by John Glatt
“And my heart stopped beating,” Castro later told detectives, “and I was like, ‘Okay, she’s probably catching on to something.’”
Castro then made an excuse and changed the subject. From then on he stopped inviting her to his house, saying he had more rehearsals to go to.
“When we first met he only played on weekends,” said Lillian. “And then all of a sudden he had to rehearse Wednesdays and then play Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. And the relationship was going down. I told him, ‘Why don’t I stay with you more?’”
Now Castro would stay over at Lillian’s house and even had his own key. But he never gave her any money for anything.
“When he was living with me,” Lillian said, “I used to pay for everything.”
* * *
Ariel Castro was now a member of the Roberto Ocasio Latin Jazz Project, one of Cleveland’s top Latin bands. But he was erratic and often failed to turn up for rehearsals or shows.
“He wouldn’t call,” said Daisy Cortes, who was engaged to the band’s director, Roberto Ocasio. “He wouldn’t show up.”
At that time, Cortes was a news anchor for a Cleveland Spanish TV station, and often covered the Amanda Berry story. During set breaks Castro would seek her out, when she was sitting with her nine-year-old daughter, Bianca, asking for the latest news on the case.
“I was helping to find that girl,” said Cortes in 2013. “I was sharing the story with him.”
As Cortes told him what she had heard through the police grapevine about the Amanda Berry case, Castro would just say, “wow, wow,” as he ran his fingers through Bianca’s hair.
“No emotion at all,” recalled Cortes. “Nothing.”
* * *
Several years earlier, Emily Castro, now fifteen, had been diagnosed with manic depression and put on strong medication. The troubled girl had been expelled from Wilbur Wright Middle School in eighth grade and was now at a special school studying for her high school diploma. At times she would stop taking her prescribed medications and become unstable.
Nilda Figueroa blamed Ariel Castro for their daughter’s problems, wanting him to have as little to do with her as possible. But in early 2003, Castro started taking more interest in his two youngest daughters, Emily and Arlene, and would arrive without warning to take them out.
“He was trying to make our lives miserable,” said their stepfather, Fernando Colon. “He would just show up and ask to take the kids.”
One afternoon, when Castro drove Emily back to her home on West 110th Street, Nilda confronted him in the street about taking her. As they argued, Emily went back inside the house.
A couple of minutes later, Fernando Colon came out to see what was happening. When Castro saw him coming he walked back to his van. But Colon came after him, ordering him to leave the children alone.
“At first he was arguing with my mother,” said Ariel, Jr., who witnessed it. “And then Fernando came out … to back her up. So my father and my stepfather were also arguing.”
Then, after swearing to get even with his rival, Ariel Castro drove off in a fury.
* * *
One day, Ariel Castro unlocked Michelle Knight’s chains and took her to the bedroom, where he was holding Amanda Berry. Michelle told him that she didn’t want to go inside, as she was naked.
“Basically I was embarrassed,” said Michelle. “I didn’t want to walk in front of [Amanda] being naked. And he was like, ‘Well, she’s got the same thing you have. You can come in the room.’”
When Michelle finally went in, she and Amanda hugged each other, as Castro left them alone for a couple of minutes. Michelle noticed Amanda had a chain around her ankle, although she had tried to hide it.
“I finally got to see where [Amanda] was at,” said Michelle. “We’re sitting there … and she told me, ‘I think I remember you from school.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I remember you.’”
Then Castro returned and took Michelle back to her room and chained her up again.
“It was like a big hug and bye,” recalled Michelle. “He wouldn’t let us stay in the same room for that long.”
Although the two captives were chained up in adjoining bedrooms, they were too scared to talk to each other, even when Castro was out working.
“We weren’t allowed,” said Michelle. “If we did we would have got into trouble.”
Over the first year of Amanda’s imprisonment, they saw each other only a half-dozen times. On several occasions the teenager broke down crying, and Michelle would comfort her.
“I’d tell her everything will be okay,” she said. “That one day we’ll get home.”
