Staying with the story
The Dayton Daily News has worked tirelessly to bring you the latest developments in the Cleveland kidnapping case. We examined police and court records, interviewed criminal justice and child welfare experts and explored ways in which the crime could lead to increased vigilence in our community.
How to get help:
The Oasis House, 898-7811, provides help for women victimized by the sex industry, including prostitutes and exotic dancers. Services range from psychological counseling to computer training. Oasis House is a member of the Ohio Benefits Bank and partners with other groups, including Montgomery County Crisis Care, CADAS, Nova House and other drug and alcohol recovery programs.
Timeline of Ariel Castro’s encounters with police
Sept. 30, 1989: According to police reports, Castro became violent when his brothers came to the house and his common-law wife, Grimilda Figueroa, asked where he was going. He slapped her several times, then slammed her several times against the wall and the washing machine. Figueroa suffered an injury to her right shoulder and arm, but she declined to press charges.
Dec. 26, 1993: Castro is arrested after running through yards near his home. Figueroa told police that he had thrown her to the ground, hit her about the head and face, and kicked her — only a month after she had undergone brain surgery. Castro was charged with domestic violence, but a Cuyahoga County grand jury did not indict him.
May 16, 1996: Figueroa's boyfriend drove Castro's children to the school bus stop and Castro pulled up behind him. The boyfriend reported that Castro shouted obscenities and told him he had "better watch himself." He told police he believed Castro would have run him over if he had not gotten out of the way.
Aug. 17, 1996: Castro drove to the home of a former neighbor, who had sued Castro in a property dispute. He reportedly yelled, "I'm going to get you, bitch!" No charges were filed.
Jan. 26, 2004: Cleveland police investigated a case of child endangering when Castro left a special-education student on the bus. The victim told police that Castro drove to a Wendy's restaurant to buy some food, ordering the child, "Lay down, bitch." Castro then took the student home. Officers went to Castro's home, but he wasn't there. He was never charged.
Aug. 25, 2005: According to a police report, Castro threatened Figueroa over the phone that he was going to bring their daughter back from Ft. Wayne, Ind., and beat Figueroa in front of her. In a court filing at the time, Figueroa told police that over the years Castro had beaten her repeatedly, broken her nose twice, breaking her ribs and dislocating each of her shoulders. The court filing stated the beatings caused a blood clot on her brain.
Cleveland kidnapping suspect Ariel Castro escaped without scrutiny for years — and remained in his job as a public school bus driver — despite an extensive history of violence that included threats to neighbors, physical abuse and a troubling incident involving a special-education student.
Castro was fired in November 2012 for going home during his shift and taking a four-hour nap. But he was suspended — and not fired — after a January 2004 incident in which he left a special-education student alone on the bus. The student said that Castro drove to a Wendy’s restaurant, according to the police report, and told the student to “lay down, bitch” while he went inside to eat.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said, “It’s shocking. No one would want someone with that kind of history to be driving their kids’ school bus.”
DeWine said public institutions such as school districts are handicapped by Ohio law, which restricts the release of information by the Attorney General’s office to past convictions. That’s a gaping hole in the background checks that are required in many public jobs, he said.
“Imagine that a guy goes into Cedarville schools looking for a job, and he has a domestic assault or rape case pending in court,” DeWine said. “We have to go back to that school and report that he has no record. The charge could be anything — it could be molesting a child.”
DeWine said he has complained to the state legislature about the law, and will continue to try to make changes. “There is a real feeling in the legislature that people need to have a second chance, which I fully understand,” DeWine said, “but certain jobs are sensitive, such as day care centers or Children Services. We have to tell them that the jerk has no record, but if you saw the record, you would gag.”
Cleveland police reports show three complaints involving Castro abusing his common-law wife, Grimilda Figueroa, but also several complaints of explosive behavior with neighbors or acquaintances who happened to cross him. Charges were filed only once, in a 1993 domestic violence case involving Figueroa, but a grand jury declined to indict him.
In that case, Figueroa said Castro hit her about the head and face and kicked her body a month after she had undergone brain surgery. He then chased after their son after the boy fled out the front door. Police arrived and arrested Castro after spotting him running between yards.
Figueroa died last year, at age 48, of brain cancer.
