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On May 6, 2013, three women from Cleveland, Ohio – Amanda Berry, Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, and Michelle Knight – were rescued from captivity in a house owned by their kidnapper, Ariel Castro. The women had disappeared between 2002 and 2004. A six-year-old daughter of Berry, fathered by Castro, was also rescued. They were discovered after Berry escaped Castro's house with her daughter and contacted police.

Castro was arrested on the same day the women were finally freed and was charged two days later with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. On July 26, 2013, Castro pled guilty to 937 criminal counts of rape, kidnapping, and aggravated murder, as part of a plea bargain. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole, plus 1,000 years. One month into his sentence, prison guards found Castro dead in his cell after hanging himself. An investigation into the prison cell suicide found that Castro may have died by accident because of auto-erotic asphyxiation. However, Coroner Jan Gorniak disputed the claim, suggesting that the guards invented the story; the guards were subsequently placed on administrative leave for putting false entries into their log.

Perpetrator background

Ariel Castro (July 10, 1960 – September 3, 2013) was 52 years old at the time of his arrest. Castro was born in Puerto Rico to Pedro Castro and Lillian Rodriguez. After his parents divorced when Castro was a child, he moved to the mainland U.S. with his mother and three siblings. The family first settled in Reading, Pennsylvania, and later moved to Cleveland, where Castro's father and several other extended family members were living. Castro had nine siblings in total. According to Castro's uncle, the Castro family knew the DeJesus family and had lived in the same west Cleveland neighborhood. Castro was a 1979 graduate of Cleveland's Lincoln-West High School.

Castro met his future common law wife, Grimilda Figueroa, when his family moved into a house across the street from hers in the 1980s. Castro and Figueroa lived with both sets of parents, but moved into their own home at 2207 Seymour Avenue in 1992. The home was a two-story, 1,400-square-foot (130 m), four-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a 760-square-foot (71 m) unfinished basement built in 1890 and remodeled in 1956. According to Figueroa's sister, after the couple moved into their new home, "all hell started breaking loose." She and her husband claim Castro beat his wife, breaking her nose, ribs, and arms and once threw Figueroa down a set of stairs, cracking her skull. In 1993, Castro was arrested for domestic violence but was not indicted by a grand jury. Figueroa moved out of the home in 1996 and secured custody of the couple's four children. Police assisted in the move and detained Castro but did not pursue charges. Castro continued to threaten and attack Figueroa after she left him, according to Figueroa's sister. A 2005 filing by Figueroa in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court accused Castro of inflicting multiple severe injuries on her and of "frequently abduct" his daughters. A temporary restraining order against Castro was granted but was dismissed a few months later. Figueroa died in 2012 due to complications from a brain tumor.

Before his arrest, Castro worked as a bus driver for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District up until he was fired for "bad judgment" after a series of issues, including making an illegal U-turn with children on his bus, using his bus to go grocery shopping, leaving a child on the bus while he went for lunch, and for leaving the bus unattended while he took a nap at home. He was earning $18.91 per hour when he was discharged. At the time of his arrest, Castro's home was in foreclosure due to three years (2010–12) of unpaid real estate taxes.

Survivors

Michelle Knight

Michelle Knight disappeared on August 22, 2002, after leaving a cousin's house. Knight was 21 years old at the time. On the day of her disappearance, she was scheduled to appear in court for a child custody case involving her son, of whom she had previously lost custody to the state.

Following Knight's rescue, police acknowledged that limited resources had been spent on investigating her disappearance, in part because she was an adult and was believed to have run away voluntarily due to anger over losing custody of her son. According to Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba, Knight "was the focus of very few tips." Knight's removal from the National Crime Information Center database 15 months after she disappeared has been criticized, although police and the FBI maintain that her inclusion or exclusion had no bearing on her rescue.

Amanda Berry

Amanda Marie Berry went missing on April 21, 2003, one day before her 17th birthday. Berry was last heard from when she called her sister to tell her that she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King at West 110th Street and Lorain Avenue. The FBI initially considered Berry a runaway, until a week after her disappearance, when an unidentified male used Berry's cell phone to call her mother, saying "I have Amanda. She's fine and will be coming home in a couple of days."

Berry was featured in a 2004 segment of America's Most Wanted (re-aired in 2005 and 2006), which linked her to Gina DeJesus, who by that point had also gone missing in Cleveland. They were profiled on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Montel Williams Show, where self-described psychic Sylvia Browne told Berry's mother, Louwana Miller, in 2004 that her daughter Amanda was dead, and that she was "in water." This pronouncement devastated her mother, causing her to take down pictures and give away her daughter's computer. However, Miller continued to search for Berry until Miller's death from heart failure in 2006. After Berry was found alive in 2013, Browne received heavy criticism for the false declaration that Berry was dead.

