The Ariel Castro Kidnappings
On the afternoon of May 8, 2013, 911 operators received a frantic call from Amanda Berry in Cleveland, Ohio saying she’d been missing for ten years and was alive. When police arrived, they discovered her and her daughter at a neighbor’s home. She quickly directed police in the direction of the home where she and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, were held captive for a decade by Ariel Castro.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Ariel Castro lived with his girlfriend, Grimilda Figueroa, and had four children together. He often would abuse her, breaking her nose, dislocating her shoulder twice, and once beating her so badly that she developed a blood clot in her brain.
In 1993, Castro was arrested on charges of domestic violence, but the grand jury did not indict him. After Figueroa obtained custody of their children, she accused Castro of frequently abducting their daughters.
Castro considered the kidnappings as crimes of opportunity. He enticed them using cliché tactics, offering one a puppy, another a ride somewhere, and the last for help finding a lost child. He also took advantage of the fact that each girl knew one of his four children.
Michelle Knight was Castro’s first victim. On August 23, 2002, Knight, who was 21-years-old, was on her way to a social services appointment regarding her son Joey. She didn’t know where the building was, and Castro offered to take her.
He began taking her in the wrong direction and offered a puppy for her son. They went to his home at 2207 Seymour Avenue to see the alleged puppies on the second floor. Castro closed the door on Knight and she wouldn’t leave for eleven years.
On April 21, 2003, Amanda Berry was kidnapped the day before her 17th birthday. She was looking for a ride home from her shift at Burger King when she’d seen Castro’s familiar van. Berry’s sister claimed the last time she spoke to her sister was at 8:00 p.m. that evening.
Berry was featured on the television show America’s Most Wanted in 2004, linking her to another missing Cleveland girl, Gina DeJesus. On the Oprah Winfrey Show, a psychic told Berry’s mother Louwana Berry that Amanda was dead and in water. Berry’s mother would die from heart failure in March 2006.
Georgina “Gina” DeJesus was Castro’s third victim. DeJesus was a friend of Castro’s daughter Arlene and only 14 at the time of her disappearance. When a plan to hang out fizzled out, Castro asked for DeJesus’ help looking for Arlene.
During their captivity, Castro restrained them in the basement. Castro would often leave doors open to tempt the women to leave. When we would inevitably catch them, he’d beat them. Instead of celebrating birthdays, Castro would force the women to celebrate their “abduction day,” or the anniversaries of their disappearances.
The women faced extreme physical and sexual violence. On December 25, 2006, Berry gave birth to a daughter named Jocelyn. DNA evidence was taken after the women were freed proving the child was fathered by Ariel Castro. Berry kept a journal detailing all the times Castro assaulted her.
Michelle Knight was also pregnant at least five times, but Castro beat her to the point where she now has permanent stomach damage.
DeJesus faced much of the same fate. On one occasion, Castro saw her mother and took a missing person flyer she was handing out. DeJesus has said that she does not believe she was pregnant during her captivity.
On May 8, 2013, Ariel Castro went to McDonald’s and forgot to lock the door behind him. Berry’s daughter Jocelyn alerted her mother that Castro was gone, and Berry’s door was unlocked. Berry quickly went to the front door and began yelling for help.
A neighbor, Charles Ramsey, helped break open the door and brought her and Jocelyn to his house where she could call the police.
Unaware of what happened to Amanda and Jocelyn, when Knight heard banging on the ground floor, she believed Castro was beating Amanda. She didn’t know they were free until she saw the police, then fell into their arms.
Castro was arrested the same day on charges of aggravated murder, rape, and kidnapping. He claimed all the sexual relations between himself and the women were consensual. He was sentenced to life in prison plus one thousand years. He committed suicide on September 3, 2013, by hanging himself in his jail cell.
