by Amanda Berry
I also get depressed and don’t want to do anything but just lay here . . . Most of the guards here are okay, but the younger ones don’t take the job seriously or they are rude to me for no apparent reason. . . . Sometimes I drift into a negative thought, I check myself and try harder not to go there.
He had two visits at this prison from relatives, including one from his mother. He was free to make phone calls but never did.
September 3: Last Day
On the morning of September 3, Brandi Ackley, a supervisor in Castro’s unit, collected his underwear to be washed. She had often seen Castro naked in his cell, and that day she noticed that Castro’s prison pants were loose and falling down. She left instructions for officers coming on duty later in the day to return Castro’s underwear when it came back from the laundry.
At 1:30 that afternoon Castro was handcuffed and escorted by guards to a meeting with prison officials to discuss his request to be placed in “protective control,” an even higher level of segregation and security. Castro was asking for that change due to “the high-profile nature of my charges” and seemed happy that this could involve a transfer to a prison closer to his family in Cleveland. He also asked about mail and family visits.
The prison officials recommended that the warden grant Castro’s request.
He was returned to his cell at 1:52 p.m., and guards checked his cell periodically throughout the afternoon.
At 5:29 a guard and a supervisor left a dinner tray at Castro’s cell. As they were walking away, Castro called them back and said there was a problem with his food. The supervisor again told him that his tray had been chosen randomly, but Castro refused to eat.
Guards checked his cell at 6:08, and at 6:30, a guard, supervisor, and nurse came to speak to him. He refused his evening hypertension medication, which prison doctors had prescribed after his arrest.
For the next two hours and twelve minutes, no one came to look in on Castro, even though regulations required checks be conducted every thirty minutes.
Alone in his cell, he placed a pocket-size Bible on his bunk and opened it to the Gospel of John, chapters two and three, which contain one of the Bible’s most well-known verses: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
He laid out several pieces of paper on the small corner desk. On one he wrote out the names of his children, including Jocelyn, and his six grandchildren. He decorated it with hearts, flowers, musical notes, a cross, the words “Daddy” and “Mommy,” and the exclamation, “God is Great!”
He carefully wrote the date, “Sept. 3, 2013,” on another piece of paper and printed several Bible verses in large capital letters, ending with, “For all are sinners, we all fall short of the glory of God.”
He stacked up ten pages of complaint forms, mostly concerning food and harassment by prison guards, which he had never submitted, adding a few pages of handwritten notes titled, “I Found God” and “A Day in the Life of a Prisoner Who Has Accepted God.” In the neat pile he also placed a letter to his mother.
“Hi Mrs. Warden,” he began another note asking for permission to call his mother. “She and I haven’t spoken in nearly 3 weeks. I would like to speak to her, for I’m concerned of her well-being and she of mine.”
He set a pair of glasses on the bed, straightened his shower shoes on the floor near the wall, and draped his towel neatly across the sink.
At 8:51 guard Ryan Murphy checked on Castro. He was standing near his cell door, staring directly at Murphy. They met eyes. Neither man spoke.
Castro wrote out one final complaint form: his underwear still hadn’t come back from the laundry.
• • •
At 9:18 p.m., twenty-seven minutes after the previous check, guard Caleb Ackley looks into Castro’s cell and sees him hanging.
Ackley yells to Murphy, who sounds an alarm and runs to join him.
Castro has tied a bedsheet around his neck and knotted the other end around the frame of the window screen. His orange prison-issue pants have fallen to his ankles.
The officers lift Castro to relieve the pressure from his neck and tear the sheet away from the window. They lie him on the floor while Murphy runs to get something to cut the sheet away from his neck. Several other guards arrive and start CPR, thinking he might still be alive.
At 9:22, prison medical officers arrive and take over the CPR. Castro is unresponsive, then . . .
9:25: Prison officials call for an ambulance.
9:49: The ambulance hasn’t arrived, so they call again.
10:05: Forty minutes after the first call, ambulance medics arrive at the cell.
10:18: Castro is loaded into the ambulance and leaves the prison. Following prison protocol, he is handcuffed.
10:46: Castro arrives at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
10:52: Thirty-three days after he was sentenced to life in prison plus a thousand years, Ariel Castro is pronounced dead.*
• • •
At 3:45 the following morning, Franklin County Coroner Jan M. Gorniak began her autopsy at the county morgue. In the cool, clinical language of postmortem exams, Gorniak described an utterly unremarkable corpse:
The body is that of a well developed, well nourished white male, compatible with the reported age of 53 years.
He was five-foot-seven and weighed 168 pounds, down from his weight of 178 when he arrived at the prison a month earlier. There were handcuff marks on his wrists; his right earlobe had a single pierced hole; and his nose, abdomen, lips, and internal organs were all normal. He had damage to his throat and bite marks on his tongue, which were consistent with Gorniak’s official ruling about the cause of death: suicide by hanging.*
Her only unusual finding was an inch-high cross, in blue ballpoint pen ink, that Castro had drawn on the left side of his chest, directly over his heart, which looked like a small plea to God from a man who knew his Judgment Day had arrived.*
Halloween 2013: Finding Peace
Amanda
It looks like a million kids are trick-or-treating on our new street, even though it’s a drizzly evening. Joce is dressed up as Blueberry Muffin, one of the Strawberry Shortcake characters, with a blue wig and striped tights. She and her cousins step outside and fall into the happy parade.
