Speaker 1: Today we discussed the survival story of three women, Michelle Knight,
Speaker 1: Amanda Barry and Gina To Jesus, each of them was
Speaker 1: stolen from their lives at a young age, locked away
Speaker 1: and subjected to unimaginable horrors. They endured torture, assault, and
Speaker 1: suffering beyond comprehension. Yet through it all they held on
Speaker 1: to hope, believing that one day they would be free.
Speaker 1: Over a decade after that night mare began, that day
Speaker 1: finally came. Amanda Berry seized her chance and made a
Speaker 1: daring escape, leading to the capture of the man who
Speaker 1: kept them imprisoned. Because of her bravery, the three women
Speaker 1: were finally free, and a monster named Ariel Castro was
Speaker 1: locked away. This is the story of the Aerial Castro
Speaker 1: kidnappings and the three women who survived. Hell.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: The following material more mature audience listener. Happy Pie Day.
Speaker 2: Huh oh, yeah, I guess it is, that's your response.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's three point one four, it's day.
Speaker 2: I would not have evenized that today.
Speaker 1: Oh well, it's Pie Day and Saint Patrick's Day is
Speaker 1: coming up as well.
Speaker 2: It is, isn't it on Monday or something? I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I think it's Monday the seventeenth. So make sure you
Speaker 1: wear green when you go back to work on Monday,
Speaker 1: because you're gonna probably get pinched by that annoying person
Speaker 1: in the office for workspace who's always like yeah too, chipper, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the one that we just want to like throw the
Speaker 1: hot coffee in their face on Monday mornings. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: We want to. We don't, but we want, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's probably some parties this weekend then, celebrating Saint
Speaker 2: Patti's Day.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming most likely getting their green beer on and
Speaker 1: everyone's Irish for the day sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Back in our day, we used to do stuff like that.
Speaker 2: We've gone to a couple but now I'm just like,
Speaker 2: I think the hockey game's on and I'm making homemade parrogis,
Speaker 2: so that sounds better.
Speaker 1: I might put a drop of green food coloring in
Speaker 1: a beer. Why not? Well, yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 2: You're not going to go party your face off, I
Speaker 2: don't think, are you?
Speaker 1: No? But I will make sure I wear green just
Speaker 1: in case I run into someone who's going to try
Speaker 1: and pinch me, like you.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like I'm not the annoying person in
Speaker 2: the office. I'm just whoa your wife?
Speaker 1: Are you saying I'm the annoying person in the office
Speaker 1: because you and I are the only people in the office.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, we're thinking about the two of us. I
Speaker 2: don't know. We take turns on that front.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, I can't argue that.
Speaker 2: Actually, yet of mine, you would on a daily basis
Speaker 2: be more annoying than me.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I would say, wow, that hurts a little bit. Wow,
Speaker 1: thank you. Anyways, betrayal aside, well, come.
Speaker 2: On, it's okay. The problem with this, and we've talked
Speaker 2: about this before, is because I'm like, I like quiet
Speaker 2: and Ben doesn't like quiet. So you probably come across
Speaker 2: more annoying to me because you're you like loud and
Speaker 2: you like having music on, and and for someone who
Speaker 2: enjoys quiet, that can be a lot sometimes.
Speaker 1: And for someone who thrives with background noise, like white
Speaker 1: noise or music or whether it's like lack seeing chill
Speaker 1: waves or something, when it's just dead silent, I get
Speaker 1: so nervous and uneasy.
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyways, I think we should get into this case. Have
Speaker 1: you heard the story of an aerial castro and the kidnappings? A.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pretty big one, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It is a pretty big one. And actually there was
Speaker 1: I talked about it briefly later on, but there was
Speaker 1: a moment when these three women were finally you know,
Speaker 1: they got away, right. One of the people who helped
Speaker 1: them get away and neighbor, he made like viral sensation
Speaker 1: on YouTube at the time for his YouTube interview or sorry,
Speaker 1: his news interview. Okay, so this story was not only
Speaker 1: a massive story on news, but it was a massive
Speaker 1: internet culture story as well. So it was it was
Speaker 1: a huge story in two different fronts, right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So I think with that we should just get into it. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do it. On August twenty third two, on thousand
Speaker 1: and two, twenty one year old Michelle Knight left a
Speaker 1: relative's house in Cleveland, Ohio. She was leaving with one
Speaker 1: goal in mind, getting to a custody hearing for her
Speaker 1: two year old son, Joey. Now, unfortunately, she never made it.