In July 2012, Robert Wolford, a prison inmate who previously lived in the neighborhood where the women disappeared, claimed to have information about the location of Berry's body and led police to an empty lot on Cleveland's West Side, where a fruitless search was conducted. Wolford was sentenced in January 2013 to four and a half years in prison for obstruction of justice, making a false report, and making a false alarm.

Gina DeJesus

Georgina "Gina" Lynn DeJesus went missing at age 14. She was last seen at a pay phone at about 3 p.m. on April 2, 2004, on the way home from her middle school at West 105th Street and Lorain Avenue. DeJesus and her friend, Ariel Castro's daughter Arlene, had called Castro's ex-wife, Grimilda Figueroa, for permission to have a sleepover at DeJesus' house, but Figueroa had said they could not, and the two girls parted ways. Arlene Castro was the last person to see DeJesus before her disappearance.

Because no one witnessed DeJesus' abduction, an AMBER Alert was not issued, which angered her father. He said in 2006, "The Amber Alert should work for any missing child...Whether it's an abduction or a runaway, a child needs to be found. We need to change this law."

A year after DeJesus' disappearance, the FBI released a composite sketch and description of a male suspect, described as "Latino, 25 to 35 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches, 165 to 185 pounds, with green eyes, a goatee and possibly a pencil-thin beard." According to court records, Castro is 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) and weighs 81 kilograms (179 lb); he has brown eyes and a goatee.

DeJesus was featured on a 2004 America's Most Wanted segment, which re-aired in 2005 and 2006, and which linked her to Berry. The disappearances received regular media attention over the years, as recently as 2012, while family and others held vigils and searched for DeJesus and Berry. Castro was identified by Gina's family in video footage of two of these vigils, and he reportedly participated in a search party and tried to get close to the family. While a journalism student in 2004, Ariel's son Anthony Castro interviewed DeJesus' mother for an article about the Berry and DeJesus disappearances in the Plain Press. Police kept an active investigation open, offering a $25,000 reward for information.

Daughter of Amanda Berry

On December 25, 2006, Amanda Berry gave birth to a daughter inside the house where the women were imprisoned. DNA evidence confirmed that Castro is the biological father of the child.

Imprisonment

Each of the three women was kidnapped after accepting a ride from Castro. He drove her to his home, lured her inside, took her to the basement, and restrained her. The house where they were held, at 2207 Seymour Avenue in Cleveland's residential Tremont neighborhood, was approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) from where all the women had disappeared.

Prosecutors at Castro's sentencing wrote that diaries kept by the women "speak of forced sexual conduct, of being locked in a dark room, of anticipating the next session of abuse, of the dreams of someday escaping and being reunited with family, of being chained to a wall, of being held like a prisoner of war, of missing the lives they once enjoyed, of emotional abuse, of his threats to kill, of being treated like an animal, of continuous abuse, and of desiring freedom." The women were kept in locked upstairs bedrooms, where they were forced to use plastic toilets that were "emptied infrequently." They were fed one meal a day, and allowed to shower at most twice a week.

Knight told police that Castro had impregnated her at least five times and had induced miscarriages each time through beatings and starvation. Knight's grandmother told reporters that Knight would require facial reconstruction surgery due to the beatings she endured; Knight also lost hearing in one ear. At one point, Knight had a pet dog while in captivity but Castro killed the dog by snapping its neck after it bit Castro while trying to protect Knight. DeJesus told law enforcement she was raped but did not believe she was ever impregnated.

In December 2006, Castro allegedly ordered Knight to assist in the birth of Berry's child, which took place in a small inflatable swimming pool, and threatened Knight with death if the baby did not survive. At one point, the baby stopped breathing, but Knight was able to resuscitate her. Castro occasionally took the child out of the house, including to visit his mother; the girl called Castro "daddy" and his mother "grandmother." In 2013, he showed one of his adult daughters a picture of the child and said that it was his girlfriend's daughter.

According to a statement from Cleveland police, officers visited Castro's home only once following the kidnappings to discuss an unrelated incident. Castro did not appear to be home at the time and was later interviewed elsewhere. Although neighbors claimed to have called the police about suspicious activity observed at the home, police say they have no record of any such calls.

