, not in my shoes. You have to put yourself in Andy Mitchell's shoes as he was experiencing the deadly attack from the eyes of a reasonable police officer. You're going to go look at that car. Look at how small it is. Imagine that life or death struggle that I just described for you. After opening statements concluded, the jury was taken on a jury view. That's essentially a trip. to show them the location where the shooting happened. The jurors were also told that they would be able to look at that Mitsubishi that

Andrew Mitchell was driving that day to show the jury where the shooting happened. Law and Crime will be streaming the trial of Andrew Mitchell, gavel to gavel, and we will have it covered for you. Joining me to discuss the Andrew Mitchell trial and the case against him is Lacey Crisp. She is the Crime Tracker 10 reporter for WBNS TV. in Columbus and she's been covering this case from the beginning and we'll be covering the trial. Lacey, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Just briefly, give us an overview of this case from the beginning. So this all happened back in August of 2018. Andrew Mitchell at the time was a Columbus

vice officer. He and his unit were out conducting a human trafficking sting. And that's when he was in his unmarked car. Donna Castleberry got in the back of his car. They had conversations. It's all recorded, he ended up pulling up right next to a building and there are child locks on his car and she was not able to get out of the car by the way he parked. She had a knife on her and she ended up cutting him. He tried to get out of the car and ended up shooting Donna six times killing her. So talk to me a little bit about the charges he faces. So he is chasing, facing murder charges in this case. What's interesting is he is also facing federal charges on unrelated issues because he was a landlord and is accused of using his badge against some of the women he was investigating in color of law

manner. Oh, wow. So civil rights violation type charges that he's facing with the federal government. So the first trial resulted, there was a mistrial. There was a hung jury. So there is a retrial that is beginning. What's interesting about the trials that happened about this time last year. And the jurors deliberated for a couple of days. And they told the judge at one point in time, they were deadlocked that seven of the jurors felt that Andrew Mitchell was not guilty. Two of them felt he was guilty and the others were undecided. Knowing that, which is an unusual thing for the jurors to tell the judge and tell those of us in the audience how they felt, it was an unusual move a lot of people speculated for the prosecutor's office to retry this case,

giving the overwhelming majority of the jurors who felt that he was not guilty. And I talked to a defense attorney Mark Collins after the mistrial was declared, and he said that gives him an indication of what he needs to work on moving forward towards the next trial. And I think we should tell our audience that Mark Collins is a really good defense attorney. His partner, Caitlin Stevens, also a very talented defense attorney. They represent Billy Wagner in the Pike County Massacre case, a totally separate case. But Mark Collins is somebody who does sometimes represent police officers when they get into trouble with the law. Absolutely. He's kind of known for being that defense attorney here in the city of Columbus. He's representing Adam Coy and Jason Meade, a sheriff's deputy and a Columbus police officer who were both

involved in fatal shootings. Those trials are coming up, hopefully later this year, maybe early next year, on use of force cases. This is a really unfortunate incident involving Andrew Mitchell. Let's not even think about the federal charges, that case. But this seems like a really a case where you could have people coming, disagreeing on the facts of this case, because you're talking about child locks on a door, what the officer knew at the time, the fact that Ms. Castleberry had a knife, which is not illegal, but this could have been a really fluid and dynamic situation that you can see how people might have differing opinions on it. Her family has been very vocal, and they've been very vocal since the very beginning of this. They did win a settlement with this city of Columbus.

The city of Columbus paid him out $1 million in a wrongful death suit. They were in the jury trial every single day for the last trial. And I fully anticipate that they will be there every single day this time. And just so our audience knows, murder charges in the state of Ohio, it carries a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life. So there's no discretion with the judge. So what do you expect to hear from both sides during opening statements? When I talked to Mark Collins a couple of weeks ago leading up to the preparation for this trial, he said he anticipates it will be a little bit shorter. we will have a lot of trying to remember, I think we had like five use of force experts last time to explain to the jurors what is within Columbus police officers right and duty to use force and what is not. Both sides, both the defense and the prosecutor's office, both presented their own use of force experts. So I anticipate that might be, we might have a somewhat fewer timewise for the use of force experts and more on some of the facts. What was really interesting and I think the most compelling part of the case last time, and it's going to be another difficult time for the family. They've heard this recording. There's an audio recording. Andrew Mitchell had his cell phone recording the whole time. It's not easy to listen to that for the family, for Mitchell's family who's sitting there. It's a very, it's a very difficult

thing to hear. I fully anticipate that they will replay that audio a few times. Yeah, and I, my heart goes out to that, to her family. I can't imagine what Donald Castleberry's family is going through and it's a terrible, terrible thing for them. Do you think Andrew Mitchell takes the stand? He did last time. I have asked Mark Collins, and I think it's a played-by-air kind of situation. We don't know yet. Defense attorneys usually play that kind of thing close to the fast. He did last time. And I'm not sure we didn't get a chance to talk to the jurors, but I'm not sure what kind of an impact that made either for or against him. Well, Lacey, Chris, thanks so much for joining us to discuss this case. We'll be following it right along with you. Good to see you. That's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar. on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

And of course, you can always watch Law and Crime's Sidebar on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. or Spotify.