by John Glatt
“That is correct. Yes.”
Then the prosecution rested its case.
* * *
That afternoon, the defense called Ariel Anthony Castro, Jr., as its first witness. The bearded twenty-three-year-old, who now closely resembled his father, told the court that he worked as an editor for the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
“Have you ever been around your father,” asked defender Robert Ferreri, “when he made any disparaging remarks about Fernando Colon?”
“Yes,” replied Castro, as prosecutor John Kosko objected and Judge Russo called a sidebar.
When they went back on the record, Judge Russo allowed Ferreri to continue.
“Did you ever hear your father make any statement relative to wishing … revenge against Fernando Colon?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Tell the judge what those statements were, and the circumstances in which they arose.”
“Well, my parents broke up in the freshman year of high school for me,” said Castro. “And soon after that my mother got together with Fernando. For the first year or so, there were a couple of times [my father] told me, ‘Yeah, he’s gonna get his.’ He constantly tries to undermine him.”
Then Castro told the judge how his father had once collected him from school when he was thirteen and driven past his stepfather’s house, telling him his mother was “ho-ing” in there.
Then Ferreri asked if he believed his two sisters were being sexually molested by their stepfather.
“No,” he replied.
Ariel, Jr., said he had witnessed several verbal arguments between his father and stepfather, although he had never seen them get violent.
“Have you ever seen [your father] be physically violent with your mother?” asked Ferreri.
“Yes,” Ariel, Jr., replied. “Well, he used to beat her.”
“And you saw those things?”
“Yes.”
“And do you know the extent of the injuries sustained by your mother?”
“I know my mother was hospitalized more than once,” he replied. “I mean, some of the incidents were, you know, too young for me to remember now, but yeah.”
“It’s difficult to talk about?” asked Ferreri.
“Yes.”
Then, as the prosecution had no questions for Ariel Castro, Jr., he stepped down.
* * *
The final witness for the defense was Nilda Figueroa, who told the court how she had left 2207 Seymour Avenue because of Ariel Castro’s horrendous abuse. She outlined some of the terrible beatings she had suffered over the years. Once, she said, he had beaten her while she was pregnant, when she told him she was too tired to do the dishes.
“So he just punched me in the mouth,” Nilda told the judge, “and took my teeth out.”
When she was nine months pregnant with Emily, Castro had hit her hard in the stomach with an exercise weight.
Nilda told the court that she had been repeatedly hospitalized after his beatings, suffering two broken noses, broken ribs and dislocated shoulders. Once he had hit her on the head with a metal pipe; forty stiches were required to close up the wound.
“Did you receive a scar from that activity?” asked Ferreri.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Is it visible?”
“Yes.”
“Show the judge.”
Then Nilda walked over to Judge Russo and showed her the scar on her head.
She also recounted another savage beating.
“He came at me full force with his fist,” she said. “He punched me in the eye. There’s a lot of nerve damage.”
“And you told me,” said the defender, “that one of your eyes is round and the other eye is squinty, and both at different levels?”
“Yes,” she replied.
Nilda then told Judge Russo that she had undergone brain surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, because of all Ariel Castro’s beatings. She had suffered seizures, and doctors had diagnosed meningioma, or a brain tumor.
“Is your brain tumor operable?” asked Ferreri.
“No,” replied Nilda.
“Can they fix it?”
“No.”
“Do you know the term prognosis?” the defender asked.
“Yes … your outcome. How are you.”
“Your future?”
“Umm-umm.”
“And what is yours?” asked Ferreri.
“I have none,” replied Nilda. “I mean, there’s nothing they can do for the tumor. They tried. But they couldn’t do anything.”
“Would it be fair to say that the prognosis is, in medical terms, terminal?”
“Yes,” she replied.
Ferreri then asked if Ariel Castro had started buying Emily and Arlene lavish presents in the weeks leading up to their allegations against Fernando Colon. Nilda said that he had bought them each expensive cell phones, iPods, and clothes, and given them cash.
“He’s buying them,” she said.
Nilda also testified how Castro had threatened to kill her and the children, if she went before a grand jury and testified against him, when he faced charges of criminal domestic violence.
“I was scared,” she told Judge Russo. “I said that … nothing happened, just so he wouldn’t hurt me or the kids anymore.”
Then Ferreri asked if she believed Fernando Colon had ever sexually molested her daughters.
“No,” she replied.
“Why is that?” asked Ferreri.
“Because I know my daughters. My daughters tend to lie to me a lot.”
Finally, the defender asked Nilda about Ariel Castro’s unusual behavior when their daughters started having periods.
“When [Angie] started her period,” she said, “Mr. Castro, in front of me, [asked her], ‘Angie, are you sure you started your period, or did somebody stick their finger up your vagina?’”
“Did [Emily] have a similar situation with her first period?” Ferreri asked.
“Yes, he asked her the same question.”
“How about Arlene?”
“Yes, the same situation.”
“So, with every female child who experiences her first transition from little girl to woman, Ariel Castro says, ‘Did somebody finger you and that’s why you’re bleeding?’”
