Ariel Castro

"I hope they can find in their hearts to forgive me, because we had a lot of harmony going on in that home."

Ariel Castro, a.k.a. "The Monster of Cleveland", was a Puerto Rican Serial Rapist who abducted, tortured and raped three young women in his Cleveland, Ohio home for nearly a decade.

Background
Castro was born in Duey, a village of Puerto Rico, on July 10, 1960. He was the third child of Pedro Castro, the biggest landowner in the locality, and his wife Lilian Rodriguez. In 1962, Rodriguez discovered that Castro was a bigamist who had four children with another woman and he abandoned Rodriguez to live with his second family. Shortly after, Rodriguez moved to Reading, Pennsylvania and left her four children under the loose care of her mother, Hercilia Carabello. It was during this time that Ariel Castro, then five years old, was repeatedly fingered in the anus by a nine year-old boy nicknamed "Pucho". Castro never reported the abuse and developed an obsession with sex and a compulsion to masturbate from a young age. Lilian sent in for her children in 1966; according to Castro, she was abusive and would insult and hit him with a belt, stick or her open hand every day. Castro's family moved to Cleveland in 1970, after being visited by his paternal uncle Cesi, who had opened a record shop there in 1969. Cesi gifted him a guitar and Castro became a bass player, career that he combined with different jobs.

Domestic Violence
In 1980, Castro dated his 17-year old neighbor Nilda Figueroa, also Puerto Rican, and was forced to take her in by her family after she lost her virginity to him. When Figueroa gave birth to their first child in 1981, Castro's behavior changed radically and he became controlling and abusive, forcing her to stay at home, selecting the places she could shop in and even the programs that she could watch on TV. When he came from work, Castro would place his hand over the TV and if it was hot, he would read the TV guide and beat Figueroa if he saw that one of the unauthorized programs had aired while he was away. Other times he would pretend to leave only to wait outside and beat her if she tried to leave without permission. The violence escalated over time, with Castro often causing bone fractures to Figueroa and only allowing her to go to a hospital after swearing that she wouldn't report him to the police. In 1989, Castro beat Figueroa in the presence of his brother and he was arrested, but he was released after she refused to press charges. They moved with their four children to their last shared residence on 2207 Seymour Drive in 1992. After arriving, Castro padlocked every door in the house and started working in the basement, where he installed a heavy trapdoor and added curtains and layers of bricks to soundproof it. Once finished, he forbid everyone else from entering the basement. Later, he tinted all the windows, forbid Figueroa to use the phone and began to lock up his family in the house while he was away doing gigs with his band, sometimes for up to four days. Figueroa became pregnant again and Castro, not wishing to have more children, tried to cause her a miscarriage by punching and kicking her in the belly, but he was unsuccessful. In October 1993, Castro threw Figueroa down a flight of steps and she broke her skull from the front to the back of the head. A few weeks later, she began to have seizures, and was diagnosed with a blood clot in her brain that had hardened into a malign tumor. On December 26, Castro came home drunk and attacked Figueroa again, kicking her in the body and head. His twelve year-old son Ariel Jr. run out to get help and Castro run after him, moment that Figueroa used to lock him outside and call police. The officers found him pounding on the front door and arrested him when Castro run away without saying a word. Figueroa denounced the attack and was called to testify before a grand jury on February 1994, but Castro, having been released on $25,000 bail, reached her moments before she got in the building and threatened to kill her and the children if she said anything. Terrified, Figueroa declared that the attack had never happened and the charges were dropped. She then moved to her mother's home with the children, and Castro cut almost all contact with them. His home was further fortified, with new mortise locks, dead bolts and a chain-linked fence that he stole from the next door neighbor after threatening him with a shovel. Later, Castro's paranoia increased to installing multiple security alarms and strategically placed mirrors all over the house, until he was sure that nothing could happen in the house without him seeing it.

While taking brain surgery in 1995, Figueroa started dating a security guard, Fernando Colon. Castro learned of their relationship the year after, when one of his daughters called him from Colon's home, and he was furious. He called Colon, claiming that Figueroa was his wife and that he had "stolen" her from him, but Colon reminded Castro that he had never married Figueroa. Later, Castro saw Colon taking his children to school and attempted to run him over with his car, who dodged it. Colon filed charges against Castro, but they were dropped due to lack of evidence. In 1997, Figueroa was given full custody of the children and Castro was deprived of visitation rights because of his abusive nature.