Speaker 1: Lost in trying to find her way, Michelle ran into
Speaker 1: a familiar face, Ariel, a man that she knew and
Speaker 1: was the father of one of her friends. She didn't
Speaker 1: hesitate when he offered her a ride. You know, she
Speaker 1: was trusting him without a second thought. Now that trust, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: would cost her everything. Now. Michelle's childhood had never been easy.
Speaker 1: Her family struggled to make ends meet, and she often
Speaker 1: found herself responsible for looking after her own siblings. On
Speaker 1: top of that, she claimed to have endured abuse at
Speaker 1: home as well. At just fourteen, she had had enough
Speaker 1: and ran away, choosing the uncertainty of the streets over
Speaker 1: the pain she faced at home. Now. Eventually she did
Speaker 1: return home and tried to get back on track by
Speaker 1: finishing school. Then, at eighteen, she became pregnant, allegedly as
Speaker 1: the result of an assault. Her son, Joey, became her
Speaker 1: and higher world after that, But in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: after an incident involving her mother's boyfriend, who, according to reports,
Speaker 1: was intoxicated and caused Joey to suffer a serious injury,
Speaker 1: authorities stepped in. Michelle lost custody and Joey was placed
Speaker 1: in foster care. That day, as she walked through the
Speaker 1: streets of Cleveland, she was hoping to take her first
Speaker 1: steps towards bringing her son home. Instead, she walked straight
Speaker 1: into a nightmare. Ariel was forty two at the time,
Speaker 1: working as a school bus driver and playing music in
Speaker 1: the local music scenes. A bit of a band guy,
Speaker 1: I guess. He seemed ordinary enough, and when he offered
Speaker 1: Michelle a puppy, something she thought Joey would love when
Speaker 1: he finally got home. She was so excited. He told
Speaker 1: her they could stop by his house pick it up
Speaker 1: before going to the hearing. When he gave her a ride. Now,
Speaker 1: unfortunately there was no puppy.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Okay, that would have got me too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So imagine that someone you know, you know, your
Speaker 1: friend's dad is like, I'll give you a ride to
Speaker 1: go to your hearing, Like you're walking right, yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of like, shit, where am I going? Which street is
Speaker 1: it on? I'll give you a ride. I know where
Speaker 1: it is. And if, in fact, if you want, I
Speaker 1: got a litter of puppies at home right now, that'd
Speaker 1: be the perfect present for your son.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like coming home, the homecoming present exactly.
Speaker 1: And so Michelle was just thrilled with this idea. It
Speaker 1: was perfect. She was getting helped to go, you know,
Speaker 1: get her son back, should have this puppy, this thing
Speaker 1: that they could share and be a family again. However,
Speaker 1: that was clearly not what Ariel had in mind.
Speaker 2: WHOA, Yeah, okay, she didn't stand a chance, because, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hard, especially when you know the person right, and
Speaker 2: if they're like your friend's dad. I don't think you
Speaker 2: would think twice.
Speaker 1: Really, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: And Michelle didn't know it yet, but Ariel had likely
Speaker 1: been waiting for a moment like this for a while,
Speaker 1: you know, a chance to act on this like dark
Speaker 1: fantasy sort of situation.
Speaker 2: Her in particular.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was with her in particular.
Speaker 1: I think Michelle was just wrong place, wrong time sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Okay, So when the two got to his
Speaker 1: home at twenty two oh seven Seymour Avenue, he led
Speaker 1: her inside, and then before she could react, the door
Speaker 1: shut behind her, and the world as she knew it disappeared.
Speaker 1: Ariel wasted no time. He wrapped an extension cord around
Speaker 1: Michelle's neck, tied her arms and legs together, and then
Speaker 1: shoved a sock in her mouth to silence her scream.
Speaker 2: Holy shit.
Speaker 1: Then he looked at her dead in the eyes and
Speaker 1: said you're not going to leave for a long time.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, she's obviously just panicking, I'm sure, But
Speaker 2: then she also is a super important thing too that
Speaker 2: is probably making her panic even more that she's missing, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just thinking about Joey, her son, right, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: she begged for him to let her go, right, sobbing
Speaker 1: that she needs to go get Joey and go.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, in response that, Buriel tore the only photo that
Speaker 1: she had of Joey into tiny pieces in front of her. Wow,
Speaker 1: he'd ripped them up and just let them fall to
Speaker 1: the floor. And he told her you'll never see him again.
