A state homicide prosecution remains separate from a federal detainer lodged against suspect Omar Andres Ramos Castro.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A killing beside railroad tracks on the city’s east side has placed a 24-year-old defendant at the center of two legal systems, with a Minnesota murder charge pending as federal immigration officials seek custody if he is released.
Omar Andres Ramos Castro is accused of fatally stabbing Gabriel Arrazola Perez, a 44-year-old Minneapolis barbershop owner, on May 24. He is charged in Ramsey County with second-degree murder and was held on $2.5 million bond. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later issued a detainer, saying Ramos Castro entered the country illegally from El Salvador in 2023. The detainer does not replace the criminal charge, establish guilt or require the state court to change its schedule. It creates a possible federal custody step only if local authorities otherwise release him.
The location where the state case began is a railroad corridor near Case Avenue East and Birmingham Street, an area of tracks, roads, homes and small businesses on St. Paul’s east side. It was not a place Arrazola Perez’s relatives expected him to be when he left a brewery gathering on May 24. He departed at about 4 p.m. and said he would return, according to the criminal complaint. A series of calls followed. Arrazola Perez placed several calls to a number police later connected to Ramos Castro, and the other person returned one at 6:34 p.m. Investigators said a WhatsApp message then delivered a location pin close to the tracks. The message turned the corridor into a planned meeting point rather than a random place Arrazola Perez happened to enter.
At about 7:03 p.m., a surveillance camera recorded Arrazola Perez and another man walking in the railroad area. Investigators said later footage showed the body clearly visible between 8:55 p.m. and 11:12 p.m., although it had not appeared there earlier. The recordings gave police a window for the death but left important questions unanswered. Authorities have not said that the stabbing itself was captured, whether trains passed during the relevant period or how clearly the men’s actions could be seen. Those gaps may matter in court because the state’s timeline combines video, phone data, physical evidence and Ramos Castro’s statements rather than relying on a recording of the entire encounter.
The body remained near the tracks until the next morning. At about 11 a.m. on May 25, a man walking his English bulldog said the dog began pulling him toward the site. The man found Arrazola Perez and called 911, telling police that the body had not been there the previous day. Officers used a driver’s license and an eyeglasses prescription to help identify him. His Subaru Crosstrek was found about half a mile away, leaving investigators to map the distance between the vehicle, the meeting point and the place where he died. The complaint does not say whether Arrazola Perez drove directly to the area, whether he met Ramos Castro elsewhere first or why he left the vehicle at that location.
Investigators returned to the corridor in search of evidence that might have been overlooked during the first response. On May 26, officers working with a police dog found Arrazola Perez’s cellphone. Police said fingerprints on it did not match him, though public accounts have not identified the person who left them. Data from the phone preserved the calls and the WhatsApp location. The number Arrazola Perez contacted was tracked to the railroad area before, during and after the period of the killing, the complaint said. Prosecutors may use those records to place Ramos Castro at the scene, while the defense may question the precision of the location information and whether a phone’s position always proves who possessed it.
A separate camera at a nearby Speedway convenience store expanded the route beyond the tracks. It recorded a man wearing clothing similar to that of the person shown with Arrazola Perez. Detectives used the footage to identify and trace Ramos Castro to an apartment. He was arrested June 4 and questioned with help from a Spanish-language interpreter. Police said they advised him of his rights. The use of an interpreter may later receive attention if defense attorneys challenge how questions or answers were translated. Courts can examine recordings, interpreter qualifications, pauses, wording and whether a suspect understood the consequences of speaking with investigators.
Ramos Castro initially denied being at the railroad corridor, according to the complaint. He described only a limited prior connection to Arrazola Perez, saying the older man had once offered him work clearing construction debris. He denied a friendship or relationship. He later said Arrazola Perez had called him about getting food or smoking marijuana. When police presented evidence placing him near the tracks, Ramos Castro said he had met Arrazola Perez there for about 10 minutes and that other people were present. He claimed he left Arrazola Perez alive and alone. The complaint said his account changed again as questioning continued.
