Ohio kidnapper Ariel Castro was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for kidnapping three women and holding them captive for up to 11 years. Referring to himself as a victim, Castro said, “I believe I’m a porn addict. I’m not a violent person, I just kept them there without being able to leave.”
Castro said he never forced himself on the women, and that at times the women asked him for sex. He said there was always “harmony in the home.”
Judge Michael Russo told Castro that it’s likely that nobody else in the country agrees that there was harmony inside that home.
Castro sat attentively as his first victim, Michelle Knight, addressed him in a Cleveland courtroom today. “I will overcome all this has happened, but you will face hell for eternity,” said Knight, 32.
Knight was a 20-year-old single mother when Castro lured her into his car in 2002 with the promise of a puppy for her son. She was starved and beaten each time she was pregnant, forcing her to miscarry five times. Today was the first time Knight saw Castro since she and Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, 23, were rescued from Castro’s Cleveland home on May 6. The women all disappeared between 2002 and 2004 when they were 14, 16 and 20.
In the court filing, prosecutors say Castro kept all three women chained in his basement, fed them one meal a day, and sexually assaulted them within hours of kidnapping them. castro once kept all 3 girls locked inside a van in his garage for three days while he had visitors in his home.
Prosecutors will ask the judge to prevent Castro from ever seeing the 6-year-old daughter he sired with Amanda Berry. Berry made a surprises appearance at a rap concert featuring Nelly last weekend.
The death penalty was taken off the table when Castro plead guilty to all charges.