Speaker 2: Oh my, Okay, that's that's something, ain't Yeah.
Speaker 1: He kept her chained in the basement, a place that
Speaker 1: had no light, no warmth, and no way out. For days.
Speaker 1: She was left in the dark a motorcycle helmet strapped
Speaker 1: to her head to muffle the screams that she tried
Speaker 1: to let out. Now, this, of course, was only the beginning.
Speaker 1: Ariel assaulted her relentlessly, beating her multiple times a day.
Speaker 1: Whenever she cried out, he cranked up the music to
Speaker 1: drown her out as well. He controlled everything when she
Speaker 1: ate what she wore, where she slept, what she was
Speaker 1: allowed to do, what she was allowed to have, and
Speaker 1: worst of all, what happened to her own body. At
Speaker 1: some point, he gave her a small piece of comfort,
Speaker 1: a pit bull, a puppy that she ended up naming Lobo.
Speaker 1: But the moment the dog bit Ariel, in an attempt
Speaker 1: to protect her, Ariel snapped the dog's neck right in
Speaker 1: front of her. Oh gosh, yeah, it wasn't just cruelty.
Speaker 1: It was a message directly to her. If she thought
Speaker 1: that anything could protect her, she was wrong.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: There was no one else in that house. He lived alone,
Speaker 1: his ex having taken their children and left years ago.
Speaker 1: There was no chance of visitors stumbling upon the horrors
Speaker 1: hidden within those walls. Michelle's mother, Barbara, was the one
Speaker 1: who filed the missing person's report. The details were all there,
Speaker 1: her last known outfit, her struggles with getting lost or confused,
Speaker 1: But instead of treating her case as urgent and a
Speaker 1: disappearing persons person, police assumed that she had just run away. Instead,
Speaker 1: they believed that losing custody of her son Joey, had
Speaker 1: been enough for her to leave on her own will.
Speaker 2: Doesn't seem like that is in character of her.
Speaker 1: Really, No Now, Fifteen months later, her name was removed
Speaker 1: from the missing person's database. It was as if she
Speaker 1: had never existed at all.
Speaker 2: Why the hell was it removed.
Speaker 1: Police believed that she left on her own free will
Speaker 1: and not a missing person. Okay, Now, her mother kept searching,
Speaker 1: but report suggests the rest of the rest of her
Speaker 1: family barely made an effort, whether they assumed that she
Speaker 1: had left or you know, they had simply given up
Speaker 1: one way or another. Michelle was for the majority of
Speaker 1: it mostly forgotten.
Speaker 2: Okay, in that short of a time span. That's that
Speaker 2: is so sad.
Speaker 1: It is with no answers, no sign of her anywhere.
Speaker 1: Her son was eventually adopted by another family.
Speaker 2: No Now.
Speaker 1: Once she tried to escape, but the punishment was so
Speaker 1: brutal for that attempt she feared ever trying again. Her
Speaker 1: neck and back were injured so badly that the pain
Speaker 1: stayed with her. She later said, quote, we had no
Speaker 1: way to get out of that house, and even if
Speaker 1: we tried, we got hurt. And yes, she said we
Speaker 1: because by then, when she had said that statement, Michelle
Speaker 1: was not alone in that house. See, seven months after
Speaker 1: Michelle had vanished. Sixteen year old Amanda Barry was getting
Speaker 1: ready for her shift at a fast food restaurant. It
Speaker 1: was April twenty first, two thousand and three, the day
Speaker 1: before her seventeenth birthday. She considered calling in, thinking that
Speaker 1: she'd rather start celebrating early. Now she had everything might
Speaker 1: have been different for her for the rest of her life,
Speaker 1: but instead, she went to work. She finished her shift
Speaker 1: and started walking home, only a few blocks from her house.
