by John Glatt
“Once at Castro’s house, 2207 Seymour,” wrote Harasimchuk, “he asked if she could help him pick up a speaker. [They] went into the bathroom and [he] was looking at himself in the mirror. Castro then asked her to show him her privates. DeJesus states she got uncomfortable and wanted to leave. Castro said she could leave but would have to go out of a different door than she came in.”
Castro had tricked her down into his basement and attacked her. After chaining her to a pole and handcuffing her wrists with plastic ties, he raped her for the first time.
Finally, Michelle Knight told detectives how she got lost on August 22, 2002, on her way to meet a social worker about her son, Joey. She had been in a Family Dollar store asking directions when Ariel Castro had suddenly appeared and offered to drive her. She told detectives that she had only accepted his help because she knew his daughter Emily.
He then drove her to 2207 Seymour Avenue, where she had remained until a couple of hours earlier.
“All the victims said that they were repeatedly sexually assaulted by Ariel Castro,” Harasimchuk later testified, “either vaginally, orally or anally. [They] all described a pattern of being repeatedly sexually, physically and emotionally assaulted by Ariel Castro, during the entire time that they were held captive.”
* * *
As the news that Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus had been found spread around Cleveland like wildfire, hundreds of people gathered on the streets of the West Side to celebrate, with passing drivers honking their horns in support. Many more gathered outside the MetroHealth Center, awaiting word on the rescued women’s conditions.
All the local TV affiliates, as well as national cable stations, went live, preempting regular programming that night. And scores of newspapers from all over the world dispatched reporters out to Cleveland on the first available flights.
By 8:00 P.M., a small encampment of TV news crews had moved into Seymour Avenue, where they would remain for the next several weeks. And reporters scurried around interviewing anybody that lived on Seymour Avenue and had ever seen Ariel Castro.
But the big scoop was WEWS-TV reporter’s John Kosich’s first interview with Amanda Berry’s rescuer Charles Ramsey, who was already being hailed a hero.
Kosich began by asking Ramsey to walk him through what had happened.
An animated Ramsey responded that he heard screaming. “I’m eating my McDonald’s. I come outside and see this girl going nuts, trying to get out of the house. So I go on the porch … and she says, “‘Help me get out! I’ve been here a long time.’”
Ramsey said he had initially thought it was a domestic dispute, as he tried to open the screen door, which was locked, with only enough room to get a hand through.
“So we kick the bottom,” he said, “and she comes out with a little girl and she says, ‘Call nine-one-one. My name is Amanda Berry.’”
At first the name didn’t register, but when he finally spoke to the emergency dispatcher he realized exactly who she was.
“I thought the girl was dead,” he told Kosich.
Ramsey said he had then watched the police go into the house, coming out a few minutes later with Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.
Then Kosich asked about his neighbor Ariel Castro.
“You got some pretty big testicles to pull this off, bro,” replied Ramsey, without missing a beat. “Because we see this dude every day. I mean every day … I barbecue with this dude. We eat ribs and whatnot and listen to salsa music.”
Kosich asked about the girls’ reactions to being outside the house in the sunlight.
“Bro,” replied Ramsey, “I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway.”
And within minutes that interview had gone viral, turning Charles Ramsey into a media sensation.
* * *
Soon after 8:00 P.M. the Cleveland Police Department released mug shots of the three Castro brothers, along with audio of Amanda Berry’s dramatic 911 call. It would be played countless times over the next few weeks, becoming synonymous with the story.
* * *
When her brother called to say their cousin Amanda Berry had been found, Tasheena Mitchell had not dared believe it. There had been so many hoaxes and false alarms in the past. But as soon as she turned on her TV and saw it was true, Tasheena, and another cousin Destiny Berry, had driven straight to the MetroHealth Center to see Amanda.
“I’m just so excited,” Destiny told WKYC-News. “I think about her every day. I’ve prayed about her every night. We’re just so close but so far away, because they won’t let us in.”
