TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Body Found Tuesday Identified As Woman's Missing Son

ADVERTISEMENT

By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 2007

TAMPA - For five weeks, Barbara Del Castillo feared for the whereabouts of her only son, who suffered from schizophrenia and loved to visit Wal-Mart stores and comic book stores on their weekly outings.

Wednesday, she learned he had died and ended up in a ditch between North Dale Mabry Highway and Al Lopez Park.

Tampa police identified as Gary Wayne Fields the body found Tuesday by Department of Corrections inmates doing roadwork.

Fields, 49, was still wearing the jeans, tennis shoes and T-shirt he wore Oct. 24 when, according to his mother and police, he wandered away from the Springs Water Assisted Living Facility at 1411 E. Waters Ave.

The facility's director was unavailable today and previously has declined to comment on Fields' disappearance.

"It is sad," his mother, 67, said today through tears. "A kind, gentle, childlike man. That's all he was."

Police said there were no signs of trauma to the body. They are awaiting further tests from the medical examiner to determine how Fields died.

In addition to schizophrenia, Fields also was "somewhat autistic" and had a speech impediment, his mother said.

Earlier this month, police had described Fields as a "missing endangered person" because of his medical condition and had checked homeless shelters and gathering areas for him.

Del Castillo, of Sun City Center, said in an interview earlier this month that state mental-health officials had transferred her son from a facility in Chattahoochee to the one in Sulphur Springs, where he could come and go as he liked. That made her uncomfortable because "he hears voices. When they tell him to walk away, he'll walk away. If they tell him not to eat, he won't eat," she said.

While her son was missing, Del Castillo frequented places they had visited together, such as a Taco Bell and Kmart on Florida Avenue. About a year ago, when he wandered away from another facility, she found him standing in front of a Wal-Mart, she said.

"'I knew you would come and get me,'" she recalled him saying.

She was too upset to talk at length today but acknowledged she had feared he wouldn't be found alive.

"He and I were so close; he would've called me," she said.

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT