A Philadelphia woman’s cosmetic procedure that resulted in her death has now been ruled a homicide. And investigators say a woman previously jailed for giving illegal injections was in the room when it happened.
Speaking to the New York Daily News Tuesday, Dec. 18, authorities have not stated that former convict Whalesca Castillo delivered the fatal shot into Leslie Ayala, who died in June. But they said she was present in the Bronx, N.Y. apartment where Ayala died after suffering cardiac arrest.
(Leslie Ayala, Facebook)
While a ruling has been made on Ayala’s death, no charges have been filed against Castillo in connection to the incident. Ayala had traveled from Philly to a friend’s Bronx home where she had the illegal procedure and died during the recovery period on June 17 after doctors at Jacobi Hospital were unable to save her life.
The medical examiner determined the 48-year-old died of “systemic silicone embolism syndrome due to cosmetic silicone injections of buttocks and thighs.”
Castillo has been to prison for performing the procedure before. Court documents reveal that in 2009, at least 21 gallons of liquid silicone had been imported from the Dominican Republic by Castillo. She used the substance to perform the procedures.
Once Castillo made the injections, for which she charged clients up to $1,500, she’d apply Krazy Glue onto the affected areas to close the punctures left behind. Rather than advising them to seek medical help when they suffered leakage, she said to one woman she should “buy some crazy glue and put it on.”
Performing the illegal buttock injections led Castillo to serve time in prison twice. She was arrested in 2011 and released on $100,000 bail. In September of that year, she pleaded guilty but upon her release, she violated the conditions of her deal by continuing the injections in the home of a woman she tricked into letting her practice out of. During her 2012 sentencing, she tearfully asked for mercy.
“I want to work and do something for which my family and children can be proud,” she said through an interpreter.
That prison stint concluded in 2013.
Yet Castillo was back behind bars when, a year after her release, the FBI got a complaint and searched her home and her brother’s home. Investigators discovered 58 empty bottles of silicone, 13 rolls of duct tape, and eight reusable syringes.
Robert Osuna, her attorney, once again asked for mercy on behalf of his client.
“My clients’ eldest son, Juandy Paredes, aged 17, was murdered,” he wrote the judge in a letter. “Whatever sentence this court deems appropriate, I ask this court to make psychiatric counseling a continued condition of any supervised release imposed. Ms. Castillo’s recent years have been one tragedy after another.”
Others have exposed the dangers of illegal butt injections.
Instagram model Desiree got silicone injections from 2010 to 2012. She confessed in November “I regret these shots every day. I wake up every day in pain and I been praying every day that God take my pain away.”
Rapper Cardi B has said she got illegal injections and wound up leaking “for days” and singer K. Michelle has been on a crusade since April to discourage others from getting the procedure outside of a licensed professional’s office.