I’m still getting used to this. I walk along the street behind her and I can’t quite shake the feeling that I’m doing something wrong, that I’m breaking some rule, that I’ll be punished for walking out the door.
For too many Halloweens, I wished I could take Jocelyn outside, but all we could do was trick-or-treat at Gina and Michelle’s bedroom door. He kept the house lights off so no children would come knocking at 2207 Seymour Avenue.
I’m trying to forget all that and move on, but it’s hard. Memories come from nowhere, unsettle me, and have a way of keeping me on edge, close to tears. But day by day it gets better. I love my new home and love that I’m living under the same roof as Beth, Teddy, and their three kids. They live upstairs, and Joce and I are on the first floor.
Beth found this house online. It was in terrible shape but in a nice neighborhood, and Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage agency, had taken it over during the recession when so many houses were going into foreclosure. Jim Wooley mentioned the house to Mary and Rustom Khouri, developers and philanthropists in Cleveland, and they persuaded Freddie Mac to quietly donate it to us. The Khouris helped pay for a complete renovation, and an army of volunteers—overseen by George Shiekh Jr., owner of Cleveland Tile & Cabinet, and one of his workers, Paul Irwin—worked for three months at no cost to us. Many other kind people with busy lives, including lawyers at Jones Day, helped to replace the roof, install new HVAC, and make the place sparkle, from the new hardwood floors to the bright-pink paint in Jocelyn’s bedroom.
I placed three big
words on the wall over the fireplace: LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE. They remind me of the promise I made to myself inside Seymour that when I got out, I would remember that every moment is a gift.
So many people in Cleveland, and well beyond, donated to the Cleveland Courage Fund, set up by City Council members Matt Zone, Brian Cummins, and Dona Brady. The fund raised nearly $1.4 million, from more than ten thousand individual contributions, some of them as small as one dollar. The donations came from all fifty states and seven countries, and it was split evenly among me, Gina, Michelle, and Jocelyn. I put Joce’s money in a trust fund for her.
The Courage Fund money has bought me the time to concentrate on getting Jocelyn settled into our new life, and to learn all the ways the world has changed since I was sixteen. Whatever happened to pay phones? Now cell phones give you driving directions! There are so many things to get used to, like grocery stores. I load up my cart with food I used to dream about: strawberries, plums, kiwis, big boxes of Raisin Bran, and green beans. And, of course, ribs! I have to remind myself that I can just get a few things at a time and come back to the store whenever I want to, and he can’t stop me anymore.
I make us the most amazing breakfasts of over-easy eggs, nice and yolky with bacon and sausage—just because I can. Sometimes when I’m cooking, I go out of my way to push the pan to one side of the burner. He always demanded that it be exactly in the middle of the flame and called me names if I did it wrong. It feels liberating to do things my way, not his.
I want to finish high school, but Jocelyn comes first. Classes at the neighborhood elementary school started only a couple of weeks after he was sentenced. I didn’t think she was ready for what other kids might say, so I’m homeschooling her for one more year. We turned a small bedroom into a classroom that has lots of things we wished for on Seymour Avenue, like light pouring through the windows. We have a laptop and a printer, and a brand-new desk.
The walls are covered with harder vocabulary words:
Congruent: same shape and size.
Homographs: words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.
We study math, contractions, alliteration, proper nouns, the solar system.
I taped the alphabet to the wall, along with words that start with each letter. And at the start of every class we stand, as we did inside Seymour Avenue, put our hands over our hearts, and say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Gina and I have become closer friends than we ever were inside. It’s like we’ve started over. Joce loves it when Gina comes to visit, and she uses my phone to text her silly messages. It’s tougher between me and Michelle. We are very different people, and I think life is going to take us in different directions. We endured the unthinkable together and we’ll always have that bond. I wish her happiness.
Joce has made new friends. Some of the little girls in the neighborhood come over to play, and I’m starting to let her go to their houses. But it’s hard to let her out of my sight. When they play in the front yard, I sit on my new sofa and watch them out the window. I’m happy that she is stepping out into the world, but I’m also worried. Will she run into traffic? Will she be too trusting of others? Will kids be mean to her?
I don’t sleep much. I lie with Joce until she falls asleep, then I get up and pace, walking from room to room, trying to settle my racing mind. Seymour Avenue is like a scary movie playing over and over in my head. Because he killed himself, Joce and I will never have a chance to confront him, so I’ll never really be able to feel closure.
A few weeks ago Teddy, Beth, and I went to a yard sale and as we were loading the car, Teddy teased me and called me a “dumbass.” He was just joking, but I felt like I’d been hit by a train. I choked up and started crying.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
I snapped at him: “Don’t ever call me that again! He used to call me that, and I hate it!”
Poor Teddy was just joking, but hearing that word triggered something completely overwhelming inside me.
