The case of Renato Seabra, the Portuguese male model accused of killing his older lover Carlos Castro in a Times Square hotel in January, may not be open and shut. Despite a January 7 confession from Seabra that he stabbed and castrated Castro, a fashion writer and gay activist, before smashing a computer monitor over his head and stomping on his face, the young man's lawyers are now seriously mulling a psychiatric defense.
Seabra's lawyer David Touger argued in court today that the police had no probable cause to arrest the model in the first place ("There were no eye-witnesses to the crime, nor any statements or witnesses accusing the defendant of the crime at the time he was taken into custody and questioned."). Further, he is asking for more time to decide how to proceed until he can analyze the records from St. Luke's hospital, where Seabra was taken by a cabby after leaving the scene of the crime. "Until we get those records, we are not making any decisions," he said. "They were the first people who saw Renato—they're the most important."
Meanwhile the model himself, who appears to be taking care of himself in prison, sat silently throughout the hearing. His mother—who previously has told the press "my son was not Carlos Castro's lover" and "my son, being a golden boy, who is so good, he didn't do this"—sat quietly behind him.
