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Suspect in Cleveland Kidnappings Is Charged Suspect in Cleveland Kidnappings Is Charged
(about 2 hours later)
CLEVELAND — Cleveland law enforcement authorities on Wednesday charged the owner of the home where three young women were imprisoned for about a decade with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. The two other men who were arrested after the women were discovered will not be charged in the case, the authorities said in a news conference. CLEVELAND — About the time that neighbors kicked in a front door to free three women abducted and long imprisoned, the man charged with their kidnapping was idling away a spring afternoon at his mother’s home.
The Cleveland city prosecutor, Victor Perez, announced the charges against Ariel Castro, 52, at a news conference late Wednesday afternoon. The man, Ariel Castro, 52, crossed the street to borrow a lawn mower on Monday afternoon from a neighbor to cut his mother’s postage stamp lawn, then left with a brother to spend the afternoon drinking, neighbors said.
Earlier in the day, two of the women, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, each arrived at a family home for the first time since their disappearance about a decade ago. The third abducted women, Michelle Knight, who vanished at age 20 in 2002, remained in good condition Wednesday afternoon at the city’s Metro Health Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman. It was typical of the outwardly mundane life Mr. Castro lead, which apparently included outings with a daughter he is believed to have fathered with one of the captives. Meanwhile, inside his house on Seymour Avenue, the three women, who last celebrated birthdays with their families about a decade ago, saw year after year perversely marked by Mr. Castro’s serving of a cake on each woman’s “abduction day,” according to one victim’s cousin.
The years of captivity ended late Monday when Ms. Berry, who had not been seen since she left her job at a local Burger King on April, 21, 2003, when she was 17, appeared at the front door of 2207 Seymour Avenue, where the police said she and the other women were held. Accompanied by a young child as she tried to flee, she screamed: “I need help! I need help! I have been kidnapped for 10 years!” before fleeing with the help of neighbors. On Wednesday, Mr. Castro was charged with the rape and kidnapping of Amanda Berry, held 10 years; Gina DeJesus, held 9 years; and Michelle Knight, held 11 years. He was also charged with kidnapping the 6-year-old daughter Ms. Berry gave birth to, and the authorities said he would undergo a paternity test.
On Wednesday, Ms. Berry’s sister’s home, about a 10-minute drive from the Seymour Avenue residence, was decorated with balloons, yellow ribbons and posters welcoming her back as crowds gathered across the street, as directed by the police, to await her return. Before noon, a motorcade escorted by police motorcycles, pulled up to the home, and several people hurried into the residence, with at least one person holding a child. In their years as prisoners, the women never left the house except for two brief visits to the adjacent garage, the police said.
Ms. Berry, whose mother died when she was captive, was inside the house briefly before her sister, Beth Serrano, stepped outside and spoke to a crush of reporters, saying Amanda and her daughter were home and wanted to “thank the public and media for their support.” Appearing to fight tears, she also requested privacy for her sister, her niece and herself as they recover and before they could make a further statement. “What the circumstances were inside that home and the control he may have had over those girls, we don’t know,” said Ed Tomba, deputy chief of the Cleveland police, in announcing the charges. “That’s going to take us a long time to figure out.”
At the home of Ms. DeJesus, crowds cheered as the young woman arrived home, amid a large police presence. The crowd chanted “Gina! Gina!” as she walked into the house with her face covered, while friends and relatives hugged in the front yard. Clusters of balloons filled the yard. No charges were brought against the two brothers of Mr. Castro, who were arrested with him: Onil Castro, 50, and Pedro Castro, 54. Mr. Tomba said investigators were convinced after interviewing the victims that the other brothers had no involvement or knowledge. “Ariel kept everybody at a distance,” Mr. Tomba said, speaking at a news conference crowded with reporters from around the country and abroad.
Her aunt, Sandra Ruiz, made a brief statement to reporters outside the home. She thanked the authorities and the community for their help. He declined to give details of the women’s captivity. But as two of the women, Ms. DeJesus, now 23, and Ms. Berry, 27, returned joyfully to their family’s homes, descriptions of their ordeal began to emerge. The police confirmed earlier Wednesday that chains and rope were found inside Mr. Castro’s house, and that the women were sometimes bound. A cousin of Ms. DeJesus, who disappeared in 2004 at age 14 while walking from school, said the women were “kept in the basement like dogs.”
“Thank you again for your prayers and support,” Ms. Ruiz said. “There are not enough words to say or express the joy that we feel for the return of our family member Gina.” The cousin, who asked not to be named to protect the family’s privacy, said relatives spoke by speakerphone with Ms. DeJesus before her return. Although she asked relatives not to ask her about her captivity, she described the way Mr. Castro marked the anniversaries of the kidnappings by serving dinner and a cake. “He would celebrate their abduction day as their new birthday,” the cousin said.
At the news conference, the authorities said they now believed that Mr. Castro’s brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, who were arrested after two neighbors freed Ms. Berry, were unaware that the women were being held in their brother’s home. Neighbors of the Castro family — which owns at least two other homes in the Tremont district of Cleveland — recalled Mr. Castro visiting with a young girl they suspected was Ms. Berry’s daughter.
After the two neighbors freed Ms. Berry by kicking in the chained front door and helped her make an urgent call to 911, the three Castro brothers were arrested. As the authorities continued investigating, more details trickled out about what the women endured throughout their captivity. Chief Michael McGrath of the Cleveland police told the “Today” show on Wednesday that the women had been tied up inside the house and that investigators had found ropes and chains. Nelson Martinez, 54, a cousin of Mr. Castro, said he visited him in Parma, Ohio, with a child he introduced as his granddaughter about two years ago.
Chief McGrath, asked about the reports that the women were physically bound, said: “We have confirmed that. We have confirmation that they were bound, and there were chains and ropes in the home.” But he said the investigators would have a better understanding of how often they were restrained when the interviews were completed on Wednesday. He also said they were “very rarely” allowed outside, or “released out in the backyard once in a while, I believe.” “She looked healthy and happy and looked as though she liked being with her ‘granddaddy,’ ” Mr. Martinez said. “She had on clean clothes, like a normal little girl, and she seemed alert and talked.”
A law enforcement source who is familiar with the investigation said that authorities had recovered more than 200 items from the house, including various types of bondage materials. The source insisted on anonymity because of the continuing investigation. The disappearances of Ms. Berry, last seen leaving work in her Burger King uniform in 2003, and Ms. DeJesus, who was last seen a year later in the same neighborhood, were major news in Ohio for years. Volunteers distributed posters to other cities, and vigils were held on the anniversaries of the victims’ last sightings.
Another law enforcement source, who also did not want to be identified because the source was not authorized to speak about the investigation, said that the three women had been sexually abused and that at least initially, they were kept in separate rooms. A working theory, the source said, is that the women “just dealt with Ariel” and not the other brothers. The source added that authorities are working to find out if Ariel Castro, who knew Ms. DeJesus because she was a close friend of his daughter Arlene, also knew Ms. Berry and Ms. Knight. The third woman, Michelle Knight, disappeared in 2002, but because she was an adult, the authorities suspected that she was a runaway; her case received much less attention. Ms. Knight, the only one of the women not released to relatives, remains hospitalized in the MetroHealth Medical Center.
In the Seymour Avenue neighborhood, people searched their memories over the years as they tried to understand how the women could have been held there undetected so long. One neighbor had noticed occasional late-night deliveries of groceries to the boarded-up shoe box of a house where the women were kept, in a rough-edged West Side Cleveland neighborhood. Since the discovery of the women less than five miles from the neighborhood on Lorain Avenue where all three disappeared, some residents have angrily questioned whether the police did all they could.
Another neighbor remarked on a porch light that burned at night, even though many of the windows were covered. On Wednesday the city released portions of the original missing persons reports that showed that dozens of officers were involved in the investigations of Ms. Berry and Ms. DeJesus. Authorities also knocked down accounts that have circulated this week of sightings of the women at Mr. Castro’s home, denying that the police had received calls.
“Why would an abandoned house have a porch light on?” he recalled thinking. Mike DeWine, the attorney general of Ohio, said he was not sure the police could have done much more. “I’m sure this will be studied to death,” he said. “Any time you have a case like this, all of us go back and say, ‘What else could we have done?’ ”
Still another said his sister had once seen a figure in an upstairs window, pounding on the glass. Mr. Castro has been unemployed since last November after two decades as a Cleveland school bus driver. He was fired after a third disciplinary problem, according to school district reports. The house he owns where the women were discovered is in foreclosure.
Chief McGrath said he expected the “charging process” of the suspects to be completed on Wednesday. The police have until early Wednesday evening to present the case to the city prosecutor, who will then determine what, if any, charges are warranted, a statement said. Other records show that he fought violently with a former wife, Grimilda Figueroa, who had full custody of their children, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reported. According to a 2005 complaint she filed in domestic relations court, Ms. Figueroa suffered a broken nose, broken ribs and two dislocated shoulders, The Plain Dealer said. Her lawyer, Robert Ferreri, said in the filing that Mr. Castro “frequently abducts daughters and keeps them from their mother.” Ms. Figueroa died last year.

