Ep. 123 | The Cleveland 3 Kidnappings

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  He was the last person anyone suspected. To the people who passed him on the street, he was no one to fear. Just a familial face in the neighborhood. No one looked at him and would have guessed what he was or what he was capable of. But behind that ordinary face and behind the closed doors of his house, something sinister was taking shape. And they would pay a horrible price. This is the story of Ariel Castro and the Cleveland Three. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder. All things that I love to consume, and I know you do too, you sick, disturbed, and intellectually mad at freak. And today, we're talking about a very infamous case. And a case I feel like doesn't get covered to its full extent.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  So, without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go muck fight on the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust through the windshield into this infamous case together.

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• 3:58Speaker 02

  Thank you so much to Cash App for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel. And let's get back to it. Ariel Castro was born on July 10, 1960, in Dewey, a mountain village outside Yauco in Puerto Rico's Coffee Country. And the Castro family held much of the land in a stretch called La Para, which had made them the leading family in the area for generations. However, their standing did not spare them from poverty. And Ariel was born in his father's wooden shack at the top of a hill with no electricity and no plumbing. And his father had to make a Jeep run to a distant well in the mornings so the family could drink and wash. Now, his father was named Pedro Castro, also known as Nona. And his mother was Lilian Rodriguez.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  And Ariel was their third child in a lineup of four. He had an older sister and a brother, Marisol, Alicia, and Pedro Jr., and a younger brother, O'Neil. So when Ariel was small, his father took up with a woman who lived close by and secretly split his life between the two households for years. And Lilian found out in 1962, and Pedro left for good, moving in with the other woman and marrying her not long after. And Lilian moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, to live with her father, leaving her four small kids behind to live with their grandmother. So they just got abandoned right out the gate. And Ariel eventually wrote that both his father and his mother had abandoned him and that his grandmother raised him.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  And years later, Castro would tell a psychiatrist that an older boy had sexually abused him at the age of five for more than a year. And after he was asked why he never reported it, he said, "People who are abused keep quiet, so I did." So Lilian would eventually send for Ariel and his siblings to come live with her in Reading in 1966. And they did. And Ariel said that she beat him almost daily with belts, sticks, and an open hand, along with verbal abuse as well. And he prayed for her to die. And Pedro moved to Cleveland in 1968, along with his other family. And he had relatives there and opened a used car lot that soon prospered.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  And his brothers followed suit, opening a grocery store on Seymour Avenue and the city's first Latino record store. And Lilian brought her children to Cleveland in 1970, by which point the Castros became one of the city's leading Puerto Rican families, just like they were back in Puerto Rico. And they even bankrolled a social club and a yearly festival honoring the town they came from. But in 1971, federal agents raided one of the family stores in an illegal lottery sting and seized cash and guns from 11 relatives, including Pedro. So some shady dealings were happening. And in school, Ariel's performance was below average as a student, but he made up for it with his extracurricular activities. He wrestled, played softball, and joined the band.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  And his behavior left much to be desired, though. And in junior high, he was suspended for touching a girl's breast and disciplined for fighting. Music was the exception for him, though. And an uncle gave him a guitar one Christmas, and he fell in love with it. And he demonstrated natural musical ability and entertained at Castro family gatherings. And he taught himself bass, and the family noticed his gift pretty early on. And his uncle, Sessi, who gave him the guitar, said, "He had the smarts. There are very few people who can teach themselves how to play bass." Now, at Lincoln West High, he joined his first Latin band and played in local churches. And classmates remembered him as an outgoing, well-liked kid with a good family.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  And he graduated in 1979, near the bottom of his class, mind you, and then drifted through a number of routine jobs. And while working and living at home with his mom and two brothers, he also spent his time making a name as one of the city's rising young Latin musicians. And the music brought money, and he spent it on cars, motorbikes, sharp clothes, and instruments. And in early 1980, Lilian moved the family to a house on Burr Avenue, a mile away from the previous living space. And across the street lived a shy Puerto Rican girl named Grimilla or Nilda Figueroa. And Castro would compliment her whenever they passed. And she liked being noticed by him. Now, Nilda was 17 when Ariel began really pursuing her.

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  And he invited her to see one of his shows, and within a week, they were together. And she went to see him play a number of times in the weeks that followed and was smitten with him. And one evening, she decided to give him her virginity, only to have her mother waiting for the two of them when he drove her home. And she had a talk with Ariel and told him, "Now you have to take her." And she moved into his room that night. And she would stay with him as his common-law wife for well over a decade. Some moms ground their kids, but, uh... He had to literally, basically get married to the woman, my goodness. And they soon moved into their own place after Nilda first became pregnant. And together, they had four children.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  First, a son named Ariel Anthony Castro Jr., who they called Anthony. And eventually, three daughters, Angie, Emily, Lisette, and Arlene. Now, Ariel was overjoyed with his first child. And he regularly had Nilda bring him to the shows to show him off. And Nilda's sister, Alita, said, "He was a nice guy. He was really good to my sister at the beginning." And the rest of the family liked him, too. But his behavior towards Nilda shifted shortly after Anthony was born. And Alita said further, "He just started being too controlling, too possessive. And he would abuse her. I think having the child made him feel she was his property." And the violence was a fixture of the relationship almost from the start.

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  And it continued for years. And the injuries started to pile up. Broken noses, broken ribs, teeth knocked out, shoulders dislocated, head injuries, et cetera.