After Castro's arrest, his son Anthony described his father's house: "The house was always locked. There were places we could never go. There were locks on the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage." He said his father asked him about three weeks before the women's escape if Amanda Berry would ever be found. Anthony said he told Ariel that Berry was likely dead, and Ariel responded: "Really? You think so?"

WKYC News reported that during Castro's interrogation, he recalled each of the three abductions in great detail and indicated that they were unplanned crimes of opportunity. According to WKYC's sources, Castro did not have an "exit plan" and believed that he would eventually be caught. He referred to himself as "coldblooded" and a sex addict. Police found a suicide note in Castro's home in which he allegedly discussed the abductions and wrote that his money and possessions should be given to the kidnapped women if he were caught.

Rescue

Knight, DeJesus, Berry, and Berry's 6-year-old daughter were discovered at Castro's home on May 6, 2013. According to police, when Castro left the house that day, Berry realized that he failed to lock the home's "big inside door", although the exterior storm door was bolted. She did not attempt to break through the outer door because "she thought was testing her", according to the police report, so instead she screamed for help. Neighbor Angel Cordero responded to the screaming but was unable to communicate with Berry because he spoke little English. Another neighbor, Charles Ramsey, joined Cordero at the house's front door at some point during the rescue. A hole was kicked through the bottom of the storm door, and Berry crawled through, carrying her daughter; Cordero claimed to have kicked in the door alone, while Ramsey claimed it was a joint effort. Ramsey said Berry told him that she and her child were being kept inside the house against her will. According to Ramsey, Berry was wearing a jumpsuit, a white tank top, rings, and mascara. He said she "didn't look like she was kidnapped". Upon being freed, she went to the house of another Spanish-speaking neighbor and called 9-1-1, saying, "Help me, I'm Amanda Berry ... I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years. And I'm here. I'm free now."

Responding police officers entered Castro's house. As they walked through an upstairs hallway with guns drawn, they announced themselves as Cleveland police. After peeking out from a slightly opened bedroom door, Knight entered the hallway and leapt into an officer's arms, repeatedly saying, "You saved me." Soon afterward, DeJesus entered the hallway from the same room. Knight and DeJesus walked out of the home, and all three women, plus the child, were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center. Berry and DeJesus were released from the hospital the next day. Knight was discharged on May 10.

Arrest and legal proceedings

Castro was arrested on May 6, 2013. On May 8, he was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, charges that carry prison sentences of 10 years to life in Ohio. Two of Castro's brothers were also initially taken into custody but were released on May 9 after police announced they had no involvement in the kidnappings.

On May 9, Castro made his first court appearance in Cleveland Municipal Court, where bail was set at $2 million per kidnapping charge, for a total of $8 million. Additional charges were reported to be pending, including aggravated murder (for intentional induction of miscarriages), attempted murder, assault, a charge for each alleged instance of rape, and a kidnapping charge for each day each victim was allegedly held captive. On May 14, Castro's attorneys said he would plead "not guilty" to all charges if indicted for kidnapping and rape.

On June 7, a Cuyahoga County grand jury returned a true bill of indictment against Castro. It contained 329 counts, including two counts of aggravated murder (under different sections of the Ohio criminal code) for his alleged role in the termination of one of the women's pregnancies. The indictments covered only the period from August 2002 to February 2007. The County Prosecutor, Timothy J. McGinty, stated that the investigation was ongoing and that any further findings would be presented to the grand jury. McGinty said that pursuing a death penalty specification would be considered following completion of indictment proceedings.

On June 12, after entering a not-guilty plea for Castro, one of Castro's attorneys, Craig Weintraub, said that although some of the charges against Castro were indisputable, "it is our hope that we can continue to work toward a resolution to avoid having an unnecessary trial about aggravated murder and the death penalty." He noted, "We are very sensitive to the emotional strain and impact that a trial would have on the women, their families and this community." Castro was found competent to stand trial on July 3.

On July 12, a Cuyahoga County grand jury returned a true bill of indictment for the remainder of the period, after February 2007. It brought the total to 977 counts: 512 counts of kidnapping, 446 of rape, seven of gross sexual imposition, six of felonious assault, three of child endangerment, two of aggravated murder, and one of possession of criminal tools. On July 17, Castro pled not guilty to the expanded indictment.