But Michelle could see how much better Amanda was being treated than she was. Castro provided Amanda better food and living conditions than he did Michelle, who was his “punching bag.”
“He will always say,” recalled Michelle, “‘I don’t want to make her cry. I don’t want to make her upset.’ He would try and make her happy instead of sad. He treated her halfway decent … and let her have whatever she wanted because she was the new girl.”
And whenever Amanda refused his sexual demands, Castro would go to Michelle’s bedroom.
“[If] she wouldn’t comply with him,” said Michelle, “he’ll come into my room and he’d be like, ‘Well, she won’t do it so you have to.’ And if I didn’t do it, he would force it on me.”
* * *
That August, in the midst of a sweltering summer with no air-conditioning, Michelle Knight became pregnant for the third time. As she baked in the stifling heat in her tiny six-by-six-foot bedroom, it took several months for Ariel Castro to make her miscarry. Michelle later told police that he stopped feeding her for several weeks, as well as punching and jumping on her stomach.
“He would beat and starve me until I aborted,” she said. “He would kick me. He would punch me and jump on my stomach. He [took] a barbell and hit me right in the stomach.”
* * *
On August 18, 2003, almost four months after Amanda Berry went missing, her mother held a prayer vigil outside Burger King on West 110th Street. Holding a homemade MISSING poster of Amanda, Louwana led one hundred supporters in a solemn walk from Burger King to her home.
Interviewed by a local TV crew, Louwana speculated that Amanda must have got into the car with somebody she knew. And she revealed that she had left numerous messages on her daughter’s cell phone, which somebody had erased to make room for more.
“Somebody cleared [her phone] out twice,” said Miller. “It was still taking messages. Then it stopped.”
Louwana Miller was now often on the local TV news, and if ever Michelle saw her, she’d turn up the TV so Amanda could hear her mother’s voice.
“If her mom was on TV, I would blast [it],” said Michelle, “so she can turn on hers. And then I’ll quickly turn it down because you never knew when he’s there.”
* * *
On September 1, Ariel Castro made his TV debut, playing live in the Fox-8 studio in a pickup band on the morning news show. The smartly dressed bassist looked like he didn’t have a care in the world as he smiled for the camera.
Twelve days later, eleven-year-old Shakira Johnson went missing on the East Side of Cleveland. The little girl was last seen at a block party, and over the next few days hundreds of volunteers searched the area looking for any signs of her.
The sixth-grader’s disappearance shocked Cleveland and highlighted the other 2,700 missing persons reports so far in 2003.
A week later, community groups held a rally outside Burger King on West 110th Street to support Amanda Berry, now missing for five months. That same day Regina Brett wrote another column about the case.
“It’s like she fell off the face of the earth,” Louwana was quoted as saying. “I’m just about ready to crack up.”
Louwana said that at first she thought that Amanda was being kept prisoner but now she feared the worst.
“I don’t think my baby’s coming home,” she sobbed. “It’s ju
st been too long.”
FBI Special Agent Robert Hawk said the case was still under active investigation, with agents tracking down new leads that were now coming in after Shakira Johnson’s disappearance.
“We’re working on it every day,” said Hawk. “We haven’t given up.”
On October 20, Shakira’s decomposed body was found in a field near East 71st Street and a murder investigation was launched.
The following day, Louwana Miller was interviewed on WEWS-TV news, in a story marking the six-month anniversary of Amanda’s disappearance. And watching the news that night at 2207 Seymour Avenue were Ariel Castro and Michelle Knight.
“Tattered fliers are all that’s left to remind us that Amanda Berry vanished six months ago,” said a voiceover. “And that left her mother’s dreams for a bright future in tatters.”
Then a tearful Louwana Miller pleaded for anyone with any information about Amanda to call the FBI.
“It’s just getting harder and harder,” she sobbed, “to know that your daughter fell off the face of the earth and nobody knows where she’s at. If anybody knows anything about my daughter [please] come forward, because somebody out there knows something.”
