A 13-year-old Goose Creek girl was found unresponsive in her family's home on the morning of August 27 after her mother said she could not wake her for school, and within a day both of the girl's parents were in handcuffs facing felony charges. Emergency responders arrived at the Keyes Lane residence to find the girl already dead, and what investigators found in the parents' bedroom soon after would tie the case to a home already well known to South Carolina law enforcement.
Mother Tracy Lyn Castillo, 37, told authorities she had gone to wake her daughter for school and could not rouse her, according to an incident report cited by WKRC. Police and fire personnel responded to the home following that report, as detailed by WCSC. The Berkeley County Sheriff's Office arrested Castillo and 42-year-old Derrell Dominquez Joshua the following day, August 28, in Goose Creek.
What Investigators Found in the Bedroom
A search of the parents' bedroom turned up a black scale coated with white residue, dozens of small plastic baggies with residue, and four home-pressed blue pills made to resemble generic ibuprofen, according to the seed reporting. The pills and packaging materials were stored inside a Coach clutch bag and a pink makeup bag, the Post and Courier reports. Authorities said the seized items field-tested positive for fentanyl.
Field testing on the teenager herself yielded a presumptive positive for fentanyl and THC, WCSC's report states, though officials stressed that a private toxicology report remains pending as the death investigation continues. That distinction matters: presumptive field tests require formal laboratory confirmation before a cause of death can be finalized, and the investigation into the girl's death remains ongoing.
Charges Against Both Parents
Castillo was charged with possession of more than two grams of fentanyl and two counts of neglect by a legal custodian. Joshua faces the identical charges — possession of more than two grams of fentanyl and two counts of neglect by a legal custodian. Under South Carolina Code § 44-53-370, possessing more than two grains of fentanyl, or roughly 0.13 grams, is a felony carrying up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for a first offense, according to the Office of the Governor of South Carolina. Separately, South Carolina's unlawful conduct toward a child statute, Code § 63-5-70, allows for up to 10 years in prison per count when a parent or guardian places a child at unreasonable risk of harm, per the South Carolina Legislature.
A Home Already Familiar to Investigators
This was not the first brush with the law at the Keyes Lane property. The property had drawn law-enforcement attention before the fentanyl charges. In October 2024, a search of the home turned up narcotics, 12 firearms, mold, and unsanitary food storage, leading to charges against Castillo for four child-neglect-related counts.
The 2024 cases involved unsafe living conditions. Those earlier cases predate the fentanyl charges now filed in the wake of the girl's death, and it remains unclear from available reporting how the earlier proceedings were resolved.
Fentanyl's Continuing Toll Statewide
The case unfolds against a broader statewide trend of falling overdose deaths. South Carolina recorded 1,481 fatal drug overdoses in 2024, a 31.3% drop from the 2,157 deaths counted in 2023, according to data published in July by the South Carolina Department of Public Health. That marked the state's first back-to-back annual decline in overdose mortality since 2012.
Even so, fentanyl was involved in 914 of those 1,481 deaths in 2024 — about 61.7% of all fatal overdoses statewide — underscoring that the synthetic opioid remains the dominant driver of drug deaths in South Carolina even as overall numbers improve. Whether prosecutors will pursue additional charges, such as involuntary manslaughter or homicide by child abuse, once the private toxicology results and a final cause-of-death determination are complete is not yet known.