Speaker 1: As she walked, she noticed a vehicle parked at an
Speaker 1: odd angle in a driveway, forcing her to kind of
Speaker 1: walk around it. Now inside, she saw a man and
Speaker 1: a young girl. The girl looked familiar. Amanda smiled, thinking
Speaker 1: she recognized her from middle school. After she had passed
Speaker 1: it and walked by, the vehicle started moving. The man
Speaker 1: pulled up beside her and offered her a ride home,
Speaker 1: and that's when she realized the girl that she thought
Speaker 1: she recognized was no longer in the car. When she
Speaker 1: asked about her, the man casually explained that his daughter
Speaker 1: had already you know, left the vehicle and was at
Speaker 1: his house and asked if she wanted to come see her.
Speaker 1: Amanda hesitated, but she had gone to school with two
Speaker 1: of his daughters, and she recognized this one specifically in
Speaker 1: the vehicle right. So she assumed that this man was trustworthy,
Speaker 1: so she said yes. What she didn't know was that
Speaker 1: neither of his daughters actually lived with him. They stayed
Speaker 1: at another neighbor in another neighborhood with their mother, far
Speaker 1: from the house Amanda was about to enter. When they
Speaker 1: arrived at his home on Seymour Avenue, the man told
Speaker 1: her that his daughter must be in the bath or
Speaker 1: something because she wasn't around the home. While they waited,
Speaker 1: he offered to show her round the house. He led
Speaker 1: her upstairs, passed a bedroom where another young woman was
Speaker 1: sleeping a Manda didn't know it then, but that woman
Speaker 1: was Michelle, now twenty two years old and held captive
Speaker 1: for months. Ariel then forced Amanda into another bedroom. That's
Speaker 1: when his tone changed. He told her to take off
Speaker 1: her pants. When it was over, he wrapped her wrists
Speaker 1: and ankles and tape tightened the belt around them for
Speaker 1: good measure, and he took her to the basement.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, Okay, just two things. Is The problem is
Speaker 2: the guy is so trustworthy, like his background and his
Speaker 2: story and stuff, just it just has the potential to
Speaker 2: so easily like lure these girls in.
Speaker 1: Well it just so happens that, Yeah, they know him
Speaker 1: from connections from somewhere a friend, right, So it's assuming
Speaker 1: he's trustworthy, not that he has a background that is trustworthy.
Speaker 2: Well, exactly like you never assume though that your friends
Speaker 2: are someone you go to school with their day is
Speaker 2: is just peer evil? Yeah, and so I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: so both of these, like there's a sexual assault aspect
Speaker 2: to both of them, and I think you're being very
Speaker 2: like discreet about that, but it is Hey, yes, correct,
Speaker 2: because I was wondering about that with the first one
Speaker 2: because I know you said assault but okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm implying it, but I'm not saying it. Let's
Speaker 1: just put it that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, now, when she was in the basement, a motorcycle
Speaker 1: helmet was strapped onto her head and she was chained
Speaker 1: to a pole. Before he left, he told her she
Speaker 1: if she stayed quiet, that he would take her home. Now,
Speaker 1: that of course was a lie. Now, the thrill Castro
Speaker 1: had felt after abducting Michelle had likely dulled over time.
Speaker 1: It was seven months later and he needed that rush again,
Speaker 1: and that's why, or most likely why he took Amanda. Now,
Speaker 1: just like Michelle, she was in the wrong place at
Speaker 1: the wrong time. He saw an opportunity and acted without hesitation.
Speaker 1: On that first day, she was left alone in the
Speaker 1: dark with only a television for company. She screamed, she cried,
Speaker 1: and she begged for help, but no one came. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: her family reported her missing almost immediately, and soon Amanda
Speaker 1: found herself watching the news in Castro's basement, seeing her
Speaker 1: mother and sister plead for her safe return.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I've never even really thought of that. You
Speaker 2: know how they could be watching these things missing people
Speaker 2: like that? Yeah, that is brutal.