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  even surfaced in police records more than once. And on September 30th, 1989, Nilda called police after Castro slapped her and threw her against a wall and a washing machine multiple times. And she was treated for a bruised shoulder and said he had assaulted her before. And on December 26, 1993, she reported him again. He threw her to the ground, struck her head and face and kicked her. And Anthony, their now 12-year-old son, ran from the house and Castro chased him. But almost nothing came of it. And after the 1989 report, the case went to prosecutors and no charge was ever filed, which is so incredibly sad. The system completely failed Nilda. And after the 1993 assault, he was arrested, but he pleaded guilty only to

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  disorderly conduct. And Nilda did not want to press charges, but a prosecutor did anyway, luckily. And when a grand jury weighed the domestic violence charge, they declined to indict, unfortunately. And other complaints against him, including threats to neighbors, were also referred to prosecutors and went nowhere. And in April, 1992, Castro would eventually buy a house of his own, and the family moved in together. And the house was 2207 Seymour Avenue, a two-story wood frame home built in 1892 with four bedrooms and about 1,400 square feet. And for a century, it had been a working-class address, first built by a Cleveland firefighter on a street that had shifted from a German

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  enclave to the heart of the city's Puerto Rican community. And Castro had bought it from his uncle, Edwin, who owned a record store nearby. And under that roof, the abuse would unfortunately escalate. And Castro controlled the household from the beginning. He sealed off parts of the house fully, nailing windows shut and putting locks on the basement, attic, and garage. And he also made the house hard to see into, and a chain-link fence and an eight-foot wooden barricade walled off the backyard. And a neighbor, Verdi Adams, said, quote, unquote, "You couldn't see anything." He made sure he couldn't see into his backyard. But regardless of this extremely shitty and shifty

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  behavior, Castro wore a pretty friendly face out and about. He drove a Cleveland school bus for work, played bass in a local band, and went to church on Sundays. And relatives and acquaintances called him polite and, quote, unquote, "cool." He was a bass player, a "sweet and happy person," they would say. And neighbors would see more of a private, quiet man. And Aurora Marty would say he was easygoing. But she noticed the windows never opened, with blinds over the big ones and plywood over small. Quote, "At nighttime, the only light you would see would be the porch light, but nothing inside, no lights at all," unquote. And Anthony Westry noted, "He would let neighbors ride his three- and four-wheelers in the snow, but he'd always be

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  waiting outside for them to return." Quote, "He was always creepy, standoffish, but never to the point where you'd be overly suspicious. I just thought he was a very private person. I thought he was depressed from going through a divorce or whatever. You lose your family, you know," unquote. Because Nilda finally got out of the relationship in 1996. She moved out and brought the children with her, luckily. And by 1997, she had full custody. But Castro did not let her go easily. And he would still abuse her and take their daughters back with him. And in 2005, she sought a protection order telling the court he had threatened the lives of her and her kids, though she chose not to pursue it and moved with them to Indiana, so she at least got some distance from him.

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  But unfortunately, Nilda died in 2012. And accounts of the cause differ, with one citing an accidental overdose of painkillers and another, cancer. But back in 2002, across town, a young mother was fighting to get her son back.

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  Michelle was born in April, 1981, and grew up on Cleveland's west side. And her family had almost nothing. And in her own words, quote, "We didn't have a couch to sit on. We didn't have a stove. Just to give us a hot, warm meal, I had to cook on a space heater. It takes four hours for a hot dog to cook," unquote. And she took on the role of caregiver for her younger siblings, holding the household together. And her brother Edward said, quote, "She has always been there to help us," unquote. And when she wasn't planting vegetables in the yard, she was next door feeding a neighbor's pet pony. And at a young age, she had also survived sexual abuse by a male relative. And of her childhood, she would say, quote, unquote, "You name it, I went through it."

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  And at 14, she couldn't take anymore. Quote, "I got to the point where I said, I'm more safer on the streets than I am living in my own home. So I basically ran away," unquote. So on the streets, she lived in a garbage can with a blanket taken from a porch, and she sheltered near a bridge where the vibrations of passing cars helped keep her calm. And a local Baptist church became her refuge, where they took her in and fed her, gave her clothes and place to wash. And she was originally drawn in from the music, which she found beautiful. Quote, "I was a little bit embarrassed because I didn't smell too pretty. I stood in the back and singing along with every hymn that they were singing," unquote. And at one point, a churchgoer recognized her and told her father, who made her return to school.

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  Now, there, classmates would bully her. And at 4'7", she was nicknamed "Shorty." And at 18, Michelle had a son directing her to drop out of school. And she named her son Joey. And despite everything, motherhood became the thing she really wanted to get right, saying, quote, "I wanted to be the best mom. I wanted to be better than my mom. It was difficult because I didn't have very much money," unquote. And she made up her mind to get through school and build something stable for her son. And she also loved animals. And at a young age, after helping her mother deliver a litter of Shih Tzu puppies, the experience planted the dream of becoming a veterinarian in her head. But of everything that school had to offer while she attended, art class was what she looked for to most. And for everything she

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  had been through, she said she loved growing up in Cleveland, just despised her home life. But unfortunately, custody of Joey would be taken from her. And her mother's boyfriend, drunk, had broken the toddler's leg, and the boy was placed in foster care. And losing him just left her desperate. So in August of 2002, Michelle had a meeting she could not afford to miss, because it was with social services, about the one thing that was on her mind: reclaiming her son Joey. She had spent nearly four hours lost in the city trying to find the place. And keep in mind that this was years before smartphones were popularized, so she's just trying to figure it out on her own. So exhausted, she ducked into a Family Dollar, grabbed a soda, and asked around for

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  directions. But no one around seemed to be able to help. So she was about to give up when a man's voice cut in, saying he knew exactly where she needed to go. And she recognized him. And she said, quote, unquote, "Oh, my gosh, you're Emily's dad." She had only ever seen him in photos, but that was enough to make the connection. Quote, "He said, I know where it's at. I can take you straight to it. It'll only take me, hmm, five minutes." And she thought, okay, I'm gonna make it. This is gonna happen, unquote. And that man was Ariel Castro. And she followed him out to his car, an orange Chevy cluttered with fast-food wrappers, grateful for the help. But rather than driving to the meeting, he said he had one quick errand at his house before they