Destiny said the three of them had grown up together, and were all best friends before she disappeared.
“We were so close,” said Destiny. “Inseparable, and when she came up missing it killed us. All the hoaxes and games and the rumors that went on during the years. That’s another thing.”
Destiny said the biggest tragedy of all was Louwana Miller dying without knowing her daughter was alive.
“She left without knowing,” said Destiny. “And now she’s coming home, her mother’s not even here to see that.”
At around 9:00 P.M., Dr. Gerald Maloney, who had admitted the four victims in the emergency room, gave an impromptu press conference outside MetroHealth Medical Center.
“We’re assessing their needs,” he told reporters and the large cheering crowd. “The appropriate specialists are evaluating them now. This isn’t the ending we usually get to these stories.”
Later that night MetroHealth Medical Center released an official statement.
“The women have had a preliminary physical examination and are in fair condition,” it stated. “They have been reunited with their families. MetroHealth joins our community in grateful appreciation for their safe return.”
* * *
After finishing work that night at his bank in Columbus, Ohio, Ariel Castro, Jr., had dined with his best friend, Trevor. He had inadvertently turned off his cell phone ringer, and on checking it after the meal, there was a stream of messages from friends and family members. They all said that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and another girl, whose name he didn’t recognize, had been found alive in a house on Seymour Avenue. And a man in his fifties driving a blue car had been arrested.
On hearing the news, Castro was delighted that the girls had been found safe, especially Gina, whom his sister Arlene had been the last to see.
He immediately called Arlene, asking if she had heard the great news. She said that she had and was going straight out to celebrate.
“My sister was so excited,” Castro said later. “She had worried so much about Gina all those years. She had felt so much guilt that she was with her just before she went missing.”
It was only when he called his aunt Elida Carabello that he sensed something was terribly wrong. Elida said she suspected his father had been arrested, as he perfectly fitted the description of a fifty-two-year-old man who drove a blue car and lived on Seymour Avenue. Ariel, Jr., told her that she must be mistaken, as he would never do anything like this.
Then when he turned on the television and heard Amanda’s 911 call, mentioning his father by name, he knew his aunt was right.
“When I heard Amanda Berry … say his name,” said Ariel, Jr., “I knew he was guilty. I mean, who would come up with a name like Ariel Castro or invent that kind of story?”
* * *
Lillian Roldan had been eating dinner with her new husband and their two-year-old daughter when a friend called her cell phone, asking if she’d heard that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and another girl had been found alive, and who had been arrested. When Lillian said she hadn’t, her friend said it was her ex-boyfriend.
“I said, ‘What do you mean, “my ex-boyfriend”?’” said Lillian. “‘You mean Ariel Castro?’ And I’m saying, ‘No! No! No!’”
Then Lillian turned on the television to see Ariel Castro’s mug shot, and knew
it was true.
“Oh my God,” Lillian tearfully recalled, “I felt everything. Upset. Really mad. Angry. Sad. Why did he do it? How he did it? I don’t know.”
Jovita Marti, whose mother had helped Amanda Berry escape, went round to Lillian’s house that night to comfort her.
“She was crying a lot when she found out,” said Jovita. “I said, ‘Girl, you’re lucky that you’re not with them.’”
* * *
At eleven Monday night, Amanda called her father, Johnny Berry, and grandmother Fern Gentry in Tennessee, to tell them she was safe.
“She said, ‘Hi, Daddy, I’m still alive,’” said her father, who is terminally ill with pulmonary disease. “‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ We were both crying … it was the happiest day of my life.”
Then, in an emotional telephone call, broadcast live on WEWS-TV, Gentry had a tearful reunion with her granddaughter.
“How are you?” asked Fern.
“I’m fine,” replied Amanda.
“I’m glad to have you back. I thought you were gone.”
“No, I’m here,” said Amanda, her voice welling up with tears.
