HILLSBOROUGH - Investigators knew in April that a teenager now accused of killing his father before opening fire outside Orange High School was fascinated with school shootings, according to a high-school acquaintance who received a video from him saying he was going to kill himself.

Alvaro Castillo sent Anna Rose the video last spring. It came in the mail April 22, two days after Castillo was picked up by Orange County Sheriff's deputies and committed to a local hospital after his parents reported that he was suicidal.

Rose was away at college when the video arrived at her family's home, but her mother, Bonnie, immediately called 911 when her son started watching it that night. A deputy came to get the tape.

Rose's brother played some of the video over the phone to her that night, and she was so scared she didn't return home for a couple of months, she said.

Rose said in an interview Wednesday that she met with Lt. Larry Faucette at the Orange County Sheriff's Office a few days later and Faucette showed her Castillo's journal, which included photographs of her and detailed his admiration for the shooters in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo.

The day that Castillo was committed, April 20, was the seven-year anniversary of those shootings, in which two high school boys killed 13 people before killing themselves.

Rose said Faucette told her that he had read the journal and that Castillo was "sick" and would be in the hospital for a long time.

But a few days after that, Rose said, Faucette called to say that Castillo had been released.

"I kept saying, 'Please don't let him go, he's not stable no matter what they think,' " Rose said.

Castillo had a high school crush on Rose. In a video mailed to The Chapel Hill News last week, he brandished a gun with her name on it. The video also showed a second gun labeled Arlene. The Chapel Hill News is a twice weekly newspaper produced by The News & Observer Co.

On Aug. 30, Castillo, 19, of 230 Lipps Lane was arrested at Orange High School after he launched a smoke bomb and fired at cars and at the school, slightly injuring two students, deputies said. Castillo had graduated from the school in 2005.

After Castillo's arrest, deputies said, he began rambling about his father "being sacrificed," according to a news release. Deputies discovered Rafael Huezo Castillo, 65, shot to death in the family's home.

It is not clear what sheriff's deputies did with the information in the video and journal last spring. Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass did not return phone calls left at his office or home, or with an on-duty supervisor late Wednesday afternoon. The office's media liaison, Capt. Bobby Collins, hung up twice on a reporter seeking comment, saying that it was after 5 p.m.

Faucette said in a brief phone interview Wednesday that deputies took a gun from Castillo's house in April and recovered the journal mentioning Columbine. He did not return a later phone call seeking more information.

Jeff Dishmon, Orange High School's principal, would not comment when reached at home Wednesday evening on whether the school had been told about Castillo's journal.

Legally, there might have been little officers could have done with the information to keep Castillo hospitalized. Once he was committed, he agreed to remain in treatment voluntarily.

That means he agreed to remain hospitalized as long as his doctor thought necessary, said Orange-Chatham Chief District Judge Joe Buckner. Once that happens, law enforcement and the court system aren't involved anymore, said Buckner, who played no role in Castillo's commitment.

Law enforcement and the courts rarely get involved in cases after they become voluntary, Buckner said. But law enforcement, family and others often talk to medical professionals to provide background on patients, he said.

"The legal system is not a good system to monitor someone with a high level of mental illness," Buckner said. "We have to figure out if we have the intensive inpatient and outpatient services to keep people safe. And I think the answer is, we are struggling."

Buckner said people who at one point appeared to be a threat to themselves or society are routinely discharged without committing any major crimes later.

"We could pull a thousand cases of people over the last 10 years of people who manifested no other criminal behavior, and that's not just Orange County residents," he said.

Questions of rights

Ann Akland, president of the Wake County affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said the system leans too heavily in favor of letting people out of treatment quickly. Akland said family members who have mentally ill relatives committed to treatment are often shocked and fearful when they find out that their relative will be released.

"I think our laws have just gone way overboard in trying to protect people's civil rights rather than protecting themselves," she said.

When Faucette told the Roses that Castillo had been released, he gave them information about the type of car Castillo might drive and told them that he would try to send deputies to patrol the neighborhood more often, Bonnie Rose said. Bonnie and Anna Rose said they asked about a restraining order, but Faucette told them they probably wouldn't be able to get one.

Someone from the sheriff's office might have approached Castillo, according to a letter that arrived at the Roses' home after the Orange High School shooting. Castillo wrote to Anna Rose that he knew her "parents are scared."

"The sheriff told me you went to the police department so I would not bother you again. I kept my word," he wrote.

In the letter, dated Aug. 27 and postmarked the day of the school shooting, Castillo also said he would "die in three days or so," and that he wouldn't "go after" Rose's little sister, who is enrolled at Orange High School.

Bonnie Rose said she couldn't understand why the system could not do more to protect her daughter and family.

"That's why I sent an e-mail asking people to pray," Bonnie Rose said. "I realized that was the only protection we had, is if God protected us."