Ariel Castro was sentenced to serve 1,000 years in prison but spend merely 33 days there before hanging himself.Castro was found guilty on charges of kidnapping women and holding them in the basement of his home, where he raped them and assaulted them to the point of causing abortions.
Castro was sentenced to life without parole plus 1,000 years. When asked if he understood he would never be released from prison, Castro said: “I do understand that, your honor.” He added, “I knew I was pretty much going to get the book thrown at me.”
Now, he has hung himself in his prison cell, according to reports:
Medical officials tried to revive the 53-year-old former school bus driver after he was discovered around 9:20 p.m. CT Tuesday at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, authorities said.
Castro was transported to Ohio State University Medical Center but was pronounced dead at 10.52 p.m.
Authorities said a “thorough review of this incident is under way.”
Castro had been housed in protective custody, which means he was in a cell by himself. Guards were making rounds every 30 minutes at staggered intervals, according to the Ohio Bureau of Prisons.
Speaking to NBC’s TODAY on Wednesday, Castro’s attorney Craig Weintraub said that his client’s family was devastated by the news.
He said Castro had been moved to the prison about two weeks ago and that relatives had visited a couple of times since then.
Weintraub acknowledged that the reaction of many people would likely be “good riddance” but said that he planned to “get to the bottom” of the circumstances surrounding Castro’s death.
That “good riddance attitude was seen across the Internet today, as evidence by some of the Tweets sent in reaction.
33 days Ariel Castro could handle in prison. His victims spent 4015 days in his prison while he raped them. Ugh. Evil coward.
— Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets) September 4, 2013
Cleveland kidnapper hangs himself in prison: https://t.co/BkvgwElXcE Ariel Castro didn’t have a fraction of his victims’ courage. — John Hayward (@Doc_0) September 4, 2013
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
Castro starved and kicked one of the kidnapped pregnant women, Michelle Knight, resulting in her miscarrying five children.
Michelle’s brother Freddie tells the New York Daily News that Michelle wants to be reunited with the son she had before she was abducted by Castro. He was born after Michelle was gang-raped by boys at school prior to her abduction.
After Castro was apprehended, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said his office intended to seek charges not only for the sexual assaults endured by the victims, but also “each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies.” Local pro-life groups in Ohio asked McGinty to follow through on his promise and the county jury did just that.
Two counts of the indictment are for aggravated murder in the deaths of two unborn babies.
Several national and Ohio pro-life groups joined together to sign and deliver a letter asking Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty to file murder charges against Ariel Castro for killing five unborn children during the kidnapping of Michelle Knight, one of the three women he abducted. The signers of the letter believed that Castro should be charged for violating Ohio’s Fetal Homicide Law.
A representative of one of the groups told LifeNews at the time he’s happy the grand jury returned charges.
“Our coalition is pleased that the prosecutor kept his word by following our urging to charge Castro with murder. The grand juries’ decision to charge Castro with murdering two of the unborn children that Michelle Knight was carrying will hopefully bring them justice,” said Mark Harrington of Created Equal. “These babies deserve the same protection that all pregnant mothers have. Despite the fact that the Michelle Knight was not also killed in this instance is beside the point. We expect Castro to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for murdering these unborn babies.”
The Ohio Fetal Homicide Law (ORC 2903.01) reads, “No person shall purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another’s pregnancy.”
Harrington said Castro should be charged with aggravated and felonious assault against Knight and aggravated murder of her five children.
Attorney Samuel Casey, a pro-life advocate who has been closely monitoring the case, said, “We believe that whether a child is in utero or ‘born alive’ — whether we call it fetal homicide or infanticide—it is a criminal action to take an innocent human being’s life. The mother’s consent (particularly when it is coerced or uninformed) should make no difference to the existence of the crime being committed. Whether the apparent motive is a commercial one (as in Kermit Gosnell’s case) or sexual abuse (as in Castro’s case), it should be just as criminal for a health care provider or a sexual deviant to kill a baby born or preborn because pregnancy is not a disease and induced abortion is never health care.”
