Ariel Castro Found Hanged to Death in his Cell
- Details
- Category: Crime
- Published on Wednesday, 04 September 2013 05:54
- Written by Janet Walker
Ariel Castro, the man found guilty of holding three Cleveland women hostage for over a decade and sentence to life plus 1000 years in prison, was found hanged to death in his prison cell.
Castro, 53, accepted a plea deal in August which spared the public and his victims a long and lengthy trial and stopped the revelations of the violence, brutality and torture suffered by the victims throughout their decade long captivity.
Castro was transferred, after his guilty verdict, to Orient Correctional Facility where he had been sequestered from the general population. In isolation guards made rounds every thirty minutes.
He was found hanged by a prison guard at approximately 9:32pm Tuesday, and was rushed to Ohio State Medical Facility where he was pronounced dead at approximately 10:30pm.
Castro, plead guilty in August to 937 charges including 512 counts of kidnapping, 446 counts of rape and 2 counts of fetal homicide. He contested 40 of the original 977 charges due to the wording explaining he was not a “violent” man.
Michele Knight, one of his victims, addressed her captor in the August 1, 2013 sentencing hearing where she said, “I spent 11 years in Hell and now you’re hell is just beginning.”
A former Cleveland bus driver, Castro left few warning signs of the severity of his crimes. It wasn’t until, May 6, 2013, when one of his captors broke down the front door and escaped that the world knew the full extent of the atrocities in the house located on Cleveland’s East side.
The three women, Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, along with Berry’s four year old daughter, were all rescued after Berry escaped the east side torture chamber, with the assistance of neighbors, and ran screaming into the street.
The other two women, each abducted within a year of each other, were rescued by Cleveland Police when they arrived on the scene.
Castro has been visited by family a few times since his transfer to Orient Correctional facility and prison officials have made it very clear that his death, considered by most as just, will be fully investigated.