Steven Yaccino reported from Cleveland, and Christine Hauser from New York. Erica Goode and Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting from New York.

Mr. Martinez recalled a visit to Mr. Castro’s home before the three girls’ disappearance and called him a hoarder. “There was junk everywhere,” he said. “It was nasty and dirty.”
“What was very weird was that he had built himself a shack that looked like a cardboard tent with blankets in the living room,” Mr. Martinez added. Mr. Castro slept in the enclosure in the living room to save money on heat, he said.
Before noon, a motorcade escorted by police motorcycles pulled up to the home of Ms. Berry’s sister, Beth Serrano, festooned with balloons, stuffed animals and a “Welcome Home” sign, and several people hurried into the residence, with at least one person holding a child.
At the home of Ms. DeJesus, a crowd chanted “Gina! Gina!” as she arrived home and walked into the house with her face covered, while friends and relatives hugged in the front yard. Her aunt, Sandra Ruiz, made a brief statement outside the home, thanking the authorities and the community for their help.
The city of Cleveland on Wednesday released segments of audiotape from the dispatch call that sent a police cruiser to Seymour Avenue in response to a 911 call Ms. Berry placed after being freed by two neighbors who had heard her cries. The call, made from a house across the street, initially went out as a Code 1, or nonurgent, call. The dispatcher said a woman had called saying that she was Amanda Berry and had been kidnapped for 10 years.
Soon after the cruiser arrived at the house where Ms. Berry was waiting, an officer was heard to say, “This might be for real.”
A few minutes later, in another tape segment, the officers’ voices took on urgency. “There might be others in the house,” an officer said, sounding stressed and somewhat bewildered. Then, “Gina DeJesus might be in this house, also.”
In a later segment, an officer is heard to say: “We found them. We found them.”

Trip Gabriel and Steven Yaccino reported from Cleveland, and Serge F. Kovaleski and Erica Goode from New York.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 8, 2013Correction: May 8, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname, in one reference, of one of the young women who had been abducted. She is Michelle Knight, not Michelle Night.

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname, in one reference, of one of the young women who had been abducted. She is Michelle Knight, not Michelle Night.