At the end of the news segment, Ariel Castro laughed and started taunting Michelle.
“You see that?” he asked her. “At least somebody’s looking for her. But who’s looking for you? Not a soul. That’s because you don’t mean nothin’ to nobody.”
* * *
In late October, Ariel Castro broke off his three-and-a-half-year relationship with Lillian Roldan. He was now actively planning to take a third girl, and with his full-time job and playing gigs every weekend, he had little time left for traditional romantic entanglements.
One afternoon, Lillian arrived home from work to find a letter from Castro lying on her kitchen table.
“I opened the letter,” she said, “and it said that he loved me, but not enough to have a long relationship.”
Heartbroken, Lillian then called Castro, demanding that he come over and tell her they were over, face-to-face.
Then he drove over and explained how he now had too many commitments to have a proper relationship.
“But he told me not to hesitate,” said Lillian, “if I ever needed anything from him. So I said, ‘Okay.’”
Jovita Marti said her best friend was devastated after the breakup, and she spent many hours consoling Lillian.
“She was heartbroken,” said Jovita, “because she really loved him. She was crying a lot.”
* * *
On Saturday, November 15, the top-rated TV show America’s Most Wanted featured a segment on Amanda Berry’s disappearance. For months, Louwana Miller had been pitching the producers to run a segment on her daughter, and her persistence had finally paid off.
The day of the show, FBI Special Agent Robert Hawk told the Plain Dealer that investigators now believed the mysterious telephone calls to Louwana, the week after Amanda went missing, had come from her kidnapper.
“That leads us to believe she was not a runaway,” he told reporters. “Someone had control of her cell phone.”
Special Agent Hawk said the caller’s voice sounded like that of a man between eighteen to thirty years of age. Initially, Louwana had thought it might be a prank, as the call came immediately after her daughter’s photo was shown on television for the first time. But finally, seven months later, the FBI had confirmed it had definitely come from Amanda’s cell phone.
“I would just hope that after this America’s Most Wanted show, somebody out there will say something,” said Louwana, “so I could see her for her eighteenth birthday.”
* * *
Five days later, Cleveland police officially removed Michelle Knight’s name from the FBI’s NCIC (National Crime Information Center) database of missing persons. A Cleveland police spokesman would later explain it had been removed fifteen months after she went missing, as they had been unable to contact Barbara Knight to establish if she had been found.
* * *
On November 17, a twenty-five-year-old repairman named Daniel Hines was arrested for Shakira Johnson’s murder. Thirteen months later a jury returned a not-guilty verdict and Shakira’s killer has never been found.
* * *
On Christmas Day, Amanda Berry sat in her bedroom at 2207 Seymour Avenue watching the WEWS-TV news, when her mother was interviewed about her first holiday without her.
“Nobody tells me anything,” said a frustrated Louwana. “I just sit here and if I don’t figure it out myself, it don’t get figured out. That’s not right.”
Louwana said it was going to be a lonely Christmas without Amanda, as the camera panned in on a pile of gift-wrapped presents lying under the tree.
“We’ll have a few gifts for her,” she said, “hoping that she was … here to open them. To eat dinner with us. But it didn’t happen. They’re still waiting for her.”
Then Amanda’s grandmother Fern Gentry held up Amanda’s missing-persons poster, appealing for anyone with any information about Amanda to come forward.
“We thought she’d be knocking on the door at Christmas,” said Gentry, “and we were disappointed again. So I’m begging everybody out there, please, please help us find her.”
* * *
On January 11, 2004, Ariel Castro’s father, Pedro Castro, Sr., died, leaving behind an estate worth more than $260,000. The successful used-car dealer’s money was split equally among his nine children, with each receiving $11,037. Ariel was also left a 1997 Chevy Malibu, valued at $1,500; Pedro, Jr., inherited a 1988 Buick, valued at $600; and Onil received a 1993 Ford Tempo, valued at just $150.
