CLEVELAND: Three Ohio women newly freed from a decade-long kidnapping ordeal huddled privately with loved ones as police scoured the Cleveland house where the captives had been held for clues to how their confinement went unnoticed for so long.
Three brothers were arrested as suspects shortly after Monday evening’s rescue of the women and are expected to be formally charged soon. One of them, Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver and owner of the house, was thought to live there alone.
Mayor Frank Johnson confirmed that Cleveland child welfare officials had paid a visit to the house in early 2004 because Castro had left a child on a school bus. But the ensuing inquiry found no criminal intent, officials said.
Otherwise, the mayor denied that authorities overlooked or failed to respond to suspicious activity at the two-story home since any of the three victims were reported as missing.
Found with Amanda Berry, now 27, was her 6-year-old daughter, conceived and born during her captivity, and two other women – Gina DeJesus, 23, who vanished at age 14 in 2004, and Michelle Knight, 32, who was 20 years old when she went missing in 2002.
Ariel Castro, 52, had been fired from his job last November because of lack of judgment, was arrested almost immediately. Two brothers, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Casto, 50, were taken into custody a short time later.
Police have not said what role each man is suspected of playing in the case, but Berry named Ariel Castro in her 911 call as the man from whom she was trying to escape.
Initial euphoria in Cleveland’s West Side over the women’s rescue soon gave way to questions about why their captivity went undetected, despite what neighbors said were a number of suspicious or disturbing incidents at the house in the low-income community.
Hints of a dark side in Cleveland abduction suspect’s life
In hindsight, there were signs of a darker side to Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man suspected of abducting three girls and holding them captive for around a decade.
Divorced years ago and never seen in the company of women, Castro suddenly started showing up in the largely Latino, working-class neighborhood with a 6-year-old girl. It was his girlfriend’s child, he told neighbors.
Castro, 52, was believed to have lived alone, yet on his lunch break would bring home enough bags of fast food and beverages for several people.
He was a school bus driver given mostly “excellent” marks on his performance appraisals, but was repeatedly disciplined, including for one incident when he was accused of calling a young student a “bitch” and leaving the child alone on a bus. These incidents eventually caught up with him, and he was fired last November.
Castro was arrested in 1993 after a domestic violence complaint, though a grand jury decided not to indict him.
Family, friends and neighbors were shocked when police rescued three women locked inside Castro’s house on Monday and found a 6-year-old girl who police believe was born in captivity. The three women, today aged 32, 27 and 23, went missing from 2002 to 2004.
Castro and two of his brothers, Onil, 50, and Pedro, 54, were taken into custody on Monday and were expected to be charged within 36 hours of their arrest.
“It could be he was hiding a personality, because if it did happen you would have to have two personalities,” said Julio Cesar Castro, 77, the arrested brothers’ uncle and owner of the Caribe Grocery half a block from Ariel’s home. “He appeared to be something, and be something else.” (Reuters)