FSP-Microcosm News-Global Community Report: Deception, threats and abuse: Captives' hellish life inside Castro's home

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Deception, threats and abuse: Captives' hellish life inside Castro's home

By Greg Botelho, CNN

updated 10:26 PM EDT, Thu August 1, 2013

Ariel Castro's sentencing for the kidnapping and rape of three women in Ohio will be issued Thursday, August 1. During the trial, the prosecution presented images from inside the house that reveal the disturbing conditions in which they were held. A model of the house was also included.

(CNN) -- From the outside, the home at 2207 Seymour Avenue looked like most any other in Cleveland's Westside neighborhood.

From the inside, it looked like hell.

There were the makeshift alarms rigged to the front and back doors. The porch swing blocking a stairway. Heavy fabric obstructing the kitchen and the second floor. A plastic toilet in a bedroom. Doors without handles, but with padlocks, dead bolts and slide locks. Solid wood covering second-floor windows, assuring no light would enter even on bright, sunny days.

And there were the restraints -- duct tape, plastic zip ties, metal chains fastened to a basement pole and bedroom walls -- to ensure that Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus wouldn't leave.

But, despite Ariel Castro's efforts, they did.

On May 6, Berry alerted passers-by by banging on the front door then crawling out with her 6-year-old daughter. Police officers arrived and went upstairs, where Knight jumped into their arms -- holding them tight and thanking them for ending her 11 years of terror. A pale, quiet DeJesus emerged from a room a short time later.

Today, all three women are free. And Castro is paying a price for what he did: life in prison without parole and 1,000 years, as finalized in a Cleveland court Thursday.

Castro sentenced to life plus 1,000 years

The sentence follows a deal in which Castro agreed to plead guilty to 937 charges to avoid a trial and a possible death penalty. The prosecution didn't have to present evidence Thursday, but they did -- laying out in vivid detail the twisted torment that Knight, DeJesus, Berry and Berry's young daughter, fathered by Castro, went through -- in testimony, impact statements and a sentencing memorandum.

"The days never got shorter," said Knight, the lone victim to speak in court. "The nights turned into days. The days turned into years. The years turned into eternity."

Lured into home, restrained and assaulted

It started on August 22, 2002, when Castro saw the then 21-year-old Knight at a Family Dollar store. She was trying to find the social worker in charge of her son, then not even 2½ years old, Cleveland police Det. Andrew Harasimchuk testified.

Knight asked around for directions, and Castro responded that he knew where to go. Knight knew his daughter, Emily, so she took up his offer for a ride.

They ended up at the Seymour Avenue home Castro had bought a decade earlier. Did Knight want to go inside to get a puppy for her son, Castro asked? She did, and went in.

But instead of giving her a puppy, Castro tied her up with an extension cord.

A few hours later, Knight was taken down to the basement, where she was restrained with a chain and with plastic ties around her wrists, said Harasimchuk, his department's lead investigator on the case. Castro put a motorcycle helmet over her head.

And then he sexually assaulted her -- for the first of what would be scores of times.

Michelle Knight: 'After 11 years, I'm finally being heard'

The following April, Castro spotted Amanda Berry walking along a Cleveland street in her Burger King. She was 16; he was 42.

Did Berry know his son, who'd also worked at Burger King? What about his daughter Angie? Berry said she knew them both, and she accepted his offer for a ride after he told her Angie was at Castro's home.

Berry went in, but saw no sign of her friend, ending up in an upstairs bedroom. Berry asked to go home and when Castro didn't comply, she tried to run away -- her exit stopped when she slammed into a closet instead.

Then Castro sexually assaulted her, putting duct tape over her wrists, legs and mouth and a motorcycle helmet over her head. Berry was carried to the basement and tied to a chain attached to a center support pole.

A third, eerily similar chapter of this story played out about a year later.

This time the victim -- Gina DeJesus -- was younger, at age 14. And she was even closer to Castro's family, as one of his daughter Arlene's best friends.

That spring afternoon, DeJesus and Arlene Castro had been together and hoped to spend the afternoon at DeJesus' house. When that plan didn't pan out, the two walked separate ways.

Ariel Castro spotted the two together, then apart. He admitted driving past his daughter to get to DeJesus. She got in the car after he asked for help finding his daughter, then got out of it when he asked for help carrying a speaker from his home into his car, testified Harasimchuk.