The Lost Girls (37 page)

Then Beth asked that Amanda be able to control how and when Jocelyn finds out about her father.

“Amanda did not control anything for a long time,” she said. “Please … let her protect her daughter. She will do anything to protect her daughter.”

Finally, Michelle Knight stood up and, after hugging Sylvia Colon and Beth Serrano, walked straight past Ariel Castro without giving him a look. Her attorney had advised against attending the sentencing and seeing Castro again, but Michelle was determined to “face my demon.” She had spent the last few days writing her statement, which would finally free her from the tyranny of Ariel Castro.

“Good afternoon,” she began, speaking clearly. “My name is Michelle Knight and I would like to tell you what this was like for me.”

She told the judge that she had missed her son, Joey, every single day of her eleven-year captivity, crying herself to sleep thinking about him.

“I was so alone,” she said. “Days turned into nights. Nights turned into days. The years turned into eternity.”

Michelle said she knew no one cared about her, especially as Castro constantly reminded her of it. Christmas was the “most traumatic” day of the year for her, knowing there was no one out there looking for her.

“Nobody should ever have to go through what I went through,” she said, “or anybody else, not even my worst enemy.”

She called Gina DeJesus her “teammate,” saying she nursed her back to health when she was dying from Castro’s abuse. Their friendship had been the only good thing to come out of it.

“We said we will someday make it out alive,” she said, “and we did.”

Then Michelle took a deep breath and addressed her jailer directly.

“Ariel Castro,” she began, as he stared at her, without a hint of emotion. “You took eleven years of my life away and I have got it back. I spent eleven years in hell, and now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all this that happened, but you will face hell for eternity.

“From this moment on, I will not let you define me or affect who I am. I will live on. You will die a little every day.”

Then Michelle asked what God would think of him going to church every Sunday, and then coming home to torture her, Amanda and Gina.

“The death penalty would be so much easier,” she told him. “You don’t deserve that. You deserve to spend life in prison. I can forgive you, but I will never forget.”

Michelle told the judge that with the “guidance of God,” she now wanted to help others that had suffered as she had.

“Writing this statement gave me the strength to be a stronger woman,” she said, “and know … there is more good than evil. After eleven years, I am finally being heard and it’s liberating. Thank you all. I love you. God bless you.”

Assistant Prosecutor Faraglia then addressed Judge Russo about sentencing criteria.

“This case speaks volumes with regards to the defendant’s actions,” she told him. “If we look at the harm that has been caused to these victims, the only thing I need tell you is that 13,226 days of captivity.”

She said that Castro had lured two of his innocent victims when they were just fourteen and sixteen, using his own daughters as bait.

“He locked the doors. He kept them chained. He used dirty socks when they screamed for help. There was duct tape and motorcycle helmets. That’s what you need to consider, Your Honor.”

She said that as well as dictating their most intimate bodily functions, Castro “tormented” them by allowing them to watch their own vigils on television.

“And he even had the audacity to attend them and to talk to the family members,” she said, “knowing full well that these women were in his captivity. They were right under his roof. Again, what kind of impact on these victims.”

She asked the judge to punish Ariel Castro’s “brazen behavior,” and not show him any mercy.

“His actions have spoken so loud in this community,” she said. “I think Michelle said it best to you, ‘It was an eternity,’ and that’s why he deserves a new sentence. The minimum is a thousand years but this court can go higher, and the reason for our hearing today was to give you a picture of what happened at 2207 Seymour. It was by no means a way to disparage, to humiliate or to embarrass, or tell the story to a child. It was information that’s being given to a court of law to impose a sentence. And that’s what we did. Thank you.”

Then Judge Russo asked Ariel Castro’s lawyers if they had anything to say before their client addressed the court. Craig Weintraub said he had already expressed how the defense felt about the State’s presentation today.

“We feel it was inappropriate,” he said. “These are really private matters … but the sentence was agreed upon and Mr. Castro waived his appellant rights to challenge any of the facts in the sentencing of the case.”

