The Lost Girls (22 page)

Over the next few months Ariel Castro was often seen driving Jocelyn to nearby Roberto Clementi Park to play with her pet Chihuahua, named Dina.

“I saw Castro with that little girl … at least twice a week,” said neighbor Moses Cintron. “They pulled up in his red pickup truck, and he helped her out because it was so high. She got friendly with my dogs. She used to come and pet them.”

Jovita Marti said she frequently saw her neighbor with the little girl, whom she presumed was his granddaughter.

“He’d have a little Chihuahua in the back of his red truck,” she recalled, “and he’s with the little girl in the front. They went to the park and he always took her to the U.S. Bank on Clark Street and West Twenty-fifth.”

There were even rumors that one of Ariel Castro’s family was giving the little girl regular lessons. Later, Ariel Castro would tell detectives that Jocelyn had started asking him why he was locking Amanda, Michelle and Gina in their rooms whenever he went out. And she was begging him not to lock them in anymore.

In late November, Grupo Kanon fired him from the band. After fifteen years of putting up with his arrogant behavior and lateness, they had had enough and found a new bassist. Bandleader Ivan Ruiz said the tardy bassist always refused to conform to his strict dress code for the band.

“[I] would tell all the musicians the attire for the gig that night,” said Ruiz, “and he always had to put on different clothing.”

Whenever Ruiz called him out on it, the bassist would get angry.

“He would not like what I would say … and he always gave me excuses,” said Ruiz, “and I’d tell him, ‘I’m sorry, I’m the director of the band and you have to do what I tell you.’”

On Christmas Day, Jocelyn celebrated her sixth birthday, and her father threw her a party. He bought festive balloons, streamers and a big banner reading
HAPPY BIRTHDAY,
and had Amanda and Gina decorate the living room with them, deliberately leaving Michelle, who was now three months pregnant, up in the pink bedroom.

Then he put on a salsa CD and brought Michelle downstairs, instructing her not to join in the festivities, as she was not part of them. Castro then produced a video camera and filmed Jocelyn cutting her birthday cake with Amanda, as everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to her. But he was careful not to film anyone but Amanda and Jocelyn.

“Jocelyn looked up at her mother with a huge smile on her face,” said Michelle. “We clapped. As horrible as I felt inside and out, it was nice to see her happy.”

After the party finished, Castro sent Amanda, Jocelyn and Gina back to their rooms. Then he pointed at the stairs to the basement and ordered Michelle to go down. At the top, he suddenly pushed her full force down the concrete stairs, and she landed on her stomach on the side of a bookcase.

Castro then came in the basement, shouting that he was going to “fix” her once and for all, so she could never have another child. Then he kicked her in the stomach with his heavy boot as hard as he could, as Michelle begged him not to kill another baby. This only seemed to energize Castro, as he kicked her again and again in the stomach. Finally, he hit the side of her head with his open hand and went back upstairs, leaving her on the filthy concrete floor in agony.

When Michelle screamed in pain, he turned up the salsa music and came back into the basement, threatening to kill her if she didn’t stop screaming. He then dragged her back up two flights of stairs and into her room.

Four days later, Michelle started to bleed and Castro brought her into the bathroom.

“You’d better hope that baby is dead!” he told her, as he left, slamming the door. She then pulled down her pants and sat on the toilet seat, and as her body went into convulsions she heard her fetus splash into the water.

With Castro outside screaming at her to hurry up, a tearful Michelle picked her dead baby out of the toilet and apologized to it. He burst in and slapped her in the face, making her drop her fetus.

“It’s your fault!” he screamed at her. “You aborted my baby! I should go and get my gun and blow your head off right now.”

He then went down to the kitchen for a garbage bag and dropped the fetus into it, and threw it in his backyard trash can.

A few minutes later he brought Michelle back to her room, where a terrified Gina was waiting. Then he threw some white paper napkins on the mattress, ordering Michelle to clean herself off.

On February 18, 2013, Ariel Castro signed up for Facebook and started immersing himself in social media. On his new profile page, he posted an old photograph of himself with a full beard and leather hat, taken at least twenty years earlier. He listed the barest details for his profile, merely saying he lived in Cleveland, Ohio, studied at Lincoln West High School and was a member of Grupo Fuego.

