FOR kidnapping three women and
holding them captive for a decade in his
Ohio home, Cleveland in United States
(U.S.), Ariel Castro was sentenced to
1000 years in prison with no chance of
parole Thursday.
Judge Michael Russo imposed the hefty
sentence, which is ostensibly life in
prison, for an aggravated murder charge
laid after Castro – 53-year-old – forcibly
terminated the pregnancies of one of his
captives.
The judge also imposed stiff penalties for
hundreds of others charges, including
rape and kidnapping.
He imposed the prison sentence after an
emotional court hearing at which one of
Castro’s victims, Michelle Knight, 32, said
the former school bus driver put her
through a life of hell.
“I served 11 years of hell. Now your hell is
just beginning,” Knight said of Castro in a
statement read to the court.
Castro pleaded guilty last week to
hundreds of criminal charges to avoid the
possibility of the death penalty.
Wearing leg shackles and dressed in an
orange prison jumpsuit, Castro listened
to her testimony without expression.
Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23 and
Knight, all went missing from the west
side of Cleveland between 2002 and
2004. They were discovered on May 6
after neighbours heard Berry’s cries for
help from Castro’s home.
The kidnapper admitted at the hearing
yesterday that he was a sick man but said
he is not the monster described by
prosecutors.
Castro delivered a rambling statement to
the court that he made no excuses for his
behaviour, which he said was “wrong.”
However, during the hearing yesterday,
U.S. police described the harrowing scene
in the Ohio home when they rescued the
three women who were kidnapped and
repeatedly raped over the course of a
decade.
Castro claimed he had acted on impulse
as a result of sexual addiction.
He had pleaded guilty after prosecutors
agreed to take the death penalty off the
table in a deal that will see him spend the
rest of his life in prison with no chance of
parole.
Knight, who was snatched off the street in
2002 at the age of 20, said death would
have been “so much easier” for her
tormenter.
Castro said that he still couldn’t
understand why he held the three women
captive, but insisted “there was harmony
in that home.”
“I am not a monster. I was sick,” Castro
said, insisting he was addicted to sex and
pornography.
He also insisted the women were lying
when they said he beat them, declaring, “I
am not a violent person.”
“Most of the sex that went on in the
house, probably all of it, was consensual,”
Castro claimed.
“There was times they would even ask me
for sex, many times. These girls were not
virgins.”
More than 92 pounds (42 kilos) of chains
were found in the filthy, darkened home
where the women were kept in locked
rooms with boarded up windows.
Even more horrifying were the stories the
thin, pale and bruised women told upon
their release.
“The damage that was done was a life
sentence,” psychiatrist Frank Ochberg
testified.
The case came to light after Amanda
Berry, 27, managed to escape with her six-
year-old daughter by calling out to a
neighbour for help through a locked front
door on May 6.
Lured into the car of a man they knew as
the father of a friend or classmate at the
ages of 20, 16, and 14, the women
suffered violent beatings and repeated
rapes.
They were fed just once a day and rarely
given access to the bathroom, instead
having to relieve themselves in plastic
buckets that were “emptied infrequently,”
prosecutors said in a sentencing memo.
Knight was impregnated four times
during her 11 years of captivity.
Castro terminated her pregnancies by
starving her for days, feeding her rotten
food and then kicking and jumping on
her stomach, testified Detective Andy
Harasimchuk, who interviewed Knight
upon her release.
Berry was allowed to carry a pregnancy to
term, giving birth in a plastic kiddie pool
on Christmas Day, 2006.
Castro would sometimes toss money at
his victims after they were raped, which
they could then give back to him if they
wanted something special from the store,
FBI Special Agent Andrew Burke
testified.
Cleveland police officer Barb Johnson
testified about the shock and sheer joy the
women expressed when they were finally
freed.
Johnson used he flashlight on her gun to
search the darkened house with a fellow
officer shortly after Berry was able to
escape.
They repeatedly called out “Cleveland
police” and heard a “pitter-patter” of feet,
which stopped.
Johnson shined the light on herself so the
approaching woman could see they really
were police officers, at which point Knight
“literally launched herself” into another
officer’s arms.
“Legs, arms, just choking him,” Johnson
said.
“And she just kept repeating: ‘You saved
us, you saved us.’”
Gina DeJesus, who was just 14 when she
was abducted, was initially too afraid to
leave her room, Johnson added.
Prosecutors said they relied on diaries
kept by the women during their lengthy
captivity for many of the 977 criminal
charges lodged against Castro.
Berry initially addressed her entries to her
mother, according to a report by a
psychiatrist who evaluated the women.
After learning of her mother’s death, she
wrote to soothe her mother’s spirit in
heaven.
The entries spoke of rape, vicious
beatings, of being chained to a wall and
locked in a dark room, of “being treated
like an animal,” of “anticipating the next
session of abuse,” and of “his threats to
kill,” prosecutors said.
The women also wrote of “dreams of
some day escaping and being reunited
with family,” of “missing the lives they
once enjoyed” and of their overwhelming
desire for freedom.
DNA tests showed that Castro fathered
Berry’s child. He has asked Judge Michael
Russo to allow him to see her, a request
the judge deemed “inappropriate.”
Police do not understand why none of the
people who visited the unassuming house
at 2207 Seymour – including Castro’s
family and girlfriend – realized what was
going on there.
His victims have begged the media and
public to respect their privacy and give
them time to heal. In a statement last
week they said they were “relieved” by the
plea deal and “satisfied by this resolution
to the case.”