The judge then asked Tim McGinty if he had finished his presentation. The prosecutor said he wanted to give a rebuttal after the defendant had finished speaking.

“If you want to make a statement, make it now,” said Judge Russo, losing patience. “Because if Mr. Castro wants to make a statement that will be the end of it. Okay.”

“Your Honor,” said McGinty, “as you noted these are unprecedented crimes that call for an unprecedented sentence.”

He told the judge that the defendant had taken advantage of “young vulnerable children,” in “prior and calculated criminal acts.” The three abductions had been a “disaster to the community,” and today the State had attempted to help the court get a feel for the “extraordinary depravation” all the victims had suffered.

Calling Ariel Castro a “master manipulator,” the prosecutor said there was no basis for his “sudden claim” that he suffered from mental illness.

“He has no psychiatric excuses,” said McGinty. “He is responsible.”

Comparing Castro to serial killers John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy, the prosecutor said the defendant was a sexual predator and should have sought help.

“He has no excuse,” he said. “He takes no responsibility when questioned.”

McGinty observed he even blamed the victims for getting in his car in the first place, and not doing what they were taught in school.

“He has no sincere remorse,” said the prosecutor. “The only reason he pled guilty to this crime and this sentence was to avoid the death penalty. It’s for himself. For no one else.”

The prosecutor then spoke about Louwana Miller, who died without ever knowing Amanda was alive. And he revealed that Amanda wrote daily letters to her mother in her journal.

“Then she had to write to her deceased mother,” he told the judge. “She had to sit there and tell her loving mother what she would have told her. She then had to learn of her own mother’s funeral, and … that this man, the guy who goes to church on Sunday and comes home and beats and rapes her … had the audacity to go to their vigil.”

Castro had also interacted with Gina’s mother on Facebook, said the prosecutor, and brought missing posters into the house and put them up on the wall.

“He knows her mother is looking for her,” he told the judge, “waiting for her, begging for her, praying for her. And he has her in his own home and he’s torturing her.”

McGinty said that even now Ariel Castro did not believe he had done anything wrong, and had absolutely no remorse.

“This man deserves as many years and as much punishment as this court can possibly give him,” said the prosecutor. “We thank the courage of the victims. They’ve inspired law enforcement. They’ve inspired the prosecutors, and they’ve inspired the families, and they’ve inspired the other victims of the future.”

At 12:38
P.M.
, Judge Michael Russo asked Ariel Castro if he wished to speak before being sentenced. And for the next seventeen minutes, he delivered a rambling, self-pitying and often defiant speech from the defense table, as his two attorneys looked on helplessly.

“First of all,” Castro began, “I am a very emotional person. So I’m going to try and get it out.”

He began by telling the judge how he had been a victim of sexual molestation as a child, leading to his lifelong obsession with pornography and “sexual problems.”

“People are trying to paint me as a monster,” he told the court, “and I’m not a monster. I’m sick.”

Castro maintained he had always lived a “normal life,” holding down a steady job with a wife and four children.

“And I still practiced the art of touching myself and viewing pornography,” he said. “I believe I am addicted to porn to the point that it really makes me impulsive, and I just don’t realize what I am doing is wrong. I’m not trying to make excuses here, ’cause I know … that I will be put away forever.”

He then attacked his son, Anthony, for calling him an abusive father and husband in a recent television interview.

“I was never abusive until I met [Nilda],” he said. “She [was] saying I was a wife-beater. That is wrong.”

Castro blamed Nilda Figueroa for all the violence during their relationship, saying she had provoked him to it.

“I couldn’t get her to quiet down,” he told the judge. “She would keep going and the situation would escalate until the point where she would put her hands on me, and that’s how I reacted. I put my hands on her. I know that’s [wrong].”

Castro said when they separated after twelve years, he found himself single again.

“I continued to practice the art of masturbation and pornography,” he continued, “and it got so bad that I used to do it … two or three hours a day, nonstop. And when I was finished, I would just collapse, right there.”

