Imagine being chained to the wall of a dirty room that wasn’t your own, being mentally tormented by a man who is widely considered to be a positive influence in the community. Imagine being impregnated by your captor, then giving birth in a kiddie-pool in the basement of the house that has become your worst nightmare. Three young women were held captive by Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver and band bassist, for over ten years.1
Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Georgina DeJesus were the three strong and inspiring young women that survived this nightmare. In Cleveland, Ohio, Ariel Castro captured his first victim, Michelle Knight, as she was walking home from her cousin’s home in 2002. He held her in his basement to torment and rape her, which allowed him to develop power over her. Castro then moved her upstairs in his home, where the abuses continued. Some of the early abuse that Knight endured ended in pregnancies, but Castro would beat her until she miscarried.2
The second victim, Amanda Berry, was last seen by her co-workers at Burger King the day before her seventeenth birthday in 2003. On her way home from work, she accepted a ride home from community member, Ariel Castro. However, the ultimate destination was not what she had expected. Within the time Castro held Berry captive, he impregnated her. She gave birth to her daughter, Jocelyn, in the basement of Castro’s home in a kiddie-pool with the assistance of Knight. Castro had threatened Michelle Knight’s life, insisting that if the baby didn’t survive, neither would she. So when Berry’s daughter wasn’t breathing at birth, Knight successfully performed CPR on the infant, saving her life.3
Georgina DeJesus was a friend of Castro’s daughter, a fact he used to lure her into his car. In 2004, DeJesus was walking home from school when Castro approached her and offered her a ride home. The fourteen-year-old girl recognized him and accepted the offer, little did she know that she wouldn’t be returning to her home for another nine years. The three women only had each other from 2002 until they were rescued in 2013.4
Each woman’s nightmare began similarly as Castro had a system of abuse that he used to overpower them. This system made them fear him so much that they wouldn’t fight back or attempt to escape. One of the tactics Castro used to prevent his victim’s from escaping was that he intentionally left their doors unlocked, and then he patiently waited by the front door for them. When Castro discovered that one of them trying to escape, he violently beat them, using it as an example to the other captives as to what would happen if they chose to flee.5
Castro successfully hid his monstrosities from the community he lived in for the eleven years he held the women captive. His friends and family noticed that he didn’t have people over often, but that wasn’t abnormal for Castro. After his wife divorced him, Castro spent most of his time outside of his home, attending local concerts with bands as the bassist, and even attending searches and vigils for the women he held captive in his own home. The community had no reason to suspect that he had anything to do with the women’s disappearances. Roughly two weeks before the rescue of the women, Castro had an individual over because he was interested in purchasing their bass guitar. The man said he had no idea that there was anyone in the home other than Castro, hearing only a sound like a dog upstairs.6
The community will never forget the day Castro made a simple mistake. On May 6, 2013, Castro left a door unlocked. The women upstairs, contemplating whether it was another one of Castro’s wicked tricks or an honest mistake, remained in their rooms. Eventually, however, Amanda Berry built up the courage to try to escape. When she discovered that it was a mistake on Castro’s end, she and her daughter headed for the door. It was the middle of the day when Berry had opened the front door and started yelling for help, her daughter at her side. Castro’s neighbors noticed the strange scene and immediately came to Berry’s aid.7
The screen door was locked from the outside so the neighbor’s kicked in a corner to free Berry and her daughter, Jocelyn. Berry then immediately called the police to get the other girls rescued from their real life nightmare. Upon the girls’ escape, the neighborhood was stunned. Throughout those eleven years, none of Castro’s surrounding neighbors had any indication or idea that three women were being held captive just a few yards away.8
Nobody knew what to think. The community felt like they had failed these three women. Ultimately, Ariel Castro plead guilty to 937 counts of kidnapping, rape, and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison without the possibility of parole. After a month in prison Castro hung himself with his bed sheets in his cell. While kidnapping is a horrific crime, it is not uncommon in the United States. In 1999, it was estimated that 11.4 children per 1,000 in the United States are reported missing. So, how well do you know your neighbors?9
- Phillip J. Resnick M.D. and George W. Schmedlen Ph.D., “Competency Report,” Court Psychiatric Clinic, (2013); 2-3. ↵
- Biography.com Editors, “Ariel Castro Biography”, The Biography.com Website, (2014) https://www.biography.com/people/ariel-castro-21311121. ↵
- Corky Siemaszko, “Michelle Knight still recovering five years after being freed from Ariel Castro,” ABC News, (2018), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michelle-knight-still-recovering-5-years-after-being-freed-ariel-n870906. ↵
- Melanie Eversley and Doug Stranglin, “Autopsy: Ariel Castro hanged himself in prison cell,” USA Today, (2013), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/04/ariel-castro-hung-prison/2761177/. ↵