As he had alienated so many musicians and now rarely got work, he began searching for new musical contacts in the Cleveland Latin music scene.

“When he started on Facebook he friended me,” said Tito DeJesus. “He had never used a computer before and then he started texting. When he saw on Facebook that I was playing in a few bands, he said, ‘Hey man, if you ever need me on the strings.’”

So Tito invited Castro over to his new apartment to listen to some CDs and go over some musical charts.

“He brought a twelve-pack of Corona,” recalled Tito. “So we sat drinking beer and going over songs.”

Once again Castro asked Tito if they had ever found his cousin Gina. When he said they had not, Castro said he prayed to God that they would.

“That was the last time I ever saw him,” said DeJesus.

On Friday, February 28, Castro told his fifty new Facebook friends that he was feeling full of optimism, as winter was almost over.

“This morning,” he wrote, “I woke up to the sound of a churping [
sic
] cardinal. Yes! Come on spring.”

The next day, his brother Pedro celebrated his fifty-fourth birthday, and the following Tuesday, Castro wrote: “It was a good weekend. Pedro gained yet another year. Bless my bro.”

On March 9, he greeted his Facebook friends, posting, “Good day everyone, and blessings.”

Four days later, Castro texted bandleader Ivan Ruiz, asking for work. In the four months since Grupo Kanon had sacked him he had rarely played onstage.

“He really wanted to come back with the band,” said Ruiz. “I told him, ‘We’ll keep you in mind.’ But I knew I was never going to call him again. Musically he was awesome … but his actions and stuff.”

That week, his oldest daughter Angie Gregg visited from Fort Wayne, and he showed her a photograph of Jocelyn on his cell phone.

“Isn’t this a cute little girl,” he told her.

“She’s cute,” agreed Angie. “Who is that?”

Castro said it was his girlfriend’s child, explaining he was not the father.

But Angie was struck by an uncanny resemblance to her sister Emily.

“Dad, that girl looks a lot like Emily,” she told him. “She has the exact same nose as Emily.”

Becoming visibly uncomfortable, he then turned off the phone and changed the subject.

“I figured at the most he had an illegitimate child out there,” said Angie, “and I would find out eventually.”

One chilly afternoon in mid-March, Ariel Castro brought Michelle Knight into his backyard. He told her to wait outside his van, soon returning with a large shovel and gloves. Then he announced he was landscaping a garden and handed her the shovel to start digging a hole. The ground was still frozen and Michelle had a hard job getting the shovel even to pierce the soil. Then Castro started digging alongside her with a spade, saying the hole must be deep. And for the rest of the afternoon they dug, with Castro continually saying the hole was not deep enough.

Suddenly, Michelle realized that they were not excavating a new garden, but digging a grave for someone, possibly her. After three hours of heavy digging, Castro announced they were finished for the day and would carry on tomorrow. But he never did ask her to finish digging the hole.

On April 2, the ninth anniversary of Gina DeJesus going missing, her family held a fund-raiser to keep her in the public eye. Once again Ariel Castro attended, playing music with a pickup salsa band, and asking Nancy Ruiz how she was doing.

At the rally, Nancy vowed never to give up searching for Gina.

“I mean, this is nine years,” she said. “Nine years there hasn’t been nothing. I mean, there’s no body—that’s letting me know that she’s still here and we need to bring her home.”

The next night, Felix and Nancy were the guests of honor at a Cleveland Cavaliers game, where Gina’s photograph and missing-person’s poster were displayed on the Jumbotron at halftime.

Two days later, Castro texted his daughter Angie some photos from his cell phone of a dog seated on a Porta-Potty. A few months earlier he had sent her a video of a dog in labor. Angie believed that they had been taken in the basement at 2207 Seymour Avenue, and wondered why her father would need a portable potty.

On April 11, Arlene Castro gave birth to a baby boy in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After hearing the news, her proud father announced his new grandson to his friends on Facebook.

“Congrats to my Rosie Arlene,” he wrote. “Wishing you a fast recovery. She gave birth to a wonderful baby boy. That makes me Gramps for the fifth time, (2boys 1girl 2boys) Love you guys!”