“Exactly,” replied Nilda.
“And these kids, Angie, Arlene, Emily, they never complained to you about any inappropriate touching from Fernando, did they?”
“Right. Never. They never did.”
In his cross-examination, Prosecutor John Kosko asked Nilda why Ariel Castro would want to frame Fernando Colon.
“Mr. Castro is, like, I’m his property,” she replied, “and he thinks I’ll come back with him. He thinks we’re going to be happy together again. That’s why he has never remarried. He’s sort of waiting for me.”
“And you think the girls all went along with this to help him out?” asked Kosko.
“Yes and no,” she replied. “The girls are probably mistaken about something that happened. That’s what I think.”
Then the prosecutor asked if she was trying to help the defendant be found not guilty.
“I’m trying to make sure the truth comes out,” she replied. “I mean, it’s obvious he’s not guilty.”
Then the defense rested without calling defendant Fernando Colon to the stand.
* * *
In Friday’s closing arguments, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor John Kosko, asked what possible motive Emily and Arlene Castro would have to lie on the stand.
“And the motive that’s been brought forward by the defense,” he told Judge Russo, “is that this is some sort of frame-up that’s orchestrated by the girls’ father, so that he could get rid of [Fernando Colon]. I don’t know if you saw Mr. Castro testify. What reason would he have to do this to this guy?”
The prosecutor said Fernando Colon’s defense relied solely on Nilda Figueroa’s testimony that her two daughters were lying, because she had not wa
nted to believe her fiancé had sexually molested them.
“Everything was directed at making Mr. Castro some kind of bad guy here,” said Kosko. “How is Mr. Castro a bad guy? He’s told this by his daughters. He does exactly what he’s supposed to do. He goes to the police station [and] has them make a report.”
The prosecutor told the judge it was “nonsense” that Castro had given his daughters expensive presents and money, just so he could move back with their mother.
“That’s the part that’s not credible,” he told Judge Russo. “And I’m going to ask you to make a finding of guilty in this case.”
Then Robert Ferreri stood up to address the judge.
“It’s difficult for me to sit here,” he began, “and listen to my colleague say that Mr. Castro’s being made to be a bad guy. The fact is, Mr. Castro is a bad guy.”
The defense attorney then called Ariel Castro’s sworn testimony “outrageous.”
“How do we know he was lying?” Ferreri asked. “His lips were moving. He said he had no idea why he would be brought into the court process. He never touched Nilda. He never threatened her. He never threatened the girls.”
Ferreri said Emily and Arlene Castro had not wanted to testify, and had only done so out of fear for their father.
“This case had a peculiar odor about it from the very beginning,” he told the judge.
Ferreri said there was no evidence they had even been molested by their stepfather, questioning why they had suddenly come forward with their story after so many years.
“What we do have in way of evidence,” he continued, “is that the dad was obsessed with their sexuality. Obsessed with Fernando. Asked them point blank, even to the point of being so bizarre and so intrusive and so violative of personal self-respect of saying, ‘Well, you have your period. Is it your period or did somebody put their finger in there?’
“Can you imagine your own father doing that? I can’t imagine mine. I mean, to me that [is] crude, unbelievable behavior on the part of Mr. Castro.”
Ferreri then described Ariel Castro’s family life at 2207 Seymour Avenue, prior to Nilda and her children moving out, as shocking.
“They’re so bizarre,” he said. “It was like one of those strange reality shows. I mean, this family and family dynamics [are] pretty bizarre. But the reality is that’s their reality. That’s their life. That’s the way their family traditions and customs operate.
“Do I think a frame-up took place? I think that is a derogatory statement. I think what happened here is that everybody gets something with Fernando out of the way.”
He then asked Judge Russo to acquit Fernando Colon on all charges, and let him walk out a free man.
In his rebuttal, Prosecutor Kosko condemned the defense for attacking Ariel Castro’s good character.
“This demonization of Mr. Castro has no basis here,” he said angrily. “He’s obsessed with their sexuality? I didn’t see any evidence of that.”
Once again, Kosko admitted “begging” Castro to bring Emily back from Fort Wayne, as her mother was making “no effort” to bring her back to Cleveland.
“And what happens when Emily shows up?” he asked the judge. “Suddenly we’re running to domestic relations court and getting a restraining order.”
* * *
On Tuesday, September 6, Judge John Russo convicted Fernando Colon of four counts of gross sexual imposition, relating to Emily and Arlene Castro. He acquitted him of the remaining nine counts. Judge Russo found that Colon was not likely to engage in future acts of sexually violent offenses, deleting the “sexually violent predator” specifications from the guilty counts.
“This court,” said Judge Russo, “after careful and deliberate review of all the evidence, finds that the State of Ohio has presented evidence that this court believes rises to the acceptable legal standard of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Two months later, Judge Russo sentenced Colon to three years of supervised community control, ordering him to register as a sex offender.
That same day, Nilda Figueroa told Fernando Colon that she and Arlene were moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and their relationship was over.
