 Mason Shannon
Deputies found 32-year-old Michael Castelli silent and motionless. He was taken to a hospital in Ottawa, Illinois, where he died a few hours later.
Witnesses told police that Castelli was visiting 42-year-old Mason Shannon, who worked at the nursery and lived in a trailer on the property. At some point in the evening, Castelli began acting strange. Shannon tried to take him home, but Castelli got on his hands and knees, crawled on the ground, and made odd noises. He hit a worker. Several people tried to restrain Castelli. They zip-tied his wrists, but Castelli broke free. Someone called 911, and Shannon restrained Castelli by putting him in a chokehold, releasing him when law-enforcement arrived.
Dr. Valerie Arangelovich, a board-certified forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy. She said Castelli died from asphyxiation caused by the Shannon’s chokehold, which cut off the blood supply from his carotid artery.
Toxicology results found that Castelli had a blood-alcohol content of .08 and had used marijuana and ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms prior to his death.
Shannon and Joseph Brewer, an employee at the facility who had initially helped to restrain Castelli, were charged with involuntary manslaughter on September 13, 2017. Police arrested Shannon on September 17, 2017. His charge was later upgraded to first-degree murder, but a grand jury indicted him instead on involuntary manslaughter.
Shannon chose a bench trial, and his case went to trial on September 4, 2018, before Chief Judge Howard “Chris” Ryan in LaSalle County Circuit Court. Shannon was represented by Attorney Douglas DeBoer.
Brewer agreed to testify against Shannon in exchange for the dismissal of his charge. According to reporting in the News Tribune of LaSalle, Brewer testified about trying to subdue Castelli. Brewer said he told Shannon to ease up because Castelli was no longer resisting.
Jordan Wilkinson, another employee, testified that he saw Shannon hit Castelli several times in the head with a flashlight. Wilkinson’s initial statement to police made no mention of a flashlight. He gave a second statement a few months later, after he was charged with battery of a child and worked out a plea deal with prosecutors to receive a more lenient sentence in that case.
During cross-examination, DeBoer asked Wilkinson if he had told police during his proffer session about hearing any grunting sounds coming from Castelli.
Wilkinson said he couldn’t remember. DeBoer then offered to refresh his memory by playing a video of the interview, which showed Wilkinson telling the police about the grunting. After Judge Ryan viewed that part of the video, he ordered DeBoer to stop playing the recording, and DeBoer ended the cross-examination.
Brewer had previously testified that Shannon never wielded a flashlight, and DeBoer asked Wilkinson, “Is this just a story that got you the deal of the century?” According to the Ottawa Times, Wilkinson said he was telling the truth.
Sheriff’s Deputy William Norman testified that Shannon was holding Castelli when Norman arrived at Bonnie Plants.
In his initial report, Norman said he handcuffed Castelli and then ordered Shannon to release Castelli from the hold. In a supplemental report written a few days later, Norman said he ordered Shannon to release Castelli before handcuffing Castelli. Later, in his testimony before the grand jury, Norman said he only placed a single handcuff on Castelli prior to noticing Castelli was unresponsive. At trial, Norman said he had misunderstood the question before the grand jury and that he had placed a set of handcuffs on Castelli consistent with his first report.
Arangelovich testified that Castelli died as a result of asphyxia due to a physical altercation. She said that the chokehold used by Shannon constricts the carotid artery, causing a person to lose consciousness after 20 seconds. If the pressure was maintained, Arangelovich testified, death could occur in three to six minutes. She was not asked whether the autopsy showed any signs that Castelli was repeatedly hit in the head.
Arangelovich said the autopsy found that Castelli had an enlarged heart and coronary artery disease, but she did not attribute his death to these conditions, because it did not account for the witness statements or the hemorrhaging in Castelli’s blood vessels that she observed.
Dr. James Filkins, a forensic pathologist, testified for the defense that Castelli died as a result of heart disease brought on by the stress of the altercation. He said that Castelli’s intake of marijuana and an unknown quantity of psilocybin mushrooms could increase his heart rate and cause an individual to act in bizarre ways. He also said there was no evidence that Castelli was beaten in the head.
DeBoer was also allowed to introduce evidence about a medical condition called “excited delirium,” which can be caused by taking drugs and can lead to violent and unpredictable behavior.
DeBoer had hoped to call James Clouse, the station manager at the Bonnie Plants facility, to testify about the events of that night. Prosecutors had interviewed Clouse in October 2017, with a summary of the interview written by LaSalle County State’s Attorney Karen Donnelly. According to the summary, Clouse said he was not present at the time Castelli was handcuffed. This contradicted Clouse’s statement to a sheriff’s deputy that he held a flashlight for an officer as Castelli was being handcuffed.
After the interview with prosecutors, the state offered Clouse immunity similar to the protection eventually given to Brewer. But no formal interview was conducted and his exposure to charges remained clouded. Clouse appeared at the trial and said he would assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Judge Ryan excused Clouse as a witness.