On April 21, Ariel Castro celebrated the tenth anniversary of Amanda Berry’s abduction with birthday cake. And as she watched TV coverage of her tenth vigil, once again Castro mingled with the crowd gathered outside the Burger King on West 110th and Lorain Avenue.

“It is an emotional landmark anniversary for one of Cleveland’s most notorious missing-persons cases,” said a Fox-8 news anchor. “It was ten years ago today that then sixteen-year-old Amanda Berry disappeared on her way home from work … and was headed home for her own birthday party. She never made it.”

The camera then zoomed in on a crowd of supporters with large posters reading,
A DECADE LOST, AMANDA BERRY, WE MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU, MANDY,
and
WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE FAITH.

The next morning, Castro posted a cryptic message to his Facebook friends:

A REAL WOMAN WILL NOT USE THEIR CHILD AS A WEAPON TO HURT THE FATHER WHEN THE RELATIONSHIP BREAKS DOWN. DO NOT LOSE SITE [
SIC
] OF THE FACT THAT IT IS THE CHILD THAT SUFFERS.

“True that,” commented Castro on his posting, which was liked by two of his Facebook friends.

The last week of April, Ariel Castro, Jr., arrived at 2207 Seymour Avenue to visit his father. The thirty-one-year-old banker was in Cleveland for the weekend and his dad had asked him to stop by his house before he went back to Columbus.

“When I pulled up,” said Ariel, Jr., “he poked his head out from the back of the house and waved me to the backyard.”

As he was not invited inside the house, they spoke in the yard. During the conversation, Castro suddenly asked his son if he thought Amanda Berry would ever be found. When Ariel, Jr., replied that she was probably dead after so many years missing, his father replied, “Really? You think so?”

On Thursday afternoon, May 2, Ricky Sanchez came over to 2207 Seymour Avenue, after Ariel Castro expressed interest in a bass guitar he was selling.

“We [had] become friends on Facebook,” said Sanchez, “and he saw a bass guitar that I had for sale and [wanted] me to come and show it to him.”

The musician, who had been visiting Castro’s house for many years, was one of the few people he ever allowed inside.

“I’d been there about forty-five minutes,” Sanchez recalled, “when a little girl walked into the room from the kitchen at the back of the house. I was a regular visitor in that house and I’d never seen her before.”

Then a grinning Castro asked if he had ever met his granddaughter before, telling the little girl to say hello.

“I said hi to her but she never said hi to me,” said Sanchez.

Then Castro took the girl gently by the hand and led her out of the living room. Sanchez thought it “strange,” as he knew all Castro’s kids and grandkids, and had never seen the little girl before. Castro came back into the room, and soon afterward Sanchez heard a loud banging sound coming from upstairs.

“It was a low-pitched
thump-thump,
” said Sanchez. “I couldn’t tell where it was coming from in that old house.”

When he asked what it was, Castro said he had some dogs on the second floor, and then turned up the radio.

After Ricky Sanchez left, Ariel Castro posted a photograph of the new bass guitar he had bought on Facebook, with the comment, “I know ‘quality’ when I see it, very nice.”

And a few hours later, he posted another, more cryptic message: “Miracles really do happen. God is good:)”

At around 1:00
P.M.
on Sunday, May 5, Ariel Castro took Jocelyn to Roberto Clementi Park in his red pickup truck as usual. His neighbor Israel Lugo, who was there playing with his daughter, watched him pull up.

“He had a little kid with him,” said Lugo, “a beautiful little girl. Ariel was acting all happy families. He got out of the truck and went to the corner bakery and got the girl a pastry.”

Then Castro brought Jocelyn into the park to play with Lugo’s small daughter.

“We were sitting there talking as we watched the kids playing,” Lugo recalled, “and I asked him, ‘Whose kid is this, Ariel?’ He told me, ‘It’s my girlfriend’s daughter’s kid.’ It’s like they were a family.”

The two little girls played together for about an hour, before Ariel Castro fetched Jocelyn, helped her into his red truck and drove off.

After leaving the park, Castro drove Jocelyn back to 2207 Seymour Avenue. Then around 5:30
P.M.
his brothers Pedro and Onil arrived and waited in front of the house.

“Ariel came out to speak to them at one point,” said neighbor Ailsa Laboy, “and then went back in the house.”

Soon afterward, Angie Castro arrived and went in to have dinner with her father.