Ariel Castro kidnappings
| Ariel Castro kidnappings | |
|---|---|
Berry, DeJesus and Knight prior to their abductions
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| Location | 2207 Seymour Avenue, Tremont, Cleveland, Ohio, 44113-5108, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 41°28′21″N 81°41′52.5″W / 41.47250°N 81.697917°WCoordinates: 41°28′21″N 81°41′52.5″W / 41.47250°N 81.697917°W |
| Date | August 23, 2002 – May 6, 2013 |
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Attack type
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Kidnapping, rape, aggravated murder, attempted murder, assault |
| Victims |
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| Perpetrator |
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Between 2002 and 2013, three young women—Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Georgina "Gina" DeJesus—were kidnapped by Ariel Castro and held captive in his home in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. They were subsequently imprisoned in his house on Seymour Avenue until May 6, 2013, when Berry escaped with her six-year-old daughter and contacted the police. Knight and DeJesus were rescued by responding officers and Castro was arrested within hours.
On May 8, 2013, Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. Castro pled guilty to 937 criminal counts of rape, kidnapping, and aggravated murder as part of a plea bargain. He was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison without the possibility of parole. One month into his sentence, Castro committed suicide by hanging himself with bedsheets in his prison cell.
Ariel Castro was born on July 11, 1960, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Pedro Castro and Lillian Rodriguez. When he was a child, his parents divorced. Shortly after the divorce, Castro moved to the mainland U.S. with his mother and three siblings. The family first settled in Reading, Pennsylvania, and later moved to Cleveland, where Castro's father and several other extended family members were living. Castro had nine siblings in total. According to Castro's uncle, the Castro family knew the DeJesus family and had lived in the same west Cleveland neighborhood. Castro was a 1979 graduate of Cleveland's Lincoln-West High School.
Castro met his future girlfriend, Grimilda Figueroa, when his family moved into a house across the street from hers in the 1980s. Castro and Figueroa lived with both sets of parents, but moved into their own home at 2207 Seymour Avenue in 1992. Their home was a two-story, 1,400-square-foot (130 m2), four-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a 760-square-foot (71 m2) unfinished basement built in 1890 and remodeled in 1956. According to Figueroa's sister, Elida Caraballo, when Figueroa and Castro moved into their new home, "all hell started breaking loose". Caraballo and her husband Frank claim Castro beat Figueroa, breaking her nose, ribs, and arms. He also threw her down a flight of stairs, cracking her skull. In 1993, Castro was arrested for domestic violence but was not indicted by a grand jury.
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