A-grade student joined Triad gang and killed top drug dealer
A grammar schoolboy faces life in jail after he was lured into a Chinese Triad gang and killed a notorious drug dealer.
Straight A grade student Jerome Castrillo, 18, took an afternoon off from his A-level studies to beat Michael McGrath to death over an £800 debt.
The teenager, whose mother is a primary schoolteacher and stepfather a postman, carried out the attack while he was a pupil at the prestigious Latymer grammar school in Edmonton, North London.
He was recruited to join the infamous ‘Wo Shing Wo’ Chinese crime syndicate by older boys at the school on behalf of leader Yuxiang Liu, 25, with the promise of girls and beer.
Despite his comfortable family background and plans to take A Levels in history, maths and media studies, Castrillo dreamed of becoming a gangster.
His parents and teachers had no idea that the teenager – who had achieved nine A or A* grade GCSEs – had entered a life of crime.
Within four months, Castrillo, then 17, skipped school to help in the killing and even boasted afterwards that there had been a lot of blood but claimed he had done it as a favour and had not received a penny.
When he police arrested him at the family home where he lived with his two younger brothers, Castrillo refused to comment while in the earshot of his parents but later admitted he had been at the scene.