On July 26, 2013, Castro pled guilty to 937 of the 977 charges against him, including charges of kidnapping, rape, and aggravated murder, as part of a plea bargain under which he could be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole, plus 1,000 years. Under the plea deal, Castro gave up his right to appeal and cannot profit in any way from his crimes. He also forfeited his assets, including his home, which a prosecutor said would be demolished. Castro was asked by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Russo, "You will not be getting out, is that clear?" to which Castro responded, "I do understand that, your honor." Castro also made comments about his "addiction to pornography" and "sexual problem," but was cut off by Judge Russo, who said such issues could be discussed at the August 1 sentencing hearing. A law firm representing Berry, DeJesus, and Knight released a statement that the three women were "relieved by today's plea. They are satisfied by this resolution to the case, and are looking forward to having these legal proceedings draw to a final close in the near future."

At the sentencing hearing on August 1, 2013, Castro was sentenced to life in prison, plus 1,000 years. The court ordered his property seized and forfeited to the Cuyahoga County government and imposed a fine on him of $100,000.

Before his sentencing, Castro addressed the court for twenty minutes, in which he said he was "a good person" and "not a monster", but that he was addicted to sex and pornography. He claimed that he had never beaten or tortured the women, and that most of the sex he had with them "was consensual". "I hope they can find in their hearts to forgive me because we had a lot of harmony going on in that home," he said.

The court also heard from Knight and family members of Berry and DeJesus. In Knight's statement, she told Castro, "You took 11 years of my life away. I spent 11 years in hell, now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all this that has happened, but you will face hell for eternity. I will live on, you will die a little every day as you think of the 11 years of atrocities that you inflicted on us...I can forgive you, but I will never forget."

Aftermath

Survivors

On July 9, 2013, Berry, DeJesus, and Knight broke their public silence for the first time since their rescue by releasing a video statement thanking the public for their support. An attorney for Berry and DeJesus said the women "still have a strong desire for privacy" and did not wish to speak to the media about their ordeal. The Cleveland Courage Fund, a bank account set up to help the women in their transition to independent life, had collected approximately $1.05 million at the time of the video's release.

Before Berry's disappearance, her grandfather had promised to give her a rare Chevrolet Monte Carlo from the year Berry was born. He kept the car after her kidnapping, in case she was found alive. Following her rescue, Berry called her grandfather and asked if he still had the car, which he did, although it was in need of restoration from having gone unused. Several automotive shops offered to perform the restoration for free.

House

As part of Castro's plea bargain, the house where he had imprisoned the women was demolished on August 7, 2013. Knight was present and handed out yellow balloons, which she said represented missing children, to the gathered crowd. The balloons were released before DeJesus' aunt began the demolition with a swing of a crane. Google Earth has obscured the house in its Street View images.

Castro's death

On the evening of September 3, 2013, one month into his sentence, Castro was found hanging by a bedsheet in his cell at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Pickaway County, Ohio. Prison staff performed CPR on him before he was taken to the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. The following day, Franklin County coroner Dr. Jan Gorniak announced that a preliminary autopsy had found that Castro's cause of death was suicide by hanging. On October 10, 2013, the state released a statement that Castro may have died from auto-erotic asphyxiation and not suicide. In addition, two prison guards had falsified logs documenting their observation of him hours before he was found dead.

Castro was subject to routine checks every 30 minutes due to his notoriety, but was not on suicide watch at the time of his death. As the death occurred in a state correctional facility, it is being investigated by both the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Castro's attorney Craig Weintraub, speaking on NBC's Today Show on September 4, said Castro's family would be seeking a full investigation: "This is a human being, we are in a civilized society and we expect that the person would be protected when they're institutionalized... have an obligation to ensure there wasn't a suicide or anything else and we pray there wasn't anything else."

A consultants' report released on December 3, 2013 concluded that "all available evidence pointed to suicide, including a shrine-like arrangement of family pictures and a Bible in Castro's cell, an increasing tone of frustration in his prison journal and the reality of spending the rest of his life in prison while subject to constant harassment". Reviews of the case issued by the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Franklin County coroner also ruled the death a suicide.

See also

• Fritzl case
• Kidnapping of Colleen Stan
• Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard
• Michael J. Devlin
• Tanya Nicole Kach
• Natascha Kampusch
• Steven Stayner
• Elizabeth Smart

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130. Eversley, Melanie (September 4, 2013). "The Ohio kidnapper was not on suicide watch, but was checked on every 30 minutes by guards". USA Today. Retrieved September 4, 2013.
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External links

• Cleveland Kidnappings Map; A round-up of key locations in the disappearances of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus

• Cleveland Kidnappings Information Aggregation: www.clevelandkidnappings.com

• Cleveland Courage Fund: clevelandcourage.org

• 2000s missing person cases
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• Articles about multiple people
• Children kept in captivity
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