I don’t go out all that often. When I do, people recognize me. Everybody means so well, but it’s awkward when strangers walk up and hug me. I’m not sure what to say or how to act. I’m seeing a counselor, and she says it will take time to heal. One minute I feel whole and strong, and the next minute I feel like I am breaking.
I think about what it all means, who I am after ten years in that house. I know I’m more aware of other people’s pain. I am a believer in the power of hope—in myself and in God. But I still don’t know why this happened to me, or what lies ahead for me and Joce.
After all those years locked up in a house dreaming of getting out and being with other people, sometimes all I want to do is be by myself at home.
So at night I pace, trying to figure it all out, looking for peace.
December 11, 2013: Moving On
Gina
My tutor and I meet at a Cleveland Public Library with big windows, where I can see the snow falling outside. Diane Cook, a retired teacher, tutors me several hours a day and helps me with other skills, too, like budgeting money and studying for my written driving test.
Today we’re working on reading. I never finished seventh grade, so I have a long way to go to get my high school diploma. I’m twenty-three and sometimes I think it would be easier to just quit and get a job. But every time I say that, my mom nearly jumps out of her skin. She wants me to finish school, period.
I know she’s right, so here I am, making my way through The First Part Last by Angela Johnson, a novel about teen pregnancy. I turn to page seventy-five and start reading out loud and keep going until I reach the last line of the chapter: “Nothing has changed, but everything has.”
“What does that mean?” my teacher asks. “What’s changed?”
“He’s growing up, maybe,” I say.
This is how I am rebuilding my life, one page at a time, one day at a time.
I don’t cry much. Amanda is still a fountain of tears, but everyone is different. I try to push my locked-up years out of my head, erasing him from my mind and filling it with new and happier memories. At least that is what I want to do, and it seems to be working.
I’m starting a new life. The Gina I was, the Gina before Seymour, is gone. That innocent, introverted, and happy-go-lucky person doesn’t exist anymore, and it’s hard to let her go. But it’s what happened. So instead of dwelling on that, I’m focusing on figuring out the rest of my life. Everyone changes, anyway. Sad and violent things happened to me, and because of that I think I can help other victims, like a young girl I met recently. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me about the bad situation she grew up in. She needed someone to listen to her, and when she was finished I told her, “I’m glad that is over. Take it slow, day by day. Enjoy that it is not happening now. Enjoy the right now.” She was grateful and said that if it worked for me, it just might work for her.
I appreciate everything now: new eyeglasses, a quiet bath, squeezing all the toothpaste I want onto a new toothbrush, my mom’s pork chops. I have my own bedroom! Because of kind people who gave to the Courage Fund, my family was able to pay for an addition to our small house that my dad had been planning for years, and someone donated a privacy fence outside, too. I’ll have my license soon and just bought a little Toyota so I can drive to the mall or over to Amanda and Jocelyn’s. I couldn’t believe all the funny license-plate frames they sell, and for fun I picked out one that says YIELD TO THE PRINCESS! It’s hysterical when my dad drives my car.
While I was practicing driving, I drove my car into a really deep pothole the other day and messed up the front end. I am mad at myself for doing that, but I’m not letting it bother me. I’ve had worse problems.
I spend lots of time with my mom. We go to bingo and dance salsa in the house, but mostly we just hang out together. It’s been hard for her to get used to the idea that I’m not fourteen anymore, not a kid to co
rrect, to tell to sit up straight or not to stay out late. I understand why she still thinks of me that way, and that she wants to protect me, but I am so much older now.
I’m jumpy sometimes and wonder when that will stop. It happens over little things, sometimes just the sound of the front door opening. For years, whenever I heard a door open it was almost always bad news. My niece came close to me holding scissors the other day, and I asked her not to come near me with them again. She didn’t know about how he would use them to chop off my hair.
Sleep can be hard, and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, kicking and crying and screaming “Get off of me!” My little dog, Lala, sleeps in my room. For the few months I had her on Seymour, before he gave her away to his relatives, she slept beside me, between my legs, or even right on my pillow. Lala was in the car with him and his brother when he was arrested, and she ended up in an animal shelter. One day on the TV news, I saw her there. I told my lawyer, Heather Kimmel, that I would love to have her, and she went and rescued her for me.
I have very few things from the Seymour years. I threw away all my clothes. I have Lala and some notes and poems I wrote to my family: “I hope to see you soon so we can sit outside and watch the moon.”
I love walking outside and looking up at the sky. It may be my favorite thing. It always cheers me up to gaze up and see the sun or the moon. I wish everyone would realize how much they would miss it if they couldn’t go outside for years.
My nieces talk about Twitter, what they are googling, and how to use the GPS on their cell phone. When I first got out of Seymour Avenue, I had no idea what they were talking about, but I’m catching up with all that changed in the world between 2004 and 2013. A lot of my school friends have jobs and babies.
I feel closer to God. There were times inside when I lost my faith, or nearly did, because I couldn’t understand why God would let this happen to me. After I got out, I went to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church and I knelt there and prayed and asked God to forgive me for doubting Him.
