Ariel Castro's Neighbor Pleads Guilty to Murder, Raping Daughters
More horrific news from the Cleveland neighborhood where Ariel Castro tortured three women for a decade: On Monday, Elias Acevedo Sr, Castro's neighbor, pleaded guilty to hundreds of charges, including two counts of murder and the rape of his three daughters and sister-in-law.
Over the course of two decades, Acevedo repeatedly raped his three daughters. In 1993, he raped his sister-in-law, who, at the time, was 18 years old and 5-months pregnant with his brother's child.
"You have changed my life forever," one daughter said during the sentencing, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "You robbed me of my childhood...I have lived in fear but I will no longer."
Acevedo also pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing Christina Adkins in 1995 and Pamela Pemberton in 1994.
Acevedo told authorities that they he and Pemberton were drinking with friends and later walked to Clark Field in Tremont. When Pemberton refused to have sex with him and yelled at him, he raped and strangled her, leaving her body in a wooded area where it was later discovered by neighborhood boys.
Just 2 ½ months later, Acevedo said he ran into Adkins on West 25th Street. The 18-year old was five months pregnant and was upset. Acevedo convinced her to walk with him to an area near a highway interchange. When she resisted having sex with him, he raped her.
When she threatened to tell her boyfriend and Acevedo's wife what happened, Acevedo told investigators he snapped and killed her, and put her body into a nearby utility vault, where it stayed for 18 years.
Acevedo was sentenced to 445 years in prison with no chance of parole.
Police began investigating Acevedo shortly after Castro's arrest, when—in the course of reexamining similar missing women cases from the area—they discovered that Acevedo, a convicted sex offender, had not registered his new address.
[Image via AP]