Ramos Castro eventually admitted stabbing Arrazola Perez with a pocketknife, police said. He alleged that Arrazola Perez made unwanted sexual advances and reached toward his crotch despite his objections. Ramos Castro said he became filled with rage, felt he needed to defend himself and could not remember how many times he stabbed Arrazola Perez. That account has not been proved. A friend of Arrazola Perez said the claimed touching was completely out of character for him. The court may have to decide what evidence can be used to support or challenge either description without allowing stereotypes about sexual orientation to substitute for facts.
The autopsy findings described in the complaint will form another part of that dispute. Arrazola Perez had wounds to his back, neck, chest and abdomen, along with several defensive injuries. Stab wounds fractured three vertebrae in his neck and back, and a severe abdominal injury caused part of his large bowel to protrude. Prosecutors may point to those injuries as evidence of intentional murder and force exceeding any threat. Ramos Castro’s attorney may argue that wound patterns alone cannot recreate the movement, speed and fear of a close confrontation. The complete medical examiner’s report and any expert analysis had not been publicly presented in court as of July 10.
The state charge accuses Ramos Castro of second-degree intentional murder without premeditation. Prosecutors do not need to prove that the killing was planned far in advance, but they must establish the required intent and disprove self-defense if the evidence properly raises it. Ramos Castro is presumed innocent. He may seek to suppress statements, challenge identification evidence, question phone-location methods or request that the charge be reduced. Prosecutors may call detectives, forensic specialists, medical experts, the man who found the body and witnesses who last saw Arrazola Perez. A trial date, final witness list and complete schedule of pretrial hearings were not included in the public reports.
The federal detainer adds a parallel process but does not merge the two cases. ICE said Ramos Castro acknowledged entering the country illegally in 2023 and lacked lawful immigration status. A detainer generally asks a jail to notify immigration officials before releasing someone and may request that the person be held briefly for transfer. Ramos Castro’s state custody currently rests on the murder case and bond order. Even if the homicide charge were dismissed or bail conditions changed, federal officers could seek to take him into immigration custody. If he is convicted and sentenced in Minnesota, the state criminal process could keep him incarcerated before any later removal proceeding.
Arrazola Perez had his own history with the immigration system. Attorney Danielle Robinson Briand said she met him while helping him gain U.S. citizenship in 2022. She later described him as a person who protected his relatives during increased immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities. His family said he was their provider and the person who held them together. He owned Barbers on Bryant in Minneapolis, where customers knew him through a business built around close, regular contact. His status as a naturalized citizen has no bearing on whether Ramos Castro committed murder, but it forms part of the two men’s sharply different paths through federal immigration law.
The murder charge also carries consequences independent of immigration status. A conviction could expose Ramos Castro to as much as 40 years in prison, though any sentence would depend on Minnesota guidelines, his record and the court’s findings. An acquittal would mean the state failed to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, not necessarily that every part of his account was confirmed. A dismissal or reduced charge likewise would not automatically end federal immigration action. Each system applies different laws, burdens and procedures, and each can continue even when the other changes course.
For residents near the tracks, the case began with police vehicles, a closed scene and questions about a body found in an exposed corridor. For Arrazola Perez’s community, it began when a dependable relative and business owner failed to return from a gathering. For the courts, it is now a set of evidence disputes involving surveillance, digital communications, forensic injuries, translated statements and a self-defense claim. The federal government’s intervention adds another custody question but does not answer the central issue before Ramsey County: whether Ramos Castro intentionally murdered Arrazola Perez.
Future state hearings will address the evidence and trial process, while the ICE detainer remains a separate request tied to any possible release from local custody. For now, Ramos Castro remains in the Ramsey County Jail while the murder prosecution continued.
Author note: Last updated July 10, 2026.