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  went. And they got to talking about Joey, and Castro mentioned his dog had recently had a litter. So Michelle thought to herself, quote, "So I was like, okay, I could take one home to my son because unfortunately, his dog had passed away," unquote. But when he finally parked outside the house on Seymour Avenue, he had talked her into coming in for a puppy. Quote, "Just come in for a little while. The puppies are upstairs. You can take one home to your son," unquote. But unfortunately, there would be no puppies. And he would lock her in an upstairs room, bind her with an extension cord, and a day later, took her down to the basement. And Michelle's family reported her missing. But before long, they decided she had simply left. And her grandmother later

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  explained how the family had come to see it. Michelle had just walked out on her own, bitter over losing Joey. And police and social workers took the same view. And in November of 2003, 15 months after that report, Cleveland Police had taken her out of the FBI's database of missing people. And the reason they gave was that they could not, quote, "find a parent guardian or other reporting person to confirm that Ms. Knight was still missing," unquote. That makes no sense to me. You can't find any evidence that she isn't missing. So why the fuck are you taking her out of the database? This is an infuriating case. But that just drives me insane. I, it's

• 19:07Speaker 02

  just awful. But on paper, her case would stay open. The police said they checked it as late as 2012. But it drew little notice. And for all practical purposes, no one was really looking for Michelle Knight.

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  Now Amanda Marie Berry was born on April 22nd, 1986, and grew up in and around Cleveland. And she went to John Marshall High School. And by her late teens, she had a job at a local Burger King. And the people who taught her remembered a very resilient kid. One teacher called her a tough cookie, a girl who stood her ground in science class, even when the boys wouldn't leave her alone. And she dreamed of graduating and making something of herself, saying, quote, "I always wanted to grow up and be somebody and do something with my life, you know? I always planned to graduate, and my mom always wanted that for me, to see me cross the stage," unquote. And she had a sister, Beth Serrano, but the center of her world was her mother, Luana Miller.

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  So Regina Brett, a Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist who spent time with the family, described their bond, quote, "They were more than just mother-daughter. I think that Luana Mandy was like her best friend, you know? They were like sisters," unquote. And Luana called Amanda Mandy. And Luana was not the typical image you would expect of a mother. And Brett said of her, quote, "She's an old-fashioned, you know, whiskey-drinking, chain-smoking, don't-get-in-the-way-of-my-daughter-and-me, you know? You're going to have to pay," unquote. And Brett also admitted the woman scared her a little bit, but there was no mistaking what drove her. Quote, "She was fierce in her love for her daughter," unquote. So in the spring of 2003, Amanda was just about to turn 17 years old.

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  And on April 21st, Amanda had almost stayed home from her shift at Burger King. And she said, quote, "I almost called off work that day because the next day was my birthday," unquote. But she would go anyway. And when her shift ended, she called her sister Beth to say she was heading home. And on her way back, Amanda noticed a car trailing her down the street. And the driver leaned out and asked her if she wanted a ride. She knew him. Castro drove an elementary school bus, and he was the father of Amanda's friend, Emily, a girl she had gone to Wilbur Wright Middle School with. And he said, referring to his daughter, quote, unquote, "Well, she's at my house. Would you like to go see her?" And Amanda said, "Yeah, sure," and got in the car with him.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  And once they had arrived at the house on Seymour Avenue, Castro said his daughter was probably in the bath. And Amanda called, quote, "So he said, 'We'll just wait.'" "So he started showing me around the house," unquote. But as we know, his daughter didn't even live with him, and she was not in the bath. She was across town with her mother. And Amanda was now trapped. And a week later, in the middle of the night, the phone rang at Amanda's family home. And the call was coming from Amanda's own cellphone. And her sister Beth remembered, saying, quote, "He called and said, 'I have Mandy,' which nobody called her Mandy but people who knew her. She wants to be with me," unquote.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  And the man on the line also said Amanda was fine and would be home in a couple of days. So at that point, the FBI was building new tools that could pinpoint where a cellphone was, as long as someone switched it on. So agents would trace Amanda's phone to a stretch of 30 to 40 blocks. That's, that's a lot of blocks. An agent, Tim Kolenick, said they sat in that area around the clock for about a week nonstop, waiting for the phone to come back on. But it never did. And Castro would not turn it on for a second time. He basically just did it to taunt, because he's a fucking monster. And the FBI would not disclose the call publicly until that November.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  And no one could tell, even then, whether it had been real. And Amanda's disappearance set off the kind of search Michelle never got. And it drew national publicity, organized searches on the ground, and a 25K FBI reward for information on her whereabouts. And the FBI posted 10 separate notices about her case on its site. And America's Most Wanted aired a segment on her disappearance in November of 2004. And there were posters and yellow ribbons put up all over. And meanwhile, there was nothing at all about Michelle on the FBI's website. I mean, she was taken out of the database, for God's sake. So one young woman got 10 federal postings and a primetime broadcast, and the other

• 23:45Speaker 02

  got silence. The same world that had quietly closed Michelle's case as a runaway was the one Luana fought to keep away from her daughter. Now Luana pointed out that Amanda had left $100 sitting on her dresser. No teenager runs away and leaves the cash behind, or the phone charger, or walks off the day before her 17th birthday party, still wearing her Burger King uniform. So for three years, finding Amanda was Luana's whole life. She sat for interviews with local reporters and telephoned the police, the FBI, and every newsroom that would pick up again and again, just anything to keep her daughter's face on the news.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  And she showed support for visuals and rallies, and she kept buying Amanda Christmas presents, certain she would be home to open them. And she told the reporter, quote, "I want her on the news. She faded away from the whole world. It just kills me. This is killing me," unquote. And in 2004, Luana took her search onto national television, appearing on The Montel Williams Show. And the show's in-house psychic, Sylvia Brown, told her the thing she was hoping to disprove, quote, "She's not alive, honey. Your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call," unquote. And Luana broke down in tears on the show. And she later said she believed 98% of what Brown told her.