“And we’re happy down here for you,” said her grandmother. “The little girl is your baby?”
“Yes,” replied Amanda, “she is my daughter, born on Christmas.”
“We have to get together soon.”
“I know it,” said Amanda.
Gina DeJesus also spoke to relatives via speakerphone from the MetroHealth Medical Center. She requested they not ask about her captivity, but volunteered how Ariel Castro liked to celebrate their “abduction day,” as if it were their new birthday.
Now living in Naples, Florida, Barbara Knight was watching the evening news when she first learned Michelle had been found alive. She spent the rest of the evening trying to call her daughter at the MetroHealth Medical Center, but Michelle refused to take her calls.
* * *
Late Monday night, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty, who would prosecute the case, joined dozens of Cleveland police officers and FBI agents at 2207 Seymour Avenue, as they began searching the house. Across town at Cleveland City Jail, the three Castro brothers were put on suicide watch. At one point Ariel Castro was escorted past his brother Onil’s cell.
“Onil,” he said, “you’re never going to see me again. I love you, bro.”
26
“THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER”
Early Tuesday morning, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were discharged from MetroHealth Medical Center and taken to a hotel at a secret location in Cleveland. The FBI had arranged twenty-four-hour security, to protect them from the media. Michelle Knight, who was still in a serious condition, remained in the hospital undergoing treatment.
The Cleveland abductions were now making front-page headlines all over the world: HORROR HOUSE: 3 WOMEN MISSING FOR A DECADE RESCUED IN OHIO, trumpeted the New York Post; US WOMEN ABDUCTED TEN YEARS AGO FOUND ALIVE, read the Daily Telegraph; and The Guardian proclaimed: CLEVELAND POLICE CRITICIZED AS CITY ASKS: WHY WERE WOMEN NOT FOUND SOONER.
Much of the TV and newspaper coverage that morning featured dramatic interviews with various neighbors, who reported seeing: naked women on leashes crawling on their hands and knees in the back garden; suspicious screams coming from the house; and a woman clutching an infant and pounding on the window for help.
They spoke of calling Cleveland police on numerous occasions, who had come to 2207 Seymour Avenue and then left again after not getting an answer.
Comparisons were already being made to the Anthony Sowell serial killings two years earlier, where Cleveland police had been accused of not taking the missing-persons reports of the eleven female victims’ families seriously enough.
At 9:00 A.M. the Cleveland Department of Public Safety held a press conference to update the media, and try to head off the mounting criticism.
“Now this morning we’re happy to announce,” Mayor Frank Jackson told the hundreds of reporters gathered at city hall, “that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight have been found and are alive. We’re happy that they have returned to us, but their absence … has plagued their families, our community and Cleveland police … for years.”
Mayor Jackson said although three suspects were in custody, there were still many unanswered questions as to why and how it had happened.
Then Special Agent Steve Anthony, who is in charge of the FBI’s Cleveland Office, took the microphone.
“The nightmare is over,” he declared. “These three young ladies have provided us with the ultimate definition of survival and perseverance. The healing can now begin.”
Special Agent Anthony said the FBI and Cleveland police had relentlessly pursued every tip that had come in over the years.
“And the families of these three young ladies never gave up hope,” he said, “and neither did law enforcement. As you can imagine, words can’t describe the emotions being felt by all. Yes, law enforcement professionals do cry.”
Ed Tomba then fielded questions from the press, reminding them that the investigation was ongoing and he must be sensitive to the victims. One TV reporter asked if this was an isolated incident or part of a larger human-trafficking operation.
“It possibly could be something that is outside of Cleveland,” replied Tomba, “but as of right now we have no indication that it’s bigger than our neighborhood here.”
Associated Press reporter Tom Sherman asked if the three girls had been held as sex slaves during their imprisonment.
