The first sign that something was off about her date came as soon as he got in the car. The woman had matched with Christopher Castillo on an app, picked him up at his parents’ house in Rhode Island, and now here he was in her Nissan Maxima, chugging wine in the passenger seat. Sure, that was weird, but she just kept driving. It was too late to back out.
They’d been cruising around for about 30 minutes when he suddenly asked her to pull over at a bank. Again, a bit strange—but ostensibly, he just needed to pick up a little money for their night out. She parked the car, and he walked inside.
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A few minutes later, Castillo sprinted out of the front door. He was drenched in sweat, wearing a hat and sunglasses that he didn’t have on before, clutching a gun in one hand and $1,000 cash in the other. “Fucking go!” he screamed.
This was really happening: Whatever cute dinner or trip to the movies they’d planned for their first date had gone out the window, and now they were robbing a bank.
According to CNN, the woman “panicked” and stepped on the gas, peeling out of the parking lot and tearing down the streets of North Attleboro, Massachusetts. Soon enough, the cops were on her tail—and when she saw flashing lights in her rearview mirror, she pulled over at a Dunkin’ Donuts and scrambled out of the car.
Castillo tried to duck and hide, assuming the cops might just magically disappear, but they bum-rushed the car and pulled him out of the passenger-side door. He struggled with the cops, spit on them, and told him his gun wasn’t loaded. Then they cuffed him, CNN reports.
Castillo wound up pleading guilty to armed robbery and assault and battery on a police officer, and last week, he was sentenced to three years in prison, along with two additional years in the Bristol County jail, WHDH reports. According to the county district attorney, other than telling the bank clerk that he was “really hurting,” he didn’t offer much of an explanation as to why he decided to rob the place—or, even more bafflingly, why he chose to do it on a first date with this poor, unsuspecting woman.
Thankfully, she didn’t wind up getting charged for her involvement in the heist. Aside from suffering through one of the most stressful experiences you could possibly imagine—and probably losing her ability to trust anyone on a dating app for the rest of her life—she made out totally fine.
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