Nassau County police arrested Joseph Horner on Tuesday and charged the 27-year-old Oceanside School District music teacher with second-degree murder in the death of Victoria Castle. Police said Horner called 911 on Monday morning to request an ambulance for a female victim, then was found outside the home at 285 N Oak Street after officers responded.
The arrest is drawing attention across Long Island because the killing shut down the Nassau County neighborhood for 12 hours and now puts a school district employee at the center of a homicide case. Castle, a PhD student at Stony Brook University, was found on the floor of the ground-floor apartment, taken to the hospital and pronounced dead at 9:25 a.m. Monday.
Police said the home in North Massapequa was a multi-family house split into two apartments, with Horner and his wife upstairs and his wife's sister below. Horner knew Castle since 2016, when he met his wife, and prosecutors said at arraignment that he saw an opportunity to follow through on a sexual desire he had harbored for her while his wife was away.
That account sharpened the case far beyond a routine homicide arrest. A Nassau prosecutor said Horner allegedly admitted to lusting over his wife's sister since 2017, asked for help moving a piano and then attacked Castle without warning, placed her in a chokehold until her body went limp, then put her in bed and had sex with her. Horner later admitted to authorities that he choked Castle and then had sex with her, but he pleaded not guilty to murder in the second degree.
The school district moved quickly after the arrest. Oceanside Superintendent of Schools Phyllis Harrington said the staff member was placed on administrative leave effective immediately pending further review, adding that the district had no further information at that time and that the charges were unrelated to students or school operations.
Horner is being held without bail and faces up to 25 years to life if convicted. What remains unclear is what additional evidence prosecutors will use beyond the alleged admissions as the case moves forward, and whether the district will keep him off the job for the duration of the proceeding or until an earlier review is complete.
