by John Glatt
On April 11, Arlene Castro gave birth to a baby boy in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After hearing the news, her proud father announced his new grandson to his friends on Facebook.
“Congrats to my Rosie Arlene,” he wrote. “Wishing you a fast recovery. She gave birth to a wonderful baby boy. That makes me Gramps for the fifth time, (2boys 1girl 2boys) Love you guys!”
* * *
On April 21, Ariel Castro celebrated the tenth anniversary of Amanda Berry’s abduction with birthday cake. And as she watched TV coverage of her tenth vigil, once again Castro mingled with the crowd gathered outside the Burger King on West 110th and Lorain Avenue.
“It is an emotional landmark anniversary for one of Cleveland’s most notorious missing-persons cases,” said a Fox-8 news anchor. “It was ten years ago today that then sixteen-year-old Amanda Berry disappeared on her way home from work … and was headed home for her own birthday party. She never made it.”
The camera then zoomed in on a crowd of supporters with large posters reading, A DECADE LOST, AMANDA BERRY, WE MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU, MANDY, and WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE FAITH.
The next morning, Castro posted a cryptic message to his Facebook friends:
A REAL WOMAN WILL NOT USE THEIR CHILD AS A WEAPON TO HURT THE FATHER WHEN THE RELATIONSHIP BREAKS DOWN. DO NOT LOSE SITE [SIC] OF THE FACT THAT IT IS THE CHILD THAT SUFFERS.
“True that,” commented Castro on his posting, which was liked by two of his Facebook friends.
* * *
The last week of April, Ariel Castro, Jr., arrived at 2207 Seymour Avenue to visit his father. The thirty-one-year-old banker was in Cleveland for the weekend and his dad had asked him to stop by his house before he went back to Columbus.
“When I pulled up,” said Ariel, Jr., “he poked his head out from the back of the house and waved me to the backyard.”
As he was not invited inside the house, they spoke in the yard. During the conversation, Castro suddenly asked his son if he thought Amanda Berry would ever be found. When Ariel, Jr., replied that she was probably dead after so many years missing, his father replied, “Really? You think so?”
* * *
On Thursday afternoon, May 2, Ricky Sanchez came over to 2207 Seymour Avenue, after Ariel Castro expressed interest in a bass guitar he was selling.
“We [had] become friends on Facebook,” said Sanchez, “and he saw a bass guitar that I had for sale and [wanted] me to come and show it to him.”
The musician, who had been visiting Castro’s house for many years, was one of the few people he ever allowed inside.
“I’d been there about forty-five minutes,” Sanchez recalled, “when a little girl walked into the room from the kitchen at the back of the house. I was a regular visitor in that house and I’d never seen her before.”
Then a grinning Castro asked if he had ever met his granddaughter before, telling the little girl to say hello.
“I said hi to her but she never said hi to me,” said Sanchez.
Then Castro took the girl gently by the hand and led her out of the living room. Sanchez thought it “strange,” as he knew all Castro’s kids and grandkids, and had never seen the little girl before. Castro came back into the room, and soon afterward Sanchez heard a loud banging sound coming from upstairs.
“It was a low-pitched thump-thump,” said Sanchez. “I couldn’t tell where it was coming from in that old house.”
When he asked what it was, Castro said he had some dogs on the second floor, and then turned up the radio.
After Ricky Sanchez left, Ariel Castro posted a photograph of the new bass guitar he had bought on Facebook, with the comment, “I know ‘quality’ when I see it, very nice.”
And a few hours later, he posted another, more cryptic message: “Miracles really do happen. God is good:)”
* * *
At around 1:00 P.M. on Sunday, May 5, Ariel Castro took Jocelyn to Roberto Clementi Park in his red pickup truck as usual. His neighbor Israel Lugo, who was there playing with his daughter, watched him pull up.
“He had a little kid with him,” said Lugo, “a beautiful little girl. Ariel was acting all happy families. He got out of the truck and went to the corner bakery and got the girl a pastry.”
Then Castro brought Jocelyn into the park to play with Lugo’s small daughter.