Castro’s lawyers urged the judge to stop
graphic photos depicting the sexual abuse
of the three women or for any
unnecessary details of their private pain
from being presented publicly.
holding them captive for a decade in his
Ohio home, Cleveland in United States
(U.S.), Ariel Castro was sentenced to
1000 years in prison with no chance of
parole Thursday.
Judge Michael Russo imposed the hefty
sentence, which is ostensibly life in
prison, for an aggravated murder charge
laid after Castro – 53-year-old – forcibly
terminated the pregnancies of one of his
captives.
The judge also imposed stiff penalties for
hundreds of others charges, including
rape and kidnapping.
He imposed the prison sentence after an
emotional court hearing at which one of
Castro’s victims, Michelle Knight, 32, said
the former school bus driver put her
through a life of hell.
“I served 11 years of hell. Now your hell is
just beginning,” Knight said of Castro in a
statement read to the court.
Castro pleaded guilty last week to
hundreds of criminal charges to avoid the
possibility of the death penalty.
Wearing leg shackles and dressed in an
orange prison jumpsuit, Castro listened
to her testimony without expression.
Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23 and
Knight, all went missing from the west
side of Cleveland between 2002 and
2004. They were discovered on May 6
after neighbours heard Berry’s cries for
help from Castro’s home.
The kidnapper admitted at the hearing
yesterday that he was a sick man but said
he is not the monster described by
prosecutors.
Castro delivered a rambling statement to
the court that he made no excuses for his
behaviour, which he said was “wrong.”
However, during the hearing yesterday,
U.S. police described the harrowing scene
in the Ohio home when they rescued the
three women who were kidnapped and
repeatedly raped over the course of a
decade.
Castro claimed he had acted on impulse
as a result of sexual addiction.
He had pleaded guilty after prosecutors
agreed to take the death penalty off the
table in a deal that will see him spend the
rest of his life in prison with no chance of
parole.
Knight, who was snatched off the street in
2002 at the age of 20, said death would
have been “so much easier” for her
tormenter.
Castro said that he still couldn’t
understand why he held the three women
captive, but insisted “there was harmony
in that home.”
“I am not a monster. I was sick,” Castro
said, insisting he was addicted to sex and
pornography.
He also insisted the women were lying
when they said he beat them, declaring, “I
am not a violent person.”
“Most of the sex that went on in the
house, probably all of it, was consensual,”
Castro claimed.
“There was times they would even ask me
for sex, many times. These girls were not
virgins.”
More than 92 pounds (42 kilos) of chains
were found in the filthy, darkened home
where the women were kept in locked
rooms with boarded up windows.
Even more horrifying were the stories the
thin, pale and bruised women told upon
their release.
“The damage that was done was a life
sentence,” psychiatrist Frank Ochberg
testified.
The case came to light after Amanda
Berry, 27, managed to escape with her six-
year-old daughter by calling out to a
neighbour for help through a locked front
door on May 6.
Lured into the car of a man they knew as
the father of a friend or classmate at the
ages of 20, 16, and 14, the women
suffered violent beatings and repeated
rapes.
They were fed just once a day and rarely
given access to the bathroom, instead
having to relieve themselves in plastic
buckets that were “emptied infrequently,”
prosecutors said in a sentencing memo.
Knight was impregnated four times
during her 11 years of captivity.
Castro terminated her pregnancies by
starving her for days, feeding her rotten
food and then kicking and jumping on
her stomach, testified Detective Andy
Harasimchuk, who interviewed Knight
upon her release.
Berry was allowed to carry a pregnancy to
term, giving birth in a plastic kiddie pool
on Christmas Day, 2006.
Castro would sometimes toss money at
his victims after they were raped, which
they could then give back to him if they
wanted something special from the store,
FBI Special Agent Andrew Burke
testified.
Cleveland police officer Barb Johnson
testified about the shock and sheer joy the
women expressed when they were finally
freed.
Johnson used he flashlight on her gun to
search the darkened house with a fellow
officer shortly after Berry was able to
escape.
They repeatedly called out “Cleveland
police” and heard a “pitter-patter” of feet,
which stopped.
Johnson shined the light on herself so the
approaching woman could see they really
were police officers, at which point Knight
“literally launched herself” into another
officer’s arms.
“Legs, arms, just choking him,” Johnson
said.
“And she just kept repeating: ‘You saved
us, you saved us.’”
Gina DeJesus, who was just 14 when she
was abducted, was initially too afraid to
leave her room, Johnson added.
Prosecutors said they relied on diaries
kept by the women during their lengthy
captivity for many of the 977 criminal
charges lodged against Castro.
Berry initially addressed her entries to her
mother, according to a report by a
psychiatrist who evaluated the women.
After learning of her mother’s death, she
wrote to soothe her mother’s spirit in
heaven.
The entries spoke of rape, vicious
beatings, of being chained to a wall and
locked in a dark room, of “being treated
like an animal,” of “anticipating the next
session of abuse,” and of “his threats to
kill,” prosecutors said.
The women also wrote of “dreams of
some day escaping and being reunited
with family,” of “missing the lives they
once enjoyed” and of their overwhelming
desire for freedom.
DNA tests showed that Castro fathered
Berry’s child. He has asked Judge Michael
Russo to allow him to see her, a request
the judge deemed “inappropriate.”
Police do not understand why none of the
people who visited the unassuming house
at 2207 Seymour – including Castro’s
family and girlfriend – realized what was
going on there.
His victims have begged the media and
public to respect their privacy and give
them time to heal. In a statement last
week they said they were “relieved” by the
plea deal and “satisfied by this resolution
to the case.”
Castro’s lawyers urged the judge to stop
graphic photos depicting the sexual abuse
of the three women or for any
unnecessary details of their private pain
from being presented publicly.
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