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  And a friend, Art McCoy, watched it break something within her, quote, unquote, "I think she had given up." Luana's health had been failing for years, and pancreatitis and other illnesses put her in hospital for months, and her condition steadily got worse over time. And on March 2nd, 2006, Luana died of heart failure, three years into the search for her daughter. And Donna Brady, a Cleveland councilwoman who had spent countless hours at her side, told the Associated Press, quote, unquote, "She literally died of a broken heart." Georgina De Jesus, known to everyone as Gina, was born in 1990 and grew up on the west side of Cleveland, on West 71st Street.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  And she was the youngest child in a tight-knit family, including her father, Felix De Jesus, and her mother, Nancy Ruiz, and her sister, Mayra, and her brother, Ricardo. Now Gina was a shy girl, and she had grown up bilingual, speaking English and Spanish at home. And she went to Wilbur Wright Middle School, almost 40 blocks from her house. And her mother would give her fare for the bus, but Gina pocketed the change and walked anyway, ducking into a store along the way for a piece of gum or a bag of snacks. At school, though, Gina was one of three. She, Arlene Castro, and Kayla Rogers were best friends, so close that they were referred to as the Three Musketeers.

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  And Kayla had known Gina since elementary school, and the two of them met Arlene once they reached middle school. And they ran the same west-side blocks, hung around on Gina's porch, and had sleepovers together. And Gina loved dancing, and her afternoons were filled with Spanish music and rap. And the girls stayed on the phone for hours, traded gossip, and talked about boys. And Kayla said, quote, "We were gossips, gossip girls," unquote. And each day after class, the three of them walked home together. Now Arlene's father, Ariel Castro, was no stranger to the De Jesus family. And he and Felix knew each other, the way parents in the same neighborhood do when their daughters are inseparable. And Gina had seen him around and heard his name regularly.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  And to her, he was simply her best friend's father. So in the spring of 2004, Gina was 14 years old. And April 2nd was a school day. And at the end of it, Gina left Wilbur Wright and started the walk home. And her mother had given her $1.25 for the bus, but Gina had kept it for snacks, as had become something of a routine. And she got as far as the payphone on Lorraine Avenue, and Arlene Castro was with her. And she wanted to spend this afternoon at Gina's house, so Gina handed her 50 cents to call home and ask. And the answer was no. And Arlene said, quote, "I told her I couldn't, and she said, 'Well, okay, I'll talk to you later,'" and she walked, unquote.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  And she went along on foot, alone now, somewhere between 1:40 to 3:00 and 3:00. And a car would pull up beside her, and the man behind the wheel was Arlene's father, Ariel Castro. And he asked if she'd seen his daughter. And in Gina's words, quote, "He asked me, 'You seen my daughter? ' I said, 'Yeah, she's right around the corner.'" And he was like, "Can you help me find her?" And I said, "Sure," unquote. She knew him. She didn't think there was any danger. He was her best friend's dad, a friend of her own father's, a face from the neighborhood. So she got in. And he drove her to 2207 Seymour Avenue. And inside, he asked her to help him move a stereo.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  And something about him started to unnerve her. And Michelle had been inside almost 20 months at this point, and Amanda nearly a year. And Gina would now be joining a new group of three. And when Gina didn't come home, her family went straight to the police. But no Amber Alert went out. And the police read the situation the same way they had Michelle two years before, a teenager who would just run off, maybe with a boyfriend. And the delay left the family to start searching on their own, which is heartbreaking. And Jessica Ponce had walked part of the way home with Gina that afternoon, and she said, quote, "She called..." ...mom and told her mom she was on her way home and that's the last time I'd seen her, unquote.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  And the family poured everything into the search, papering the neighborhood with flyers and holding visuals. And the FBI joined in as well. And a year later, America's Most Wanted ran Gina's case alongside Amanda's, pointing out that both girls had been taken from nearly the same point on Lorraine Avenue. And one of the people who spoke on the broadcast was Arlene, the last to see Gina at the payphone. So all three of them had vanished from the same road, Lorraine Avenue, within 20 months. Michelle in August of 2002, Amanda in April of 2003, and Gina in April of 2004. But the police somehow never seemed to tie the cases to one another. And three months before Gina was taken, in January of 2004, officers had actually come

