Renato Seabra Gets 25-to-life for Killing, Castrating Boyfriend

Renato Seabra

On December 21, Renato Seabra was sentenced to serve 25-years-to-life in prison for the grisly murder of his boyfriend, LGBT journalist and activist Carlos Antonio De Castro in Manhattan in 2011, reports Gay City News.

Seabra, a 23-year-old Portuguese model, was found guilty of second-degree murder earlier this month for stomping to death the renowned journalist, then castrating him with a corkscrew and wearing his testicles as bracelets, claiming they allowed him to "harness" Castro's power and extract the "virus" of homosexuality as ordered by God. 

Judge Daniel P. Fitzgerald called the murder "a chilling example of the manifestation of man's inhumanity to man," that was fraught with "sadism" in Manhattan's Supreme Court, according to Gay CIty News. 

Gay City News  reports that Seabra's lawyers argued that the young man was insane when he strangled, beat, and castrated his 65-year-old boyfriend in a Manhattan hotel room last year, and therefore could not be held accountable. The prosecution, on the other hand, argued that Seabra was exploiting Castro for money and in an effort to advance his modeling career. The assistant district attorneys prosecuting the case said that Seabra flew into a homicidal rage when Castro told the younger man their relationship was over and that they would soon return to Portugal, according to Gay City News.

Seabra addressed the court before his sentencing, saying through a Portuguese interpereter, "I just want to request the opportunity to ask for forgiveness from Carlos Castro's family and friends. I killed Carlos Castro. That's not anything I want to prove differently... I accept any time the judge will tell me because I committed the crime,"reports Gay City News.