Mount Prospect man who killed mom sent to mental health facility

The tragedy that began nearly two years ago for Mount Prospect's Castronovo family concluded Tuesday when a Cook County Circuit Court judge remanded Paul Castronovo to the state department of human services for up to 60 years.

The court's decision makes Castronovo eligible for release on Dec. 18, 2068.

Last month, Judge James B. Linn found the 45-year-old Castronovo not guilty by reason of insanity of the 2008 slaying of his 76-year-old mother Mary in the home she shared with her son, his wife and their children.

Linn based his ruling on medical reports that indicated Castronovo required inpatient treatment for a mental illness psychiatrists previously described as a delusional disorder. That disorder made Castronovo believe she was possessed by the devil and intended to harm his children. He strangled her.

Authorities said Mary Castronovo was an innocent victim who never posed a threat to her grandchildren.

“This is a really sad case,” said Castronovo's attorney, Cook County Assistant Public Defender Jim Mullenix of his client, who graduated from the University of Illinois and John Marshall Law School.

Castronovo went from being a perfectly normal man who married his college sweetheart and had a successful immigration law practice to “someone who is so caught up in his delusion that he basically started living in that delusion,” Mullenix said.

Imagining that people were conspiring against him, Castronovo became estranged from his family as his illness overtook him, said Mullenix.

Castronovo's family “is happy he's not in a penitentiary and that he is where he should be, in a mental health facility,” Mullenix said.