“We were sitting there talking as we watched the kids playing,” Lugo recalled, “and I asked him, ‘Whose kid is this, Ariel?’ He told me, ‘It’s my girlfriend’s daughter’s kid.’ It’s like they were a family.”
The two little girls played together for about an hour, before Ariel Castro fetched Jocelyn, helped her into his red truck and drove off.
After leaving the park, Castro drove Jocelyn back to 2207 Seymour Avenue. Then around 5:30 P.M. his brothers Pedro and Onil arrived and waited in front of the house.
“Ariel came out to speak to them at one point,” said neighbor Ailsa Laboy, “and then went back in the house.”
Soon afterward, Angie Castro arrived and went in to have dinner with her father.
THREE
FREEDOM
24
DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL
Just after 4:00 P.M. on Monday, May 6, Ariel Castro poked his head into Michelle and Gina’s bedroom, announcing he was going to his mother’s house to collect dinner. Soon afterward, little Jocelyn started running up and down the stairs, yelling, “Daddy’s gone to Grandma’s house! Daddy’s gone to Grandma’s house!”
She then ran into her mother’s room, saying, “Daddy told me to come up here and stay.”
Amanda’s initial reaction was to lie still and not do anything, in case it was another one of his traps to see if she would try to escape. But eventually she peeked outside and saw Castro’s blue sports convertible had gone.
Her bedroom door was not locked, as it usually was, so she opened it and went downstairs. Then she tried the front door, which to her amazement was unlocked. Taking a big breath, she opened the door, but the three-panel screen door in front of it was chain-locked.
Amanda peered through the thick glass, and saw Aurora Marti and her two neighbors sitting on the porch of the house straight opposite. That’s when she started pounding on the glass with her fists as hard as she could, to get their attention.
“I kept hitting the glass,” she later told police, “but the glass was so thick it wouldn’t break.”
Then she screamed, “Help me! I’m Amanda Berry! Help me! I’m Amanda Berry!” as she stuck her hand through the narrow opening between the door and the frame, and started waving frantically. Eventually, she saw them stand up and come down off the porch, and start walking toward her.
As they approached, a man told her to break the glass on the screen door. She tried to hit it again and again, but it wouldn’t break.
At that point, another man eating a hamburger approached from the driveway, to see what was happening. He told her to kick out the bottom panel as it was the thinnest one, and he kicked it too from the outside.
After a few hefty kicks from both of them the frame started to bend, and Amanda managed to push the rest of it out with her hands. Then she crawled out, reaching back in to bring out Jocelyn.
* * *
Terrified Ariel Castro would return, Amanda scooped up Jocelyn, who was screaming for her “daddy,” and ran across the street to Altagracia Tejeda’s house, begging for a phone. Altagracia handed her the landline phone and Amanda dialed 911.
“Help me, I’m Amanda Berry,” she yelled.
“Do you need police, fire or ambulance?” replied the 911 operator.
“I need police.”
“What’s going on there?” asked the operator.
“I’ve been kidnapped. I’ve been missing ten years. I’m here. I’m free now.”
Then Amanda implored the dispatcher to send help immediately, before “he” could get back.
“Who’s the guy who went out?” asked the operator casually.
“His name is Ariel Castro.”
<
br /> “How old is he?”
“He’s like fifty-two. I’m Amanda Berry. I’ve been on the news for the last ten years!”
“And you said … what was his name again?” said the 911 operator.
“Ariel Castro.”
“And is he white, black or Hispanic?”
“Hispanic,” replied Amanda.
“What’s he wearing?”
“I don’t know because he’s not here right now,” cried Amanda hysterically.
“Okay, the police are on their way. Talk to them when they get there,” said the 911 operator, who then hung up.
A few feet away, Charles Ramsey had also called 911 and was speaking to another dispatcher on his cell phone.
“Hey, check this out,” he said. “I just came from McDonald’s, right? I’m on my porch, eating my food, right? This broad is tryin’ to break out of the fuckin’ house next to me. She’s like, ‘This motherfucker done kidnapped me and my daughter and we been in this bitch.’ She said her name was Linda Berry or some shit. I don’t know who the fuck that is. I just moved here, bro.”