Speaker 1: After four days, he brought her upstairs and chained her
Speaker 1: to a radiator in a bedroom. Over time, he started
Speaker 1: asking if she wanted anything to pass the time, and
Speaker 1: she requested something to write in, so he gave her
Speaker 1: a diary, one of those ones with like a little
Speaker 1: tiny lock in key, the ones that I mean, you
Speaker 1: can lock it and not open it, but if you
Speaker 1: really want to open it, you can open it in
Speaker 1: like two seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of her first entries, she wrote this quote,
Speaker 1: you never know what you've got till it's gone. I
Speaker 1: just can't wait to go home. I'm seventeen now but
Speaker 1: don't have a life, but he told me I'm young
Speaker 1: and will go home before summer another two months. That,
Speaker 1: of course, was another lie. A week after abducting Amanda,
Speaker 1: Ariel made a chilling phone call to her family. He
Speaker 1: taunted them. He referred to her as quote Mandy, which
Speaker 1: was a nickname only those closest to her new, and
Speaker 1: used the fact that he knew it shook the family
Speaker 1: to their core. He also claimed that Amanda wanted to
Speaker 1: be with him. The call nearly led to his downfall. Now,
Speaker 1: at the time, the FBI were in the beginning stages
Speaker 1: of developing technology to trace cell phone signals. So they
Speaker 1: had this technology, but it was quite new at the time,
Speaker 1: but it only worked while the cell phone was on.
Speaker 1: Investigators were able to track the signal within two blocks
Speaker 1: of Aerio Castro's house and staked out the area four weeks. However,
Speaker 1: after the call, he never turned the phone on again.
Speaker 2: Okay, and did he do that intentionally? Then knowing I
Speaker 2: don't know, Okay, that seems so odd.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So they had traced the call to an area
Speaker 1: within two blocks, staked it out for weeks, but nothing
Speaker 1: came of it, and eventually they gave up.
Speaker 2: Oh so close, say, but yet so far exactly.
Speaker 1: Now, when I was researching that, I was like, why
Speaker 1: the fuck did they give up? They have the location
Speaker 1: within two blocks, right, However, they don't know if that
Speaker 1: cell phone call came from inside a vehicle. They don't
Speaker 1: know if it was a mobile person, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: visiting a home.
Speaker 2: That's very true, actually.
Speaker 1: And even if they could say, you know what it
Speaker 1: is one of these houses, they do not know that
Speaker 1: going into a house they're going to find the girls.
Speaker 1: They could be held at a different location, those sort
Speaker 1: of things. So there's so many questions in gray areas
Speaker 1: that of course they can't you know, start busting into
Speaker 1: homes and being like, let's see those sort of things.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, yeah, exactly, it could totally have been to
Speaker 2: someone on the road and who pulled over exactly in
Speaker 2: a different area to make this call.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the cell phone signal was traced to two blocks,
Speaker 1: but they did not know if those two blocks were
Speaker 1: you know, within reason of the actual case. However, in hindsight,
Speaker 1: it was now Over the years, thousands of reported sightings surfaced.
Speaker 1: Some claimed that Amanda had been seen in different cities,
Speaker 1: while others believed that she was actually dead, but her
Speaker 1: family refused to give up hope. Without a body, they
Speaker 1: chose to believe that she was still out there and
Speaker 1: still alive. Now, Amanda kept writing in her diary, addressing
Speaker 1: almost every other entry to her mother, or almost every
Speaker 1: entry to her mother. In fact, now her mother's name
Speaker 1: was Luna, and she never stopped searching for her daughter.
Speaker 1: But in two thousand and six, she passed away from
Speaker 1: heart failure at just forty three.
Speaker 2: Oh no. While she was still in like correct oh no.
Speaker 1: Now, her family believed that it wasn't just heart failure failure.
Speaker 1: They believed that it was it was a broken heart.
Speaker 1: It was great shit. Amanda never got to see her again.
Speaker 1: It's unclear exactly how she found out that her mother
Speaker 1: had died, but she and Michelle were sometimes allowed to
Speaker 1: watch TV, as we already discussed, and their own missing
Speaker 1: persons cases frequently were covered at some point after learning
Speaker 1: the truth, whether it was on TV or a news
Speaker 1: report or whatever, of her mom's passing passing, Amanda kept
Speaker 1: writing in her diary, but she changed the way that
Speaker 1: she addressed her entry. Instead of addressing her mother, she
Speaker 1: simply wrote mother in Heaven.
Speaker 2: Okay, that is literally enough to just make you sob Yeah.