• 30:13Speaker 02

  to 2207 Seymour Avenue. But the call had nothing to do with the women. And child welfare had reported that Castro had left a child alone on a bus he drove. And no one answered the door. So officers spoke with Castro afterward and didn't see any criminal intent involved. And in the years Gina was gone, Castro even participated in the search for her. And he handed out flyers with her face on them. And he played music at a fundraiser thrown in her name. And at a candle vigil for Gina, a man named Antonio Quiros saw him stand with her mother and comfort her. And Khalid Samad, an activist and a friend of the family, also acknowledged, quote, "When we went out to look for Gina, he helped pass out flyers.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  You know, he was friends with the family," unquote. And Gina's uncle, Tito de Jesus, had been a longtime bandmate with Castro, sharing stages for 20 years, and had been inside the house on Seymour Avenue without ever noticing a thing. And one day, while investigators dug up a nearby yard looking for the missing girls, a neighbor named Francisco Cruz stood next to Castro, and Castro turned to him and said, quote, "They're not going to find anyone there," unquote. Three young women taken from the same few blocks of one street, and one house three miles off was holding all three of them. And not a single dot was connected. And for the next nine years, the world moved on.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  But inside 2207 Seymour Avenue, time stopped. All right, I want to take a quick pause to confess. I will spend six hours going down the rabbit hole on plenty of different cases. I will not, however, call the doctor's office. It's just something about that phone tree, the hold music and the transfer and the "our next appointment is in March," when it's August. So I just don't do it. I put off one appointment for over a year once. And a year of putting something off isn't a plan, it's avoidance with extra steps. And I don't want you doing that version of it. And that's why I now use Zocdoc. Now, Zocdoc lets you search and compare local in-network doctors.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  You can see actual appointment openings and click to instantly book a visit. No phone call and no waiting on hold. And appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours. And you can even score same-day appointments. I have on multiple occasions. But your health matters and taking care of yourself shouldn't be complicated. So find and book the right doctor with Zocdoc. Head to zocdoc.com slash cccm to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list. That's z-o-c-d-o-c dot com slash cccm. Thank you so much to Zocdoc for supporting the channel and sponsoring the video, and let's get back to it.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  So from their first days, the rules of that house were set with restraints and silence. Michelle was restrained with an extension cord looped around her legs, her arms, and her neck. And a sock was forced into her mouth so no one could hear her. And Castro turned the music up loud to cover whatever noise the sock did not. And he would sexually assault her several times a day. And Amanda spent her first three days in that basement. And on the fourth, he brought her upstairs to a bedroom and fixed a chain to a radiator and its other end around her stomach. And she would describe it, saying, quote, "Going to sleep at night, you know, if you wanted to toss on your back, you couldn't do that.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  You would have to take the whole chain and move it to the front of your stomach so that you're not laying on the big lock on your back," unquote. And the room was barely the size of a closet. And she would sleep on a filthy mattress with a bucket in the corner as a bathroom. And once a day, some food arrived, usually chips or crackers. And even the weekly shower had a steep cost, because she could only take it with him. And when Gina arrived a year later, Castro put her in the nicer room. And the small unfairness of this stung, because it appeared she was the favorite. Quote, "He seems to treat me better than the other girls. I have the nicer room," Gina would say.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  And Amanda said of the difference in her treatment, quote, "It was just simple things. But when you don't have anything, you're like, well, why don't I have that? I want that," unquote. So he made sure to keep the three of them apart and would not let them speak. And Gina said it felt like he knew everything, because he was always watching. Sometimes he pretended to leave the house, then waited outside and punished anyone who had tried to call out or run. And the rules inside were obsessive. The whole sink of dishes had to be washed with a single drop of soap. When cooking, the pan had to sit dead center on the stove. Quote, "It couldn't be a little to the left, a little to the right," unquote, Amanda would say.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  And he reminded Michelle over and over that no one was coming, just to add more insult to injury to the fact that the other girls' families were constantly on the news and hers were not. And Castro said to her, quote, "Your families don't care about you. Ain't you glad I took you?" unquote. Quote, "I felt like he hated me the most because I was the one that stood my ground," unquote, she would say. And the regime did not stay fully fixed, though. And as the years passed, the women were allowed a bit more freedom on the second floor, even though they were still abused behind locked doors. And they each found ways to survive the torment.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Michelle taught herself to leave her own body, saying, quote, "Anytime he was doing anything to me, I had to put myself in a different place," unquote. And Amanda kept a diary wherever she could, in notebooks, on napkins, and fast food bags. And at the top of each page, she wrote a string of numbers, a private code counting how many times Castro had raped her that day, so that someone might read it one day and make him answer for what he had done. And Gina held on to a particular piece of paper. One day, Castro carried a missing person flyer into the house with her own face on it, handed to him by her own mother during a search. And Gina asked if she could keep it.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  It was the last thing her mother had touched, and she wanted to show her, one day, that she still had it. And their one link to the world outside was a small, black-and-white TV. And in the early months, Amanda watched her own mother and sister on it, searching for her. It was the one thing that kept her going, saying, quote, "You know what? I'm going to make it home to you. As long as you fight, I'm going to fight," unquote. And she was watching the day her mother, Luana, went on the Montel Williams Show to ask Sylvia Brown whether her daughter was still alive, and heard the woman tell her she was dead. And Amanda, naturally, broke down. Quote, "I couldn't believe she said that.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  And then my mom broke down crying, so that hurt even worse," unquote. But she was obviously still alive, and then trapped in this house still when her mother died in the spring of 2006. And over the years, Michelle had become pregnant five times. And each time, Castro ended it in brutal ways, until she could never carry a child again. But he would not do the same to Amanda, who realized she was pregnant on her 20th birthday. Quote, "I was terrified. How, I mean, I barely eat, and I'm chained to a wall, and I have a bucket for a bathroom," unquote. So on Christmas Day of 2006, in an inflatable pool set on the floor, Amanda gave birth,

• 38:06Speaker 02

  with Michelle helping to bring the baby into the world. But the newborn girl was not breathing. And Castro told Michelle he would kill her if the baby died. So she breathed into the little girl's mouth until the baby took a breath of her own. And Amanda named her Jocelyn. And the baby looked like Castro, and Amanda didn't care. Quote, "I would look at her and I just felt like, she's mine, she's mine," unquote. For all three women, the child became something to hold on to. Gina would describe, quote, "When I was playing with Jocelyn, Jocelyn made me forget everything," unquote. And Jocelyn grew up seeing the chains on Amanda, who was taught to call them bracelets.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  And when she had grown to the age of two or three, he finally took Amanda's chains off of her. And that was all thanks to Jocelyn. And as she got older, he gave her things that he denied the women, including playing outside in the backyard, going to the park, and Sunday services at church. Quote, "She loved him and he loved her," unquote, Amanda would say. But under those words, she carried a fear she could never set down of what he might one day do to the child. Quote, "I was nervous, like, would he touch her? Would he ever think about touching her? Because..." You know, he had his problems, unquote. But despite everything happening in the house, outside of those walls, Castro was a familiar, friendly face.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  He played bass at clubs around Cleveland, performing like a man with nothing to hide. And he went about his work as a bus driver, and even the people closest to him were kept out of parts of the house. And his son Anthony said there were areas that no one was allowed in. The basement, the attic, and the garage all stayed locked at all times. And on a chaotic block, his boarded-up house stayed among the quietest, one of the last to ever draw a police call. And in that almost decade, the block drew some 1,100 police calls, equivalent to about one every three and a half days. Then in all of those years, they came to Castro's own door only twice, and neither visit had anything to do with the women.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  And the first was the school bus complaint back in early 2004 that we talked about. And the second time in 2009, Castro was the one who called to report a fight in the street. So they were forever just steps away from these poor, poor girls. And three days after Michelle vanished, police were two doors down over a stolen phone. And nine days into Amanda's captivity, an abandoned car brought them to the same address. And the day after Gina disappeared, another call put them only a block away. And twice, a neighbor down the street thought she'd heard something. A woman screaming up front in 2003, and in 2008, a muffled voice crying, "Get off me",