Two weeks later, Cleveland police arrived at 2207 Seymour Avenue to investigate Ariel Castro for abduction and child endangerment. That morning, Castro had picked up two elementary school children, who had to go to different schools. After dropping off one of the children, he drove to a Wendy’s restaurant for lunch, ordering the remaining child, a four-year-old boy, to the back of his bus.
“Lay down, bitch!” he told the child, as he locked up the school bus and went into the restaurant. After eating his lunch, Castro returned to the bus and drove around for a while, before dropping off the student at the elementary school two hours after first picking him up.
After the boy’s mother complained he had missed his class, two Cleveland police officers arrived at Ariel Castro’s house to interview him about the incident. They knocked several times and when there was no answer, they left, never bothering to return.
The incident was also investigated by Cleveland’s Child and Family Services, who found that the complaint against Castro for child abuse and neglect was “unsubstantiated.”
“I didn’t cause no near accident or anything,” Castro told his supervisor in a letter.
However, he was later brought before a Cleveland School District disciplinary hearing, and suspended from work for sixty days without pay.
* * *
On the last day of January, Cleveland bandleader Roberto Ocasio was tragically killed in a car accident. On hearing the news, Ariel Castro telephoned Ocasio’s fiancée, Daisy Cortes, to offer his help.
“He was the first person to call me for the condolence,” recalled Cortes. “And he said, ‘Well, I’m here for you if you need me.’”
* * *
At the end of February 2004, the body of a young girl was found near the Mexican border in El Centro, Texas. It bore similarities to Amanda Berry, and the FBI ordered forensic tests to determine if it was she.
Special Agent Hawk told Louwana Miller that her daughter’s body might have been found, but it could take days before the tests could be completed.
“I’ve been up for two days, and I haven’t eaten for two weeks,” Louwana Miller told the Plain Dealer on March 5. “How long do I have to wait for an answer?”
Two days later, Special Agent Hawk informed Louwana that it was not Amanda’s body, as the dental records did not match.
�
�We’re still working the case,” Hawk told the Plain Dealer, “and we remain optimistic.”
* * *
In late March, Ariel Castro came into Michelle Knight’s room and unchained her. He told her that a new girl would soon be arriving and she had to help him prepare another room.
“I had to help drill holes in the wall,” said Michelle, “to put the chains through to hook us together. He had told me he was bringing somebody in the house … and to be very quiet.”
10
GINA
Felix DeJesus had gone to school with Ariel Castro, and they were old friends. They came from two of Cleveland’s most prominent Puerto Rican families, which went back a long way.
His fourteen-year-old daughter, Georgina, whom everyone knew as Gina, was also best friends with Arlene Castro. They were both in the seventh grade at Wilbur Wright Middle School, although Gina was taking special education classes and still learning to read.
At 2:30 P.M. on Friday, April 2, the two girls left Wilbur Wright together, walking toward West 105th Street and Lorain Avenue. It was a rainy afternoon and Gina was wearing a white coat, a sky blue sweater, jeans and white tennis shoes, her long curly brown hair tied in a ponytail.
They planned to go to Gina’s house for a few hours to play, but first Arlene needed permission from her mother. They found a pay phone and Gina handed Arlene fifty cents for the call. But Nilda Figueroa said Arlene could not go over to Gina’s, as Arlene had been grounded for bad behavior.
Gina good-naturedly said it was okay and she’d walk home instead, as she no longer had the $1.25 for bus fare. Then after saying good-bye to Arlene, she started home.
* * *
A few minutes earlier, Ariel Castro had arrived at Wilbur Wright Middle School in his maroon Jeep Cherokee, looking for Arlene. After getting permission from the security guard, Castro had gone into the school but could not find his daughter. Then he came out and started driving around looking for her.
Later he would tell police that sex had been on his mind when he first spotted Gina outside the school with his thirteen-year-old daughter Arlene. He said he had been “attracted” by Gina’s “cleavage.”