* * *
After hearing the guilty verdict, a triumphant Ariel Castro drove back to 2207 Seymour Avenue to celebrate his victory. That night, under cover of darkness, he unchained his three prisoners from his van and brought them back into the house, disguised in wigs and dark glasses. It would be the last time they would leave the house for almost eight years.
* * *
In September, Cleveland Domestic Relations Court officers arrived at 2207 Seymour Avenue to serve Ariel Castro with a summons to attend a court hearing about Nilda Figueroa’s protection order against him. After three unsuccessful attempts to get an answer, Castro came to the court and picked up the summons.
The hearing was held in November, with Castro and his attorney both attending. But Nilda’s attorney Robert Ferreri did not show up, as he was in juvenile court that day. Nilda then decided not to proceed and the judge dismissed the case, leaving Ariel Castro with a clean record.
17
“SHE DIED OF A BROKEN HEART”
In late October, Gina DeJesus’s parents appeared on a Maury Povich Show segment focusing on missing children. After Felix and Nancy made a national plea for any information about their daughter, Povich introduced Long Island psychic Jeffrey Wands, who had studied their case.
Wands said that he believed Gina’s kidnapper was a sexual predator, who had spoken to her several times. He told them their daughter was still alive, and her abductor knew the area from where she was taken very well. He described him as a black man with facial hair in his late twenties to early thirties, around five feet nine inches tall.
That Christmas, Louwana Miller was hospitalized for pancreatitis and other serious health issues. Two months later, on March 2, she died of heart failure at a rehabilitation center in Lakewood, Ohio.
Friends said that after TV psychic Sylvia Browne had declared Amanda dead, Louwana lost hope of ever finding her daughter alive.
“She died of a broken heart,” said Louwana’s sister Theresa Miller. “After all the stress, she would say, ‘I can’t eat. I don’t know if Mandy ate.’ My sister was a very strong person, but it took a lot out of her.”
Her friend and missing-persons activist Art McKoy said Louwana went downhill after The Montel Williams Show.
“[She] was never the same,” said McKoy. “I think she had given up.”
WOIO-TV news reporter Bill Safos agreed that she died of a broken heart.
“And people ask me, ‘How do you know that?’” he said. “Because I was listening to her heart break for three years.”
That afternoon, Michelle and Gina learned of her death on the TV evening news. They were shocked when the reporter said Louwana had died of heart failure, as Michelle remembered Castro boasting of calling her on Amanda’s cell phone.
A few hours later, Castro unlocked Michelle and Gina’s chains, and let them walk around the second floor. Michelle wandered over to Amanda’s white bedroom and went in, saying she was so sorry about her mother. Amanda looked puzzled and asked what she was talking about. Then, Michelle realized she did not know and broke the sad news that her mother had passed away. Amanda began to cry.
“I backed out of the door,” recalled Michelle, “wanting to give her some peace and quiet. When I was back on my mattress I could hear her sobbing. I felt so terrible for Amanda—and so furious this man had stolen her from her family.”
* * *
Several weeks later, Ariel Castro became a grandfather for the second time after Emily gave birth to a baby girl she named Janyla. She was now living in a house in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with her boyfriend, DeAngelo Gonzalez, and her mother and sister Arlene. It was a very turbulent relationship and Emily would often accuse Gonzalez of having affairs.
At around the same time, Amanda Berry became pregnant with Ariel Castro’s baby. She started su
ffering morning sickness and throwing up in her room. One morning, when all the women were having breakfast in the kitchen, Amanda complained of feeling nauseated.
That night, Castro told Michelle that he thought Amanda could be pregnant. Michelle replied she probably was and Castro smiled and seemed pleased. Michelle then told him to take better care of Amanda during her pregnancy than he had with her.
But Michelle suspected that, as Ariel Castro considered Amanda to be his wife, he would want to keep her baby.
As Amanda’s belly swelled over the next few months, she never acknowledged that she was pregnant to the other girls. Michelle was dying to ask her if she wanted the baby, and if Castro had ever threatened to make her abort it, but she never did.
During her pregnancy, he kept Amanda away from Michelle and Gina, who rarely saw her.
“I could only guess what must have been going through her head,” wrote Michelle later. “I kept thinking about my babies—the one I was trying to get back to and the ones this monster had killed.”
* * *
Ariel Castro now started treating Michelle Knight worse than ever. He fed her only once a day on stale leftovers, and she was allowed just one shower a week. She was his “punching bag,” suffering his fists at the least provocation.
“I was the only one he physically hit,” Michelle later told People magazine. “I was the one being told I was ugly.”
At one point, Amanda asked her why he treated her so badly, and Michelle said it was because he disliked her.
“He was the type of person who wanted to break everyone in the house,” explained Michelle, “and I was considered unbreakable.”
Whenever Michelle stood up to him, Castro would threaten to cut open her uterus end to end, showing her the black rubber chain he would tie through it.
“And he would hang it right in front of the door where I was sleeping,” she said. “And he would [say], ‘Remember that.’”
Chained together on the bed in the pink room, Michelle and Gina forged a uniquely close relationship.
“Gina and I had that bond like I never had,” Michelle said. “It was not normal for me to ever have a friend.”