• 41:00Speaker 02

  with a baby somewhere behind it. And officers came each time, and each time, nothing was found. In 11 years, the women were let outside exactly twice, in wigs and sunglasses with their heads down. Then slowly, the structure of Castro's own life began to give. And he had driven the Cleveland school bus since 1991. And in the fall of 2012, he left it parked and unattended and was fired that November after 21 years. And his house was sliding toward foreclosure, and he owed thousands in back taxes. So with the job gone, nothing pulled him out of the house on a schedule anymore.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  And by 2013, Jocelyn was now six years old and taking in everything around her. The chains had been off Amanda for years, and the grip that had kept that house shut for a decade was quietly beginning to loosen. So May 6, 2013, was an ordinary afternoon. That is, until Jocelyn noticed her father was nowhere to be seen around the house. And Amanda checked her bedroom door and found that Castro had left it unlocked for the first time. And Gina remembered, quote, "So Jocelyn goes downstairs, and then she runs back up, and she says, 'I don't find daddy. Daddy's nowhere around,' unquote." And Amanda recalled the precious moment, saying, quote, "She's like, 'Mom, daddy's car is gone.'"

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Like, "My heart immediately started pounding, because I'm like, 'Should I chance it? If I'm going to do it, I need to do it now,' unquote." And she made it down the stairs and reached the front door. It was tied to an alarm, but it opened. And the storm door just beyond it was padlocked shut, so she pushed an arm through the gap and waved. Quote, "Somebody, please, please, help me. I'm Amanda Berry. Please, I could die any moment. I'm so terrified," unquote. And a neighbor saw her and was too scared to get involved, and for a moment, she thought it was over. Quote, "After I got to the locked door and the guys didn't help me, I was like, 'He's going to come home, and this is just going to be the end,' unquote."

• 43:07Speaker 02

  And then a man crossed the street. Angel Cordero had been visiting a porch nearby when he saw the woman clawing at the door, and he kicked at the bottom of it. And Charles Ramsey, who lived next door, heard the shouting and came over as well. And as Amanda remembered it, Ramsey urged her on, saying, quote, "He like, kind of kicks it, and he's like, 'There you go. Finish kicking it out, and you can get out,' unquote." And the bottom of the door gave, and Amanda pushed through, then ran back inside for Jocelyn and came out with the girl in her arms. And the two men would give differing accounts of who reached her first. And more importantly, Amanda crossed to a neighbor's house and called 911. Quote, "Help me. I'm Amanda Berry," unquote.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  And when asked what was wrong, she said, "I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years. And I'm here. I'm free now." And when dispatcher said police would come as soon as a car opened up, she cut in, saying, quote, "No, I need them before he gets back," unquote. And she named Ariel Castro, and she kept insisting on who she was, that her face had been all over the news for a decade. "I got, I got that, dear," they would answer. So Officers Anthony Espada and Michael Tracy were near the West Side Market when the highest priority call came over the radio. Quote, "We kind of looked at each other like deer in headlights. Like, 'Is that for real?'," unquote, Espada would say. And they turned on to see more, and a woman approached them, carrying a child.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  And she looked like an older version of the girl on the old missing posters. And Espada knew her by the eyebrow piercing. Quote, "I think this is for real," unquote, he said on the radio. And Amanda told them there were two more women inside. And Tracy pulled at the front door, found it chained from within, and kicked it until it gave out. And inside, the house was dark, and Espada climbed the stairs with his gun drawn, calling out Cleveland Police. And upstairs, he found mattresses on the floor, chains in the closets, and a hole cut in each door where food had been pushed through. And Michelle and Gina had heard the noise and thought Castro had caught Amanda. And Gina almost bolted. Quote, "I turned to Michelle, and I'm like, 'We could run.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  We could do this. But then, once Michelle gets pumped, I'm like, 'No, I talked her out of it,' unquote." They were terrified that they were next for what they believed to be Castro's anger. And then came the word, "Police." And Michelle threw the door open and ran to their arms. "I see a badge," she said. And she jumped up and held on. "Please don't let me go. Please don't put me down." Michelle was so small that Espada mistook her for a child. And she took him, and she told him she had been in that house for 11 years, and that they had saved her. And Gina came to the realization of what was happening a bit slower due to shock, not really believing the men were real.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  Quote, "I thought they were people in costumes," unquote, she would say. And Espada recognized her from the posters and asked her name, and when she said, "Georgina de Jesus," he told her, "We've been looking for you for a long time." And the officers' faces fell. Officer Barbara Johnson, whose arms Michelle jumped into, said, quote, "It was just like getting smacked in the face. Like, 'Holy cow, she's still alive after all of these years,' unquote." And then, over the radio, came the words so many had waited to hear. "We found them. We found them." And Michelle dropped to the ground outside and kissed it. Quote, "I didn't care how dirty it was. I kissed that ground and thank God that he helped us get out of there," unquote.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  And the three women and Jocelyn kept reaching for one another in the ambulance. "It was like, 'It's real,' Amanda would say. 'We're going home.'" And Gina's mother, Nancy Ruiz, was just a few blocks away when she spotted one of the FBI agents from her daughter's case. And she ran to him and asked, "Just tell me if it's her." And he told her, "Yes." And they held each other and cried. And Felix de Jesus said the reunion felt like a dream he needed someone to wake him up from. And Gina recalled, "I'm hugging everybody then. The first thing I pulled out was this flyer, and I showed my mom." Now she could finally give it back to her. And at the hospital, Amanda and her sister Beth held each other tight, and Beth would