‘No arrests’
Castro’s history with the law began long before three women were rescued from his home at 2207 Seymour Ave., where they reportedly had been kept chained, locked up and repeatedly beaten and raped. Castro was charged last week with rape and kidnapping in connection with the decade-long disappearance of Michelle Knight, 32, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Amanda Berry, 27.
Berry’s 6-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, was also confined in the home, and DNA tests have confirmed she is Castro’s daughter.
Before the dramatic rescue, Castro came away virtually unscathed from numerous brushes with the law. Again and again, Castro’s thick police file reports, “No arrests.”
No charges were filed in a 1989 case in which Castro slammed Figueroa several times into a wall and numerous times into a washing machine.
No charges were filed in a 1994 case in which a neighbor reported that Castro tried to attack him with a shovel.
No charges were filed in a 1997 incident in which Castro yelled obscenities at a neighbor and verbally threatened her.
In interviews with news organizations, neighbors and family members have painted a conflicting portrait of Castro, at times friendly and even laid-back while also exhibiting a violent temper. His attorney, Craig Weintraub, told the media that Castro truly loves his daughter, Jocelyn.
“I know that that seems to be irrational from the public perception standpoint, but he does indeed love her and is concerned about her future,” Weintraub said.
Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN, Castro’s brothers, Pedro and Onil, called him a “monster” who never allowed them to venture past the kitchen of his home.
The lack of consequences after his many police encounters may have caused Castro’s behavior to escalate, according to some local experts. “It did empower him; he kept thinking he could get away with it,” said Cheryl Oliver, executive director of Oasis House, which offers services for women in the adult sex industry. “He kept thinking he could get away with it. If he had been held accountable even in the simplest things, he might have been a little less bold.”
Oliver is less shocked by the horrific accusations against Castro than with the courageous escape of Amanda Berry, the young woman who stuck her hand through the door and cried out for help. “What they sustained is inhuman, but it speaks very obviously to what’s going on under our own noses,” Oliver said. “Eighty percent of sex trafficking cases involve sexual slavery. Castro is not unlike a lot of folks who are mistreating girls and treating them as sex slaves. I am surprised that even after 10 years Amanda Berry was willing to take that risk.”
Missing clues
Jennifer Kidd of Vandalia is a survivor of domestic violence as well as a volunteer for the Artemis Center for Alternatives for Domestic Violence. She believes that Castro should have been questioned, given his proximity to the neighborhood where the young women disappeared. “When you have a history of violence, it’s typical to be a repeater,” Kidd said.
Kidd wishes that the public as well as law enforcement would treat cases of domestic violence more seriously. “Society considers this matter taboo, something just between a husband and wife, but it’s important that everybody realizes this can be a life-or-death situation, and many people don’t make it,” she said.
Artemis Center’s executive director, Patti Schwarztrauber, also believes that Castro should have been a person of interest in the disappearances. She’s not surprised, however, that he wasn’t investigated: “I doubt that people make the connection between domestic violence history and the kidnapping and terrorizing of young women. They see domestic violence as a family matter, and as a society we have a greater tolerance for family violence. We don’t think of the offender as a violent person. They think he behaved the way he did because he was justified, because she pushed his buttons somehow.”
Other law enforcement officials said that many residents have extensive domestic violence records, and that Castro’s history wasn’t necessarily a red flag. “There are so many calls involving domestic violence in big cities,” noted Sgt. Chris Fischer, supervisor of the vice unit for the Dayton Police Department.
Concurred DeWine, “I don’t know how many people within that same area fit that profile, but I suspect that it was a lot.”
‘What could we have done differently?’
Vicki Anderson, special agent with the Cleveland division of the FBI, said that investigators exhausted every lead in the disappearances. “These girls were posted everywhere,” she said. “We followed every lead and tips, collectively developed, and absolutely, we could not find these girls.”
Anderson said there is no truth to reports that neighbors called in with tips such as seeing naked women chained in Castro’s back yard. “Like we’d let that one go!” she said indignantly.
Still, she said, investigators have second-guessed themselves since the women’s rescue: “All law enforcement officers are kicking themselves in the rear and feeling guilty, and asking ourselves, ‘What could we have done differently?’ We have gone over our files, looking for leads and tips, but there is nothing.”
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