He then segued into how he had “picked up the first victim,” saying it was completely unplanned.

“When I got up that day,” he told the court, “I did not say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna … try and find some women,’ because it just wasn’t my character. But I know it’s wrong and I’m not trying to make excuses here.”

Suddenly, he became emotional, complaining that everybody said he was violent when the opposite was true.

“I drove a school bus,” he told the judge. “I’m a musician. I had a family. I do have value for human life.”

He said his life had changed after Jocelyn had been born.

“As crazy as it may sound,” he said, “my daughter just made every day for me. She never saw anything that was going on in the house, Your Honor. If anyone could ask her … she’ll probably say, ‘Yeah, my dad is the best dad in the world.’ Because that’s how I try and raise her in those six years, so she won’t be traumatized.”

Castro claimed that Jocelyn had always lived a “normal life,” and he would take her out in public to experience life outside 2207 Seymour Avenue.

“And I will take her to church,” he said, “and I will come home and just be a normal family. These accusations that I would come home and beat them are totally wrong. Your Honor, like I said before, I am not a violent person. I simply kept them there without being able to leave.”

Then Castro explained that he had been “driven by sex” when he had abducted Gina DeJesus.

“I saw her walking with my daughter [Arlene],” he said, “but I did not know she was related to the DeJesus family. I know her dad, we went to school together.”

Then he appeared to blame Amanda for getting into his car without even knowing who he was.

“I’m trying to make a point that I am not a violent predator,” he said. “You are trying to make me look like a monster. I’m not a monster. I am a normal person. I am just sick. I have an addiction just like an alcoholic has an addiction. Alcoholics cannot control their addiction. That’s why I can’t control my addiction, Your Honor.”

He then told the judge that most of the sex had been “consensual,” and there had been a “lot of harmony” at 2207 Seymour Avenue.

“Practically all of it was consensual,” he told Judge Russo. “These allegations about being forceful on them [are] totally wrong. Because there were times that they would even ask me for sex. Many times. And I learned that these girls are not virgins from their testimony to me. And they had multiple partners before me. All three of them.”

Then, cradling his head in his hands, Ariel Castro apologized to his three victims, saying he was “truly sorry” for what had happened.

“I don’t know why,” he sobbed. “A man that had everything going for himself. I had a job. I had a home. I had vehicles. My musical talent. I had everything going for me, Your Honor.”

Then he mentioned the
YouTube
video of Amanda onstage with Nelly, claiming it proved he had not hurt her.

“That girl did not go through torture,” he told the judge, “because if that was true, do you think she would be out there partying already and having fun? I don’t think so.

“I see Gina in the media. She looks normal. She acts normal. A person that’s been tortured just does not act normal. They would act withdrawn and everything. On the contrary, they’re the opposite. The victims are happy.

“I haven’t seen much of Michelle. Because Michelle since day one, no one missed her. I never saw any fliers about her.”

Then he blamed the FBI for incompetence, saying that if they had done a thorough investigation he would have been caught long ago.

“I feel that the FBI let these girls down when they questioned my daughter [Arlene],” he declared, “but they failed to question me. I’m her father. If they would have questioned me … it’s possible that it would have ended right there.”

He then turned around and looked at Michelle, Beth Serrano and the various members of the DeJesus family, all sitting in the public gallery.

“I am truly sorry,” he told them, “to the DeJesus family, Michelle and Amanda. You guys know all the harmony that went on in that house. I ask God to forgive me and I apologize to my family also for putting them through all this. And I want to apologize to the State of Ohio and the City of Cleveland, for putting a dark cloud over this.

“I do also want to let you know that there was harmony in that home. There was harmony at home. I was a good person being brought up. I never had a record. I just hope they find it in their hearts to forgive me and maybe do some research on people [whose] addictions take over their lives.”

He then tearfully apologized to his daughter, Jocelyn, for neglecting her health, by not taking her mother to a doctor during her difficult birth, when she almost died.