Abductions
"You [Amanda] better shut up. I’ve gone this far, I don’t know what I’m capable of now."

After his family left, Castro became interested in BDSM and developed a fantasy of holding a teenage girl in his home as a sex slave. On August 22, 2002, Castro was at a dollar store when he overheard Michelle Knight asking how to get to a social services office. Knight's two-year old son had been taken by social services and she had an appointment for an evaluation to determine if she was fit to raise him. However, she was not familiar with the area and was lost. Castro assumed that Knight was around fifteen because of her short stature and offered to drive her there; she trusted him because she knew him as the father of her friend Emily, though she had not met him in person before. In the car, Castro had a sign advertising puppies for sale and he said that he had to stop at home to feed them, but that it wouldn't be an issue because it was on the way to social services. Later he convinced Knight to get in the house by offering her a free puppy, and imprisoned her. Because she was an adult, the police assumed that she had left voluntarily and put little effort into finding her. Castro taunted Knight multiple times about the fact that "nobody cared" that she was missing. Castro's next abduction took place on April 21, 2003. The victim was Amanda Berry, a workmate of his son Anthony at Burger King, and whom Castro had wanted to abduct for a while because she was blonde. Berry's seventeenth birthday was the following day. Castro offered her a lift home after she ended her shift and she accepted because she knew Anthony and also Castro's daughter Angie, who had gone to school with her. Castro told Berry that Angie was at his home and he proposed to stop there so she could greet her. Once in the house, Castro used a guard dog to distract Berry, took her cellphone, and imprisoned her. Unlike Knight's disappearance, Berry's caused a commotion and her family appeared multiple times on TV, but Castro was just amused and watched the news with Berry by his side. A week later, Castro used Berry's cellphone to call her mother and said that he had her, that she was "fine" and that she would go home "in a couple of days". The call proved that Berry had been abducted and brought the FBI in to investigate. They triangulated the call to the area where she had been kidnapped, and parked a van there. However, the phone could not be located exactly because Castro never called again. Meanwhile, Castro told Berry that he had phoned her family and told them that they should not look for her because they were now a couple.

On April 2, 2004, Castro's youngest daughter Arlene left school with her best friend Gina DeJesus. DeJesus' father was a former school mate of Castro and she was related to Tito DeJesus, the leader of Castro's band. They walked together until they reached a pay phone which they used to call Figueroa, and asked her if Arlene could sleep in DeJesus's home that night. Because they had no more money, they used DeJesus' money for her bus ticket. She said no and they split: Arlene went to Colon's job place so he could drive her home while DeJesus walked to her own house. Castro had come to the school to pick up Arlene and was driving down the street when he saw the two girls. He ignored Arlene and pulled next to DeJesus, telling her that he was looking for Arlene and he needed her help to find her. After DeJesus got in, he drove on the opposite direction to her indications, toward 2207 Avenue. When DeJesus asked why, Castro kept switching stories between needing her help picking a loudspeaker and his daughter Emily (who wasn't friends with DeJesus) being home and wanting to go to the mall with her. DeJesus was imprisoned in the same room occupied by Knight. No AMBER alert was issued for DeJesus, but the fact that she vanished within sight of Berry's workplace, less than a year after her, made the media and their families relate the cases immediately. Castro became paranoid that a security camera at the school had recorded him (it was actually out of order) and wrote a bizarre four pages-long confession and possible suicide note. He ranted about having been abandoned by his father and abused by Pucho, his mother and Figueroa, whom he claimed to have hit in self-defense. He also lied about having married Figueroa, but said that the marriage was a failure from the start and that he was heartbroken when she took away their children to live with an unnamed domestic abuser. Then he contradicted himself multiple times about the women imprisoned in his home, claiming at once that they were there voluntarily and that he paid them to have sex, and that they were there against their will but that it was their fault because they decided to get in a stranger's car. He said that he did not know how young DeJesus was or that she was the daughter of Felix DeJesus, although he knew she attended the same classes as Arlene, and confessed to have "molested" her before negating that he ever raped or touched her in any way. Next he claimed to have mental problems caused by a tumor in his brain and that he could not help his own actions, but also that he did not "bother" to receive treatment. He concluded saying that he wished to kill himself and leave all his possesions to "the victims", telling his daughters to not get in a vehicle "just because you may think you know someone [...] this was the case of Amanda and Gina", and he solicited Figueroa to run away far and do her best to ensure that his "babies" were safe. Castro kept the note in a kitchen drawer until it was discovered by police nine years later. When asked why he had kept it for so long by his lawyer, Castro said that the note was proof that he was a victim. In the meantime, he attended vigils for DeJesus, offered his support to her family and posted "Missing" fliers. He fixed one on the wall of DeJesus's cell.