Speaker 1: When Amanda was first taken, Michelle only caught a brief
Speaker 1: glimpse of her before she disappeared into another part of
Speaker 1: the house. After that, months passed before they saw one
Speaker 1: another again. Now, Ariel likely kept them apart to prevent
Speaker 1: them from forming any kind of alliance. Right if they
Speaker 1: spend time together without him watching, who knows what they'd
Speaker 1: get up to, what they'd say, would they talk about them,
Speaker 1: would they plan an escape? It's only up for imagination
Speaker 1: in all honesty. Now, even with two women already locked
Speaker 1: away in his house, Ariel wasn't satisfied. He wanted more.
Speaker 1: A year after Amanda's abduction, he set out to find
Speaker 1: yet another victim, and this time he made a promise
Speaker 1: if he brought another girl into the house, he would
Speaker 1: finally let Amanda go bullshit, it was another lie. By then,
Speaker 1: the rush from taking Amanda obviously had faded, just like before,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to feel that power again. The longer
Speaker 1: he waited, the more he fixated on the next abduction,
Speaker 1: and when the opportunity presented itself, he took it. Just
Speaker 1: five blocks from where Amanda had been taken. Ariel ran
Speaker 1: into his own daughter, Arlene, who was walking home from
Speaker 1: school with her friend, fourteen year old Gina. To Jesus, Now,
Speaker 1: the girls had planned to hang out together that day,
Speaker 1: but when Arlene's mother said no, Gina started making the
Speaker 1: long walk home alone. She called her mom to let
Speaker 1: her know that she was on her way, but she
Speaker 1: would never arrive home. Arlene was the last person to
Speaker 1: see Gina before she vanished. Now, Gina knew who Ariel
Speaker 1: was through her friend Arlene, right, but Ariel also knew
Speaker 1: Gina's fathers. There's more than one connection here which made
Speaker 1: them made, you know, Ariel seem extremely trustworthy. It's when
Speaker 1: his vehicle pulled up beside her on the sidewalk, she
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly alarmed. He asked her if she wanted to
Speaker 1: see Arlene, and when she said yes, he told her
Speaker 1: he needed help finding her. He didn't know exactly where
Speaker 1: she was at the moment, so you know, the request
Speaker 1: did seem unusual. She got in the vehicle knowing the guy,
Speaker 1: but of course he didn't take her to go find Arlene.
Speaker 1: When they reached his house, he asked Gina to help
Speaker 1: him move some equipment, and that's when she started to
Speaker 1: feel a little uneasy. Instead of showing her what needed
Speaker 1: to be moved, he started grooming himself in front of her,
Speaker 1: what the shit, trimming his eyebrows, his mustache, his nose hairs,
Speaker 1: and then he turned his attention to her. He touched
Speaker 1: her inappropriately, and she panicked, warning him that she's much
Speaker 1: younger than him, and you know he can go to jail,
Speaker 1: right yeah. His response was a little unsettling. He told her, well, okay, like,
Speaker 1: you can leave, but there's just one condition. You have
Speaker 1: to use a different door than the one you came
Speaker 1: out it came inside it. Now Relieved, Gina didn't have
Speaker 1: didn't hesitate, She'd ask questions about what fucking door she
Speaker 1: gets to leave in? Just that she gets to leave,
Speaker 1: right So he led her towards the basement door, and
Speaker 1: as soon as she stepped down to the basement, that's
Speaker 1: when he grabbed her. Yep, the first time he tried
Speaker 1: to chain her up. The restraints were too or sorry,
Speaker 1: weren't tight enough, and she managed to break free. She
Speaker 1: bolted for the stairs. Now, Ariel lunged, catching her before
Speaker 1: she could escape, but she fought back, landing several hard
Speaker 1: kicks and screaming for help, but it was useless. He
Speaker 1: had already cranked the volume on the radios in the
Speaker 1: basement and in the living room upstairs, drowning her out.
Speaker 1: Completely overpowering her. He locked the chains in place. Then
Speaker 1: he left her there alone in the basement, just as
Speaker 1: he had done with the others.
Speaker 2: And the others I'm assuming are hearing this too, most
Speaker 2: likely and know exactly like what's going on, which is brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The day Gina disappeared, her mother Nancy called the
Speaker 1: police right away, but investigators didn't treat her as a
Speaker 1: missing child at first. They assumed that she had just
Speaker 1: run away. By the time the search actually began, something
Speaker 1: especially disturbing happened. Ariel himself joined the search. Of course
Speaker 1: he did, yep, because he was friends with Gina's father,
Speaker 1: has already mentioned, he joined in. He helped pass out flyers,
Speaker 1: attend vigils and standing beside the very people desperate to
Speaker 1: find her. In fact, a year after she went missing,
Speaker 1: he even comforted Nancy at a vigil, all while knowing
Speaker 1: exactly where her daughter was.