• 47:25Speaker 02

  say she was just really skinny and had short hair, but she was still beautiful. She had the biggest smile that she always had. And Jocelyn, who had never known anything but the house, hugged her new family like she knew them forever, running around cracking jokes. And Michelle's homecoming was not like the others, though, because she was in the worst shape of the three. And doctors gave her only days to live at this point. Though difficult news to receive, she wouldn't let it win, saying, quote, "I was singing. I was dancing. I was trying to make the best of the life I had left. They put me on 14 different medications before I was actually better," unquote.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  And though she was finally free at the age of 32, she was, in a way, the others were not. And that was alone. She had no family to return to, no friends, and no home. So she went to live in an assisted living facility outside the city, and she called herself "A Forgotten One," and then said, quote, "That's a reason why I made a poem and said that all the people that are out there, they're not forgotten in my eyes. Never," unquote. So while the women were being attended to, police were already out looking for Castro. And before she left, Michelle had handed officers a photo of him from the refrigerator. And it wasn't long until they found him in his blue Mazda Miata and arrested him.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  And his brothers, Pedro and O'Neil, were picked up, too, with the belief that they might have been part of it as well. And two days later, prosecutors cleared them, as they had nothing to do with what had happened in that house. So on May 9, Ariel Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, and his bail was set to $8 million. And over the weeks that followed, the full scope of his crimes came into focus through a grand jury process that explained the charges twice. The first indictment on June 7 carried 329 counts.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Then, a grand jury indicted Castro on 977 counts on July 12th, including 512 counts of kidnapping and 446 counts of rape, along with seven counts of gross sexual imposition, and six counts of felony assault, and three counts of child endangerment, and two counts of aggravated murder for the pregnancies he had forced to end. And finally, one count of possessing criminal tools. And Ohio law reserved the death penalty for aggravated murder alone, of which he had two counts. And on July 26th, he took a deal. And he pleaded guilty to 937 counts,

• 50:04Speaker 02

  and the state agreed not to seek the death penalty. And the sentence was recommended to be life without the possibility of parole. And the deal also made it so the women would not have to testify at the trial. So on August 1st, 2013, Castro was brought to court to be sentenced. And as the case was laid out, the inside of the house told its own story. An FBI agent, Andrew Burke, testified that Castro had rebuilt the place to keep the women hidden. An alarm sat on the back door. Curtains and bedspreads blocked the sightlines. And a porch swing had been set in front of the stairs that led to the rooms where he kept them. And he chained them to a pole in the basement. And in Amanda's room, the doorknob had been taken off, and a lock was put on the outside,

• 50:49Speaker 02

  with a hole cut through the door for air because the windows were boarded over. And detectives told the judge that the women had lived through years of rape, and beatings, and hunger, and a gun produced as a tool of control, and even forced rounds of Russian roulette. Which, if you're not familiar, that's when a loaded gun, usually only with one bullet, is put to people's head or somewhere on them, and the trigger is pulled, and it might go off, and it might not. It's a horrifically psychologically fucked up... I don't even want to... It's not a game. It's life or death. And he used to do this to them. And Burke also told of a letter Castro had written out by hand,

• 51:33Speaker 02

  in which he said he had been abused as a child and called himself what he was. "I am a sexual predator." That's quoted. And all three women had kept diaries through the years, and those pages filled in much of the record. And Amanda and Gina would not come to the hearing, and instead, they sent family to read their words for them. Michelle did show up in person to say her words to his ugly fucking face. And she spoke about Joey. Quote, "I missed my son every day. I wonder if I was ever going to see him again. He was only two and a half years old when I was taken. I cried every night. I was so alone. Days turned into nights. Nights turned into days.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  The years turned into eternity." Unquote. She said Castro had told her over and over that her family did not care about her, even on holidays, and that Christmas was the hardest because she never got to spend it with her boy. Then, she spoke about Gina. Quote, "Gina was my teammate. She never let me fall. I never let her fall. She nursed me back to health when I was dying from his abuse. My friendship with her was the only thing that was good out of the situation." Unquote. And then she turned to the man, who had taken it all, saying, quote, "I spent 11 years in hell, and now your hell is just beginning. You will live. I will live on. You will die a little every day.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  The death penalty would be so much easier. You don't deserve that. You deserve to spend life in prison. After 11 years, I am finally being heard, and it's liberating." Unquote. In what Michelle described, the experts confirmed. And Dr. Frank Ockburg wrote that she had suffered the longest and most severely of the three, and that it was Michelle who had been, quote, "doctor, nurse, midwife, and pediatrician", unquote, at Jocelyn's birth, who, quote, "breathed life into that infant when she wasn't breathing", unquote. And who had put herself between Castro and Gina, absorbing abuse meant for her friend. And he also said that,

• 53:43Speaker 02

  quote, "Each survivor had a will to prevail and used that will to live through the ordeal." Unquote. And another doctor asked whether Castro was mentally ill, said that an examination showed no psychiatric illness whatsoever. So he was completely of sound mind when he was doing all of these atrocities. And when Castro was given his chance to speak, he used it to defend himself. And he insisted, quote, "I'm not a monster. I'm just sick. I have an addiction, just like an alcoholic has an addiction." Unquote. Why is he even allowed to speak? Is my question, honestly. And he would claim the women had not been virgins, and that they had wanted the sex,