Framing Colon
In the time around DeJesus's abduction, Castro became obsessed with resuming contact with his now teenaged daughters. He would show up unnanounced at their home or the school, pick them up and gift them money, adult clothes, perms and electronics for no apparent reason. The first time each started their period, he asked them if it was really the case or some boy had fingered them in their vagina. Finally, he tried to convince Figueroa to leave Colon and come back with him, claiming that he loved her. After she refused, he convinced his two youngest daughters to denounce Colon for kidnapping and sexual abuse, in exchange for buying each a car when they were adults. He also attempted to bribe Figueroa with another car to testify against Colon, but she refused again.

Despite the absence of material evidence, Figueroa and Ariel Castro Jr.'s testimony in favor of Colon and against Castro, and multiple procedural irregularities, he was found guilty of four counts of sexual abuse and sentenced to the minimal legal penalty, consisting of spending a few months in probation and being registered as a sexual offender. As a result, Colon lost his job in security and Figueroa terminated their relationship. Colon later tried to get the verdict overturned, in 2015, but was denied. Having failed in his plan to resume his "marriage" with Figueroa, Castro told his prisoners that Berry was his new wife, and began raping Knight and DeJesus in the backyard rather than inside the house under the delusion that he was hiding his infidelity. Although some of Castro's neighbors saw chained women outside the house, nobody called the police.

Birth of Jocelyn
Berry became pregnant in 2007. In contrast to Knight, who was forced to miscarry five times through violence, poisoning and starvation (one while Berry was also pregnant), Castro refrained from raping Berry and improved her nutrition to ensure that the pregnancy was carried to full term. His initial intention was to leave the baby on a church's steps after it was born, but as the time of birth came near, he manifested his excitement about becoming a father again. When Berry went into labor on Christmas day, he took her and Knight to a children's inflatable pool in the basement, and told the latter to help the former give birth. Berry gave birth to a baby girl but she was out of breath. Castro then told Knight that he would kill her right there if she didn't revive her. Knight performed CPR on the baby and successfully revived her. Berry named the girl Jocelyn, after rejecting multiple Hispanic names suggested by Castro. She was left to be raised and schooled by Berry in her cell, with Castro allowing Berry out of her chains and providing old toys as his only help. Jocelyn's baby clothes were made out of old clothes cut and sewn by the three captives. As Jocelyn grew into a toddler and became more aware of her surroundings, Castro forced Knight and DeJesus to take the names "JuJu" (after Jujubes candy) and "Chelsea", but allowed Berry to use her own. He took their chains out when Jocelyn pulled Knight's chain one day and asked "JuJu lock?" Afterward, he also allowed them a limited movement through the house, but always under his supervision, and kept a gun visible in his waist at all times. When Jocelyn was four years old, he started taking her out of the house and would introduce her to his relations as his granddaughter or as his new girlfriend's daughter. When people asked why they never saw them with her mother, Castro said that she was busy. Eventually, Jocelyn complained about all the doors being locked when Castro wasn't in the house, and he acceeded to leave some doors inside the house unlocked. This act of kindness was his end. On May 6, 2013 Castro forgot to lock the large front door, although the storm door outside was bolted. Berry took her daughter and banged on the storm door until she alerted two neighbors, Ángel Cordero and Charles Ramsey. Cordero and Ramsey kicked the storm door until they made a hole, allowing Berry to crawl out. She called police from another neighbor's house and they rescued Knight and DeJesus, who had remained hiding inside the house the whole time because they believed that the incident was a test from Castro.

Arrest, Incarceration and Suicide
Castro was pulled over and arrested in a parking lot the same time. He was accompanied by his brother Onil, who was also arrested for unrelated offenses along with another brother, Pedro. This led the press to misreport initially that all three brothers were suspects in the abductions. While in custody, Castro insisted that his brothers were not involved in his crimes. He confessed in much the same way that he had written the note years before, recognizing the facts but deflecting responsibility from himself, portraying himself as a victim and blaming law enforcement and the victims themselves for their situation. This left Castro's lawyer no choice left besides encouraging his client to take a guilty plea in order to avoid the death penalty, which is an admissible penalty for an intentional induction of miscarriage in Ohio. Castro was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus one thousand years. The plea deal offered also required that Castro's house would be demolished. A month into his sentence, Castro used his bedsheets to hang himself.