Shannon testified that he “went through 20 minutes of hell” struggling with Castelli. He said he was initially rough with Castelli when he first applied the restraint, but that Castelli was conscious when Shannon released him.
The prosecutor said the struggle was one-sided and asked Shannon whether he lost his cool, noting that Castelli was covered with cuts and bruises while Shannon suffered only a few scratches.
Shannon said his only concern that night was trying to keep Castelli and others safe after Castelli began acting strange and violent.
A week after testimony ended, on September 13, 2018, Judge Ryan convicted Shannon of involuntary manslaughter.
Prior to sentencing, DeBoer sought out the court transcript as he prepared to appeal the ruling and learned that Judge Ryan was married to the court reporter assigned to the trial. He filed a motion for a new trial on December 24, 2018, arguing that Judge Ryan had a financial conflict of interest in the case. “Judge Ryan’s marital income increased by $2,140 as the direct result of his guilty verdict, as Movant, of course, would have no need to order his transcript if he were found not guilty,” the motion said. It added that Kala Ryan had her own conflict, because she was tasked with impartially transcribing the proceedings of a trial where—according to the motion—her husband’s rulings crippled Shannon’s defense. In related motions, DeBoer also argued that there had been insufficient evidence to sustain the conviction and that Judge Ryan had erred in allowing Clouse to assert his Fifth Amendment rights where they weren’t relevant.
Judge Ryan recused himself from the case on July 18, 2019.
He was replaced by Judge William Dickenson who granted Shannon a new trial on December 23, 2019, based on a potential for a conflict of interest. “I don’t doubt for a moment that Judge Ryan was sincere in his findings,” Judge Dickenson said. “I read the transcript. I read his decision. I believe that he was—did the best he could, which is what factually is both prosecutable and a defensible case. And I believe that he did his best. I’m not finding there was any prejudice on his part. But I cannot get around the fact that his marital income increased as a result of a ruling that he personally made in this case.”
Shannon’s attorneys then moved to dismiss the case, arguing both double jeopardy and prosecutorial misconduct. In particular, the motions said the state had acted improperly in not granting Clouse immunity, which prevented him from testifying, and had failed to disclose that it worked with Arangelovich and sent her proposed language for the autopsy report.
The LaSalle County District Attorney’s Office said the back-and-forth between its office and Arangelovich did not produce any exculpatory evidence, but it acknowledged a problem if the prosecutor who worked with Arangelovich on the autopsy language was called to testify. It petitioned the court for recusal.
“The State’s confessions are astonishing,” said a response from Shannon’s attorneys. “The State met with a witness (Clouse) who would proffer testimony that supports the defense, then the State secretly drafted conclusions for their pathologist in order to bolster their theory of the case and stonewalled again at a video-taped statement of Clouse and blocked him from testifying at trial. Just one day before their misconduct would become public through the subpoenaed documents, the State filed a motion-to recuse themselves because they have ‘very carefully reflected’ on their behavior.”
Judge Dickenson denied the motion to dismiss on February 25, 2021. A three-judge panel from the Third District of the Illinois Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling on October 11, 2022.
Separately, the recusal motion was granted, and the Illinois Attorney General was brought in as a special prosecutor.
Shannon’s retrial began in LaSalle County Circuit Court on February 13, 2024. Shannon again chose a bench trial, now before Judge Dickenson. Most of the testimony in the case, including the forensic evidence presented by Arangelovich and Filkins, was consistent with the first trial, but Clouse now testified as a witness for the state.
During cross-examination, Clouse said that Norman, the sheriff’s deputy, had handcuffed both of Castelli’s hands, and then there had been a period of several moments before anyone noticed that Castelli was in distress. Clouse also said there was a delay in administering CPR, in part due to the handcuffs.
On March 14, 2024, Judge Dickenson acquitted Shannon of involuntary manslaughter. He said that he didn’t find Filkins’s testimony to be persuasive, but the ruling skirted the issue of how Castelli died and instead focused on Shannon’s right to defend himself and others during a violent and chaotic situation late at night at a nursery in rural Illinois.
He said: “I’m utterly convinced that the actions of the defendant were what caused his death, but I’ve got testimony in front of me from the State’s witnesses that seem to indicate that the defendant was still struggling at some point. Now, throwing out there among all of that you've got the 911 call where the dispatcher clearly asked Mr. Wilkinson, ‘Can you guys hold him?’”
Later, Judge Dickenson said: “It is clear to me that [Shannon] had a right to defend himself, that he had a right to defend others. I believe, ultimately, at the end of the day there is no question that this was not an intentional killing, no question in my mind about that. Is there a thin line between an accident and involuntary manslaughter? Perhaps there is. But I also think that it is the State’s burden to prove this man guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In November 2024, Shannon filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the LaSalle County States Attorney’s Office and the LaSalle County Sheriff’s Office, seeking compensation for his wrongful conviction.
– Ken Otterbourg
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