• 54:25Speaker 02

  and that there had been harmony in a happy household. And he had said he had never beaten or tortured anyone, that he had only kept them so they could not leave. And Judge Russo answered him, saying, quote, "In your mind, there was harmony and a happy household. I'm not sure there's anyone else in America who would agree with you." Unquote. And at the end, Castro turned toward the victims' families and would say, quote, "Thank you, victims. Please find it in your heart to forgive me." Unquote. And then Judge Michael Russo handed down his sentence, which was life plus 1,000 years. "You don't deserve to be out in our community.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  You're too dangerous," he would say. But unfortunately, a month into this pathetic shit stain of a human, on September 3rd, 2013, guards would find Ariel Castro dead in his cell, having hung himself with a bedsheet. And he left no note, and photos of his family were set out, and a Bible lay open beside him to chapters 2 and 3 of the Gospel of John. He took the easy way out, and basically had to do no time for the abhorrent crimes that he committed, and just the hell that he put these three women through. And I hope he's rotting in hell for it.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  And at this point, the house itself was already gone. Six days after the sentencing, a backhoe had torn into the roof of 2207 Seymour Avenue, and the neighbors cheered as it came down. And Michelle was there. And she let go of dozens of yellow balloons meant for every child who had been taken and never found, and said a prayer. "Nobody was there for me when I was missing, and I want the people to know that they can have strength, they can have hope, and their child will come back." Castro had forfeited money to help pay tear down the house as part of the plea deal. So the women were offered it and asked that it go to the neighborhood instead. And Michelle said she hoped someone would plant a garden where the house had stood. And when it was over, there was only an empty lot.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Let's take a quick pause to talk about my cat. Okay, specifically Baby. Baby is my main coon cat, and she is the love of my life. But she has exactly one personality trait, and that is that she inhales her dinner like she's being timed on the regular, and then returns it to me on the rug on the regular, if you know what I mean. I call it the scarf and barf. And this has happened for months and months, but then we switched to Smalls. Now, Smalls is fresh cat food, protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free, 100% human-grade ingredients you'd find in your own fridge. And it's delivered right to your door. And since switching, her coat is absolutely softer, and there's way less shedding, and her poops are a lot less stinky,

• 57:21Speaker 02

  and she's not doing the scarf and barf thing all the time anymore. And that's because more of the ingredients in Smalls' food are digestible, so less junk comes out the other end. Sorry. And it's not just me, though, because Forbes ranked Smalls the best overall cat food, and after switching to Smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. So stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts. And for a limited time, because you are a crime, conspiracy cults, and murder listener, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to Smalls.com/CCCM. That's 60, 6, 0% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to Smalls.com/CCCM.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  Thank you so much to Smalls for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel, and let's get back to it. So the three women who walked out of the house each set about rebuilding their life. Michelle Knight became someone new, downed her name. She took the name Lily Rose Lee, left Cleveland, and on May 6th, 2016, three years to the day after her escape, she would get married. And under the name she was born with, she wrote two books, Finding Me and Life After Darkness. And she started a foundation, Lily Rays of Hope, to help other survivors find their footing with housing, clothing, and a way back into school. And Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus wrote a book together called Hope, and it became a number-one bestseller.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  And Amanda turned her worst years into something useful. And she has hosted a segment on Cleveland's Fox 8 since 2017 called Missing with Amanda Berry, putting the faces of the missing on the news, the way her own mother once begged the news to show hers. And she lives with her sister Beth and talks to students at school. And now, 10 years out, she said that against everything, she was happy. Quote, "I never thought I was going to be able to trust and love somebody. It's been a good 10 years." Unquote. And Gina had to learn her own life... All over again, and she relearned the Spanish she had lost during her captivity, learned to drive, and let her cousin take her to a prom she never got to experience.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  And then she and her cousin Sylvia Cologne opened the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children and Adults, a place to help the families of the missing. And they put its headquarters on Seymour Avenue. Quote, "I wanted to bring something positive to the street. If I can be on that street, then anybody else can be on that street too." And both she and Amanda finally received the high school diplomas they had been robbed of, honorary degrees from John Marshall High School. And Amanda's daughter Jocelyn grew up out of the spotlight, and the women meant to keep it that way. And her family has guarded her privacy, letting the public know little more than the milestones.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  And by the end of 2022, she had turned 16, the same age Amanda had been the night Castro took her. But long before this rescue, the system had already failed them. Michelle had been an adult when she disappeared, and the police wrote that she had a mental condition and might have wandered off. And most of her family assumed she had left on her own. And she was taken off the FBI's missing persons list within about a year while she was still inside of that house. And part of why Gina's family opened their center was the way the police had treated them in 2004, and when officers first assumed their 14-year-old had just run off. Some of the center's work now is teaching officers how to answer a missing person call with more care.

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  And what happened to Michelle was not unusual. Every year, more than half a million people are reported missing in the United States, and the ones who make the news are not chosen at random. One study of thousands of missing person stories found that a young white woman draws roughly 10 times the coverage a black man from the same city gets. And nine out of 10 missing children of color, one advocate said, are written off by police as runaways. So no alert goes out, and no cameras come, and they stay missing far longer than anyone else. Quote, "If you go missing and the press devotes a lot of attention to it," the editor of publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review said, "you have a better chance of a decent

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  outcome, whereas you don't if they ignore it." Unquote. And the three women knew that better than anyone. And for years, they were the missing. And Michelle was the one almost no one came looking for. And now they spend their days looking for other people's daughters and sons. Michelle said the missing were not forgotten in her eyes. And the question the case leaves behind is whether they are forgotten in ours. Who do we search for? And who do we let just disappear? I will make sure to link all of the foundations and outreach programs that I spoke about in the description below if you want to look at them or give back in any way.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  But a lot of you guys requested me looking into this case, so I really appreciate that. And please let me know what other cases you want me to deep dive into. There's no little or too big or just any case. I really, really appreciate it. And that is it for today, and I will see you in the next one. I'll see you, beautiful face. Please stay safe out there. Bye.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

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