Speaker 2: What a complete piece of shit.
Speaker 1: He likely involved himself for several reasons. First, to stay
Speaker 1: close to the investigation, you know, figuring out how it's moving.
Speaker 1: On any close hand information he can get the better
Speaker 1: right And Second to avoid suspicion. Now since Gina had
Speaker 1: been last seen with his daughter, it might be important
Speaker 1: to kind of avoid that suspicion at all possible now. Third,
Speaker 1: because he got a sick thrill from.
Speaker 2: It that is so disturbing. Hey, yeah, just to be
Speaker 2: the reason behind this, but then still be like standing
Speaker 2: by your and taking the role as a friend. Basically
Speaker 2: to the father, you're not a friend, clearly no.
Speaker 1: Now. For the first few weeks after he took Gina,
Speaker 1: he mostly left her alone, but on May seventh, two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, he assaulted her for the first time,
Speaker 1: and after that it became a regular horror. He changed
Speaker 1: Gina and Michelle together in the same room, forcing them
Speaker 1: to share a single, filthy mattress. They would remain there
Speaker 1: for the rest of their captivity. Whenever Michelle tried to
Speaker 1: protect Gina in any assault situation, Ariel would retaliate, making
Speaker 1: her suffer even more. He abused them while the other
Speaker 1: was still in the room, making them witness and watch
Speaker 1: each other's pain brutal. Within twenty months, he had taken
Speaker 1: all three women within five blocks of each other inside
Speaker 1: his house. They were kept in squalor, tied up, starved,
Speaker 1: and subject to constant torment. They suffered from depression, various illnesses,
Speaker 1: bed bugs, and had no way to escape. Michelle was
Speaker 1: left naked from during the first winter, given only a
Speaker 1: thin sheet for any sort of warmth. For the first
Speaker 1: eight months, she wasn't even allowed to shower. In fact,
Speaker 1: Amanda was kept in a room barely bigger than a closet,
Speaker 1: sleeping on a filthy, dirty mattress. She had used a
Speaker 1: bucket as a toilet, forced to live within the stench
Speaker 1: in the small walls that she was given as a room.
Speaker 1: Whenever Ariel allowed her to shower, it always came with
Speaker 1: an unsettling condition. She had to shower with him.
Speaker 2: Oh man, this is just a complete nightmare.
Speaker 1: Now. Whenever they cried for help, he made sure that
Speaker 1: no one would hear. As I mentioned already, he cranked
Speaker 1: up the volume on stereos on radios, blasting music loud
Speaker 1: enough to drown out whatever screams would come from within
Speaker 1: the walls of that home. Amanda just tried to numb herself,
Speaker 1: but she refused to let what was happening get uncounted.
Speaker 1: She kept a secret record in her diary, the one
Speaker 1: that he had given her, making each assault with a
Speaker 1: number at the top of the page. So every time
Speaker 1: she was assaulted, she would mark it down secretly without
Speaker 1: him knowing. That way she can account for it all,
Speaker 1: count the times and hoping that when this fucking nightmare ends,
Speaker 1: he can pay for each and every single one.
Speaker 2: Okay, she's smart, Hey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now. Michelle became pregnant multiple times, four maybe five,
Speaker 1: but each time Ariel made sure that she miscarried by
Speaker 1: beating her brutally. Whoa yeah. He'd starve her and attack
Speaker 1: her stomach until the pregnancies would come to an end.
Speaker 1: The damage was so severe that she was left unable
Speaker 1: to ever have children again.
Speaker 2: I was honestly wondering that.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, there was just no way out. The windows were
Speaker 1: boarded up, the doors locked tight, and escape was met
Speaker 1: with constant psychological warfare. To keep them on edge, he
Speaker 1: played mind games. Sometimes he would pretend to leave the house,
Speaker 1: only to quiet at least sneak his way back in
Speaker 1: and check to see if anyone had tried to escape.
Speaker 1: He'd warned them that if they ever did, he would
Speaker 1: kill them. So then that way, you know, they might think,
Speaker 1: is he out of the house, is he gone? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, he might have snuck back in. We
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Just completely keeping them on edge at all times exactly.