“Can you ask her if she needs an ambulance?” asked the startled dispatcher.
“She need everything. She’s in a panic, bro,” yelled Ramsey. “I think she been kidnapped so, you know, put yourself in her shoes.”
* * *
At 5:54 P.M., Cleveland police officers Anthony Espada and Michael Tracy drew up outside 2207 Seymour Avenue, where a small crowd was already gathering. Two minutes earlier they had received a call to investigate a woman claiming to be Amanda Berry. After so many false alarms over the last decade, the two officers were wary.
“We pull up,” said Officer Espada. “We see a crowd on the porch … and this girl raising her hand, holding a child. I’m looking at my partner. ‘Is it her?’ He’s like, ‘I can’t tell.’”
As Officer Tracy parked outside the house, the female ran over holding a screaming little girl.
“Before I could even stop the car,” said Tracy, “she was there at the window. And I … recognized her as Amanda Berry. I look at my partner and it was like something out of the movies, when you look at each other in disbelief. [We] can’t believe it’s her right there.”
Then Amanda pointed across the road to 2207 Seymour Avenue, saying Ariel Castro had imprisoned her there for ten years.
“We figured he might still be in the house,” said Espada. “My partner immediately asked her, ‘Is there anyone else inside?’ And she said, ‘Yes, Gina DeJesus and [Michelle Knight].’ And it was just like another bombshell with overwhelming force just hitting me.”
Then, after radioing the Second District Station that they had found Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus and another girl might still be inside the house, the two officers dashed across Seymour Avenue.
At 5:57 P.M., police officer Barbara Johnson arrived at Seymour Avenue to assist them. She had been writing a report at the station when the call came in about a possible Amanda Berry distress call.
“I was hoping it was true,” she said. “I wanted to be there if that was the case.”
Officer Johnson jumped into her patrol car, turned on her flashing lights and siren and raced through the West Side. She pulled up outside 2210 Seymour Avenue, just in time to see Officers Espada and Tracy running across the street.
“I followed them over to the house,” said Johnson. “Officer Espada advised me that Amanda Berry was across the street and she’d escaped … and there were others in the house.”
Unsure if Amanda’s kidnappers were in the house, the officers drew their firearms and proceeded cautiously. Officer Tracy then crawled through the broken bottom panel of the storm door, but was unable to open it as it was still chained shut. Then Officer Vasile Nan crawled in after him and they kicked the storm door open.
* * *
After Ariel Castro had left for his mother’s house, Michelle and Gina had turned on the radio, flipping through the stations for music to dance to. Then they heard Jocelyn run into Amanda’s room next door, yelling that her daddy had gone to Grandma’s house, followed by the sound of footsteps going downstairs.
Michelle assumed that Castro had summoned Jocelyn and Amanda downstairs, so the three of them could spend a few hours together in the living room, as they often did.
“The next thing I know I hear pounding,” Michelle would later tell Dr. Phil. “So I [tell] Gina, ‘Turn down the radio. Something’s going on downstairs.’”
They turned down the radio and there was a few seconds of silence, before an even louder pounding on the front door.
“I was like, ‘Well, something’s going on,’” said Michelle. “We’re scared. We’re terrified. We thought somebody was breaking in because it was a bad neighborhood.”
Suddenly, there was a loud explosive noise. Michelle whispered, “Hide,” and they hid behind the dresser.
* * *
After entering 2207 Seymour Avenue, Officers Tracy and Nan went into the basement with their guns drawn, while Espada and Johnson went up to the second floor. Although it was bright sunshine outside, the house was pitch black. Officer Johnson turned on a flashlight attached to her drawn weapon, to see where they were going.
“I had to climb over … furniture to get up the steps,” she recalled. “As we got to the top of the steps, there was a big heavy curtain and … Officer Espada pushed it over to the side.”
Then Espada yelled, “Cleveland police! Cleveland police!” as he held the curtain open for Johnson to come through.