Modus Operandi
Castro's abductions followed a strict script. All his victims were women between 14 and 21 years old, of short stature and with large breasts, who knew at least one of his children but not him personally. He offered them a lift in one of his vehicles, which had been altered so they could only be opened from the driver's seat from the inside, and then led them in his home under some pretext. He would then masturbate and rape them once before restraining them with duct tape and leaving them in the soundproof basement, chained, gagged and with a bike helmet covering their head, before he decided they could be "trusted" and moved them upstairs. Then they were kept chained by the waist at all times, in padlocked bedrooms with a hole in the door to spy them. They were given old clothes from Castro, fed fast food and leftovers only, forced to use a plastic bin as a toilet, and raped four or five times a day. After each rape, he would throw small bills at them to keep his delusion that the sex was consensual, which the victims could exchange for goods through a limited barter system. As with his wife before, he often pretended to leave and waited outside to discourage them from escaping. When he was not in the house, or he had visitors, he played loud music on the radio to make sure nobody heard them. If they disobeyed him in any way, they were savagely beaten, starved and threatened to be killed with a Magnum .44. Every single time after, he would say that such actions were their own fault and that he was the real victim because of the abuse he had endured as a child. He allowed them to interact with one another at times, but he punished them if he found them too friendly.

Profile
"The bottom line is, I am a sexual predator who needs help but I don't bother to get it."

In 2005, the FBI released a sketch and description of a suspect in DeJesus' disappearance, identifying him as male, Latino, 25 to 35 years old, 5 feet and 10 inches tall, 165 to 185 pounds, with green eyes, a goatee and possibly a pencil-thin beard. Castro was actually 45 at the time, 5 feet and 7 inches tall, and had brown eyes.

Experts rejected Castro's claim that he committed the crimes because he was "sick". Jim Van Allen, the former director of the Ontario province criminal profiling unit, described Castro as a sexual sadist and likened him to Paul Bernardo. To Mary Ellen O'Toole, Castro was a typical psychopath. He was very arrogant, had no empathy or remorse, and was incapable of taking responsibility for his own actions, yet he appeared to live a normal life from the outside. An unnamed prison psychiatrist diagnosed him with "Narcisistic Personality Disorder with Antisocial Features", though oddly he also noted that Castro had a "somewhat fragile self-steem".

Known Victims

 * 1981: Grimilda "Nilda" Figueroa
 * 1992: Arlene Castro
 * May 16, 1996: Fernando Colon
 * 2002-2004: Three women abducted and raped repeatedly, all rescued in 2013:
 * August 22, 2002: Michelle Knight, 21
 * April 21, 2003: Amanda Marie Berry, 16
 * April 2, 2004: Georgina "Gina" Lynn DeJesus, 14
 * September 2002-Fall 2012: Five unnamed unborn children
 * December 25, 2007: Jocelyn Jade Berry

On Criminal Minds
Castro's crimes were mentioned in Season Ten's Boxed In as an example of abductor that didn't need a lot of space to keep his victims imprisoned for a long time, in an urban area, and while remaining unsuspected by law enforcement. He also has some loose similarities to the episode's unsub John David Bidwell: both were abused as children, had a previous compulsion to imprison a female family member (Bidwell's sister and Castro's common-law wife), had the abandonment of their long time partners as their stressor, and abducted three victims in three consecutive years that were kept in a makeshift cell with a plastic bin to use as a toilet. Also in both cases, the first victim was the less planned, received the most brutal treatment, and were left with lasting injuries derived from their imprisonment.

Castro was mentioned again in Season Eleven's Hostage and compared to the episode's unsub, Michael Thompson, whose actions were heavily based on Castro's. Both abducted three females (one of whom named Gina) and held them captive in a home basement for the span of around a decade, during which time they physically and sexually abused them. One of their victims suffered at least one miscarriage, while another of their victims gave birth to at least one baby who was also held captive. Their crimes were eventually uncovered when one of the victims managed to escape, which led to the rescue of the other victims and the arrest of both abductors.