- Biography.com Editors, “Ariel Castro Biography”, The Biography.com Website, (2014) https://www.biography.com/people/ariel-castro-21311121. ↵
- Corky Siemaszko, “Michelle Knight still recovering five years after being freed from Ariel Castro,” ABC News, (2018), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michelle-knight-still-recovering-5-years-after-being-freed-ariel-n870906. ↵
- Melanie Eversley and Doug Stranglin, “Autopsy: Ariel Castro hanged himself in prison cell,” USA Today, (2013), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/04/ariel-castro-hung-prison/2761177/. ↵
- Corky Siemaszko, “Michelle Knight still recovering five years after being freed from Ariel Castro,” ABC News, (2018), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michelle-knight-still-recovering-5-years-after-being-freed-ariel-n870906. ↵
- Andrea Sedlak, David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Dana Schultz, “National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview,” NISMART, (2002): 5-10. ↵
124 comments
Diamond Davidson
This is the most disrupting kidnappings I ever heard of. The fact that he got the two out of three women pregnant and had the dumbest opportunity to beat Michelle Knight until she had a miscarriage and had the nerve to threaten Amanda Berry that if the baby dies she dies too. I’m very glad he had the ‘smartest” idea to leave his door unlock so they were all able to escape because this is many females’ nightmare.
Octaviano Huron
This has to be one of the most disgusting and heinous crimes ever exposed to the public eye. These three women had undergone a true horror story, and their lives will never be the same because of this traumatizing experience. Nevertheless, Mss. Berry, DeJesus, and Knight are survivors and victors of evil. I hope they continue their lives happy and healthy. Thank you for this well-written article.
Averie Mendez
The fact that this man attended vigils for the missing women he had chained up in his very home makes me sick to my stomach. As happy as I am that these women were able to escape, I can’t help but think about the trauma that they must carry with them every day of their lives. However, Amanda’s leap of courage, knowing that Castro could be waiting behind the closed door, was incredible.
Maria Martinez
The story of what these three women had to endure for eleven years is heartbreaking and truly sickening. Growing up children are always told of the dangers of the outside world and taught “stranger danger” but hearing stories like these are a shocking reality check that these unimaginable things could really happen to anyone at any time. The bravery that Berry showed in her escape is extremely admirable and I can’t imagine what trauma her daughter was left with.
Erika Jackson
Reading this article made me so shocked. It is scary how easily people who do this can blend in with society so easily. And the fact they had those poor girls for 11 years before they were able to escape is so sad. We can only imagine what type of abuse that they went through hat they didn’t share with the police. After reading this, makes me even more wary about who I trust and I’m never accepting rides from stangers!
Claudia Sanchez
Awful to think there are people who could do such a thing for this long and not get caught. There was no way for the community to know or even suspect him which makes it all the more frightful that such people could be in the world today. It was also quite pathetic that he could not take being imprisoned and hanged himself. He was not willing to face punishment for the horrors he inflicted on those women.
Amariz Puerta
Let me just say I could not stop reading this article! It was very well written and very structured, from the beginning until the end the article had every ounce of my attention. This made me really realize I need to watch my surroundings and also to not take offers for rides, even if I know them. Castro is a psychopath, knowing that these women and the daughter underwent this situation breaks my heart. But I am glad that the justice system served him well, and they got to live the rest of their life in peace knowing he isn’t on the streets doing this to anyone else.
Isaiah Torres
This was a really interesting article to read about because it showed how anybody can be capable of these things; without the knowledge that it may be your neighbor. Reading into the different ways he made these girls feel violated such as beating and rape, leaves me angered because men were put on this Earth to protect women. Hearing that he plead guilty to 937 counts was stunning to hear because of not only how many counts, but the amount of years he was given (1,000) even after he received life.
Thomas Fraire
In the wake of perusing this article even I’m beginning to see my general surroundings from an alternate perspective! I ponder the majority of this is we’re regularly used to seeing and hearing tales about this from different places on the planet so we don’t generally stop to think about that the individual who lives directly adjacent to you could be a crazed neurotic like the ones we see on TV and the one in this article. This was no ifs ands or buts a sensational read that made my skin slither.
Sarah Uhlig
These stories are always so hard to read. I remember reading this story a while back and reading how much these women had to endure during these years of their imprisonment. This article is very well written and really gets the readers attention with all the detail and significant events of the story. I just can’t imagine how they were there for nine years of their life. That man really took away a decade of their life and these woman were hidden for so long. It is so sad.