The Latest Details in the Sickening Cleveland Kidnapping Case
As the investigation presses on, new details are emerging in the kidnapping case of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight, who were apparently held captive for a decade in the basement of a house in Cleveland.
Three men—Ariel Castro, who owned the house, and his brothers Pedro and Onil—have been arrested. According to law enforcement accounts, they kidnapped and kept all three women in the house for years, beating them "mercilessly" when they were pregnant:
Combined, [the victimes] were impregnated up to a total of five times — and mercilessly beaten, according to Post sources and local media.
One of the women suffered up to three miscarriages, the ABC affiliate reported.
The only surviving child of the pregnancies, a terrified 6-year-old girl, was saved from the house along with her mother, Berry.
Berry's daughter, Jocelyn, was apparently seen looking out of a window of the house, and one neighbor ran into Ariel taking her to the park, only to be told that she was the daughter of Castro's girlfriend. (Like reports of naked women on dog leashes in Castro's backyard, the sightings didn't receive a police response.)
Horrifyingly, Fox 8 reports that Knight told police there was a fourth woman at the house in 2002, when she was kidnapped:
A source further noted that Knight told police that there was another woman in the home when she got there, but one day she woke up and the woman was gone. There is writing on the wall in the basement which includes the name of a female and says, “Rest In Peace,” but police do not know if that is related to the case at this time.
Castro apparently knew Amanda Berry, who was friends with his daughter, and Gina DeJesus, with whose father he was friendly. In fact, the AP writes that Castro "helped" search for the DeJesus:
"When we went out to look for Gina, he helped pass out fliers," said Samad, a community activist who was at the hospital with DeJesus and her family on Monday night. "You know, he was friends with the family."
Antony Quiros said he was at the vigil about a year ago and saw Castro comforting Gina DeJesus' mother.
Ariel's estranged son Anthony, who in 2004 as a journalism student wrote an article about DeJesus, told MailOnline that during his periodic visits to his father since he moved out in the 1990s, he noticed that Ariel kept many parts of the house locked:
'The house was always locked,' remembered Anthony, who appeared visibly tired but reacted with poise throughout the interview. 'There were places we could never go. There were locks on the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage.' [...]
Speaking to MailOnline on Tuesday, Anthony Castro, a banker who lives in Columbus, Ohio, depicted his father as a violent, controlling man who nearly beat his mother to death in 1993 while she was recovering from brain surgery.
Other relatives were apparently still close with Ariel—just before the three brothers were arrested, they were eating at their mother's home, where Pedro and Onil lived. According to the Daily Mail, Ariel sometimes even took Jocelyn—Amanda Berry's daughter, likely by one of the Castros—to his mother's house.