“I took a quick look to the right and he went to the left,” she said. “I saw a room with kids’ toys [but] I didn’t see anybody inside.”
Then Officer Johnson yelled out, “Police!”
* * *
Inside the pink bedroom, Michelle and Gina huddled together behind the dresser, as they heard footsteps coming up the stairs. The two women were trembling, thinking robbers were about to burst in and kill them.
Michelle then heard a woman’s voice shouting, “Police!” but was suspicious, telling Gina anyone could say that. But then they heard the sound of a police walkie-talkie.
Tiptoeing to the door, Michelle looked out. At first all that she could see in the dark was a blue sleeve, so she went back inside. She whispered to Gina, who followed her through the connecting door to Amanda and Jocelyn’s bedroom, where they hid behind a TV cabinet.
Seconds later, the door opened and Michelle saw Officers Johnson and Espada come in with their guns drawn, their silver police badges gleaming in the flashlight.
“Is anyone in here?” asked Espada, and Michelle came out running and jumped into his arms.
* * *
As officers searched 2207 Seymour Avenue, Amanda Berry and Jocelyn waited in the back of an EMS wagon. Inside, Amanda warned police officers Harrigan and Daugenti that Ariel Castro was probably close by, and would be driving a 1993 blue Mazda Miata.
At 5:55 P.M. an APB went out to pick up Castro immediately. Several minutes later police officers Brill and Hageman spotted his distinctive sports car a few blocks away, heading north on West Thirty-third Street. They followed it for a couple of minutes, before it pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot on Clark Avenue.
At 6:04 P.M. the officers called for reinforcements and walked over to the car, asking Ariel Castro, who was driving, for his ID. When his younger brother, Onil, asked if they wanted to see his too, the officers went for their weapons.
The Castro brothers were then separated, read their rights and handcuffed. Then they were taken to police headquarters. When they arrived, Ariel Castro looked unfazed and didn’t say a word, but his visibly nervous younger brother was most talkative.
“If there is something going on,” Onil told the officers, “you have to talk to Pedro about it. He’s at our mom’s house on Hyde.”
Onil explained their older brother had passed out drunk in the backyard of their mother’s house after lunch. Then Ariel gave the officers her address, asking them to make sure the two dogs in
the back of his car were taken care of.
A few minutes later, two Cleveland police officers arrived at Lillian Rodriguez’s home at 3617 Hyde Avenue, where they found Pedro Castro lying unconscious in the backyard, naked to the waist. He was patted down and handcuffed, before being driven to the Cleveland Police Second District, where his two brothers were being photographed, fingerprinted and processed.
After putting on orange jail scrubs, the three Castro brothers were then taken to Cleveland City Jail, with blankets over their heads, to be booked.
* * *
After Michelle Knight threw herself into Officer Anthony Espada’s arms, she refused to let go.
“She just kept repeating, ‘You saved us! You saved us!’” said Officer Johnson. “I told her, ‘It’s okay, honey, you’re safe. She then … jumped in my arms, as I’m trying to reholster my weapon.”
Then, as Officer Tracy joined them, Espada asked Michelle if there was anyone else inside the house, and she said there was. The two officers then gently tried to coax Gina out.
“And it seemed like an eternity,” said Johnson, “but all of a sudden you see another face peeping around the corner of the doorway. Officer Esapada asked her, ‘What’s your name?’ and she said, ‘Georgina DeJesus.’”
It took Johnson a few seconds to recognize the emaciated cropped-haired girl that emerged from the shadows, bearing little resemblance to all the MISSING posters she had seen over the last ten years.
“She was a lot thinner,” said Johnson, “and pale compared to the pictures. She had real short hair and was real thin and pale. But you could see the resemblance.”
But the sight of Michelle, now thirty-two, who had never had a MISSING poster, was even more startling.
“I thought she was a little girl,” recalled Johnson, “until I put her down and got a good look at her, and realized she was a grown woman. She was very, very scared.”
Then Michelle started hyperventilating and struggling for breath, and Johnson radioed for an ambulance.