“You know, Tom,” he said, “that hasn’t been determined yet. We were very, very careful with the interview process last night. Today when we have our expert come in from the FBI, they’re going to do a little more in-depth interviews. And I’m sure that as time goes by, there’ll be more information that will be provided from these young ladies as to exactly what took place.”
Then a cable TV news reporter asked why Cleveland police had not been more aggressive with Ariel Castro, especially after the 2004 incident of the boy being left on his school bus.
“If that questioning was done,” said the reporter, “these ladies may have been out. Why wasn’t this guy questioned more aggressively about this and will this change your protocol for looking for missing people?”
Tomba explained that Castro had been interviewed “extensively” about the boy left on his bus, and was not a suspect in any other complaint.
“Our policies are solid,” he said. “I can tell you as part of being [in] this division for the last twenty-eight years, and being very, very involved in this over the last ten years, that the amount of effort, the amount of leads, the amount of work hours and dedication that went into this—I’ve never seen it before. Over the last ten years every single lead was followed up no matter how small.”
Tomba reminded them how Cleveland police and the FBI had “dug up a couple of backyards,” re-canvassed the neighborhood and organized vigils.
“So our goal was to get them back safely,” he said. “The real hero is Amanda. I mean, she’s the one that got this ball rolling … we’re just following her lead. Without her none of us would be here today.”
Later that day, Cleveland City Hall released a statement denying all allegations of sightings of suspicious behavior at Ariel Castro’s house, supposedly reported to the police.
“Media reports of multiple calls to the Cleveland police reporting suspicious activity and the mistreatment of women at 2207 Seymour are false,” it stated.
* * *
A few hours later, Ariel Castro was transported from Cleveland City Jail to police headquarters, for the first of two interviews he would give. Deputy Sheriff David Jacobs of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office was in charge of his interrogation, mapping out a careful approach before meeting Castro in an interview room in the Sex Crimes Unit, where it would be videotaped.
“My strategy,” he would later explain, “was to be nonconfrontational. To obtain information from
Mr. Castro that would meet the elements of the crimes that we thought he may be charged with in the near future.”
After reading Castro his Miranda rights, Jacobs began questioning him about each of the women in the order he had taken them, and was surprised at his candor and eagerness to talk.
“His answers were very succinct,” said Jacobs. “When I asked him a question, he answered the question. Typically, in my experience in interviews, when you ask somebody an incriminating question, you may not get the answer. I felt that Ariel Castro … answered those questions.”
Referring to himself several times as a “sexual predator,” Castro spoke in chilling detail about the circumstances of his three abductions, saying that he had later had “extensive conversations” about them with each of his victims.
“He used the word ‘abduct,’” said Jacobs. “I asked him, ‘What do you consider [is] a sexual predator?’ And he said, ‘Somebody that continually repeats offenses.’”
Castro told the deputy sheriff that he had acted alone, and his two brothers, Pedro and Onil, had no idea what he had done.
“I’m the criminal,” he declared, “and I knew what I did was wrong.”
Castro admitted abducting the women purely to satisfy his sexual needs. He admitted being particularly callous when he had taken Gina DeJesus, after going to Wilbur Wright Middle School to see his daughter Arlene, and then seeing her walking with Gina. He watched them separate on Lorain Avenue, and then go off in opposite directions before he pounced.
“I did a cold-blooded thing to my daughter that day,” Castro said. “I drove past my daughter to get to Gina.”
He told Jacobs he feared being caught after Gina’s abduction, as he knew there were surveillance cameras outside the school.
Ariel Castro also readily admitted using Amanda’s cell phone to call her mother, a week after taking her.
“I think I said something,” he told Jacobs, “that I have her daughter and that she’s okay and that she’s my wife now—something like that.”
He told Jacobs that he and Michelle Knight had “consensual sex,” from her 2002 abduction until a week before his arrest. He claimed she had only told him of one pregnancy, when the two of them had “devised a plan” for her to go on a tea diet for several days, as well as “knee bends and jumping jacks,” so she would miscarry.