Speaker 1: Now, his control didn't stop at physical captivity. He like
Speaker 1: physical captivity or like these these mind games that we go,
Speaker 1: That's what I was looking for, the mind games. He
Speaker 1: manipulated them emotionally, turning them against each other. There was
Speaker 1: calculated rewards and punishments. He created a twisted system where
Speaker 1: they could each earn cash allowance to buy food or essentials,
Speaker 1: but only it came with a catch. He can take
Speaker 1: it away too from punishments. So he fueled distrust between them,
Speaker 1: basically giving out rewards, taking back things, making him making
Speaker 1: them like jealous or angry at each other when they
Speaker 1: got rewards and they didn't. That sort of situation now,
Speaker 1: he really few the distrust, especially between Amanda and Michelle.
Speaker 1: When he first brought Gina into the house, he gave
Speaker 1: her the nicest room and let her eat first, making
Speaker 1: sure resentment grew. He would buy them small gifts not
Speaker 1: out of kindness, but making them believe that there was
Speaker 1: some level of care to them as well, making them
Speaker 1: dependent of him, and then of course taking things away
Speaker 1: on top of it.
Speaker 2: What a sick mind. This guy has, just the even
Speaker 2: the thought process though, that he has behind all this stuff.
Speaker 2: It's I don't know, it's hard to comprehend for me
Speaker 2: that someone would think that way.
Speaker 1: You know, well, if you think that's bad. One of
Speaker 1: the cruelest games that he played was with Gina. One day,
Speaker 1: he forced her to play Russian roulette.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Now, if you don't know what Russian roulette is, it's
Speaker 1: a very demented game where you put a single bullet
Speaker 1: in a revolver, you spin that revolving chamber.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 1: You put the gun up to your head and you
Speaker 1: pull the trigger. Do you get an empty, empty shot
Speaker 1: or do you get the bullet? So he did this.
Speaker 1: He handed her the gun, saying that there was a
Speaker 1: single bullet inside, and he told her they would take
Speaker 1: turns pulling the trigger. Now, at that point, Gina is
Speaker 1: holding a gun in her hand with potentially a bullet
Speaker 1: in it. She believed that there was never leaving that house,
Speaker 1: but she had one thought. If she had to play,
Speaker 1: she wanted to chant the chance to aim it directly
Speaker 1: at him instead.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh okay.
Speaker 1: Now she did pulled the trigger and nothing happened. Of course,
Speaker 1: there was no bullet in the gun. It was just
Speaker 1: a sick, fucking twisted mind game. There was no hope
Speaker 1: of getting it ended right then and there and escaping.
Speaker 1: Whether it was her life or Aeriel's life.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he wouldn't be playing that game if there
Speaker 2: was a bullet in there exactly.
Speaker 1: Now. Michelle was the most defiant of all three. She
Speaker 1: never gave Ariel the respect that he wanted, refusing to
Speaker 1: even say his name. In fact, she only called him dude.
Speaker 1: She talked back, she challenged him, and she never fully submitted,
Speaker 1: and of course Ariel hated that now. Later Michelle explained
Speaker 1: why he couldn't break her, why she never gave in,
Speaker 1: and this is what she said, quote, he wanted to
Speaker 1: break me, and that's something he couldn't do, because you
Speaker 1: can't break someone who's already broken. You can only make
Speaker 1: them stronger. Oh man, Hope was the only thing they
Speaker 1: refused to let go of, whether it was clinging to
Speaker 1: the belief that their families would never stop searching, or
Speaker 1: just small acts of defiance, like fantasizing about poisoning Castro
Speaker 1: with rat poisoning. It was the only thing that kept
Speaker 1: them going. Now. At first he kept them separated, locked
Speaker 1: away in different rooms, but on me twenty third, two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, he brought them together. But this wasn't
Speaker 1: out of kindness. It was so that they could watch
Speaker 1: a show. It was America's most wanted. The episode featured
Speaker 1: both Amanda and Gina's Missing person's case. Their families were interviewed,
Speaker 1: pleaing for their safe return, and watching it was gut
Speaker 1: wrenching for them. Gina later said that after seeing it,
Speaker 1: she couldn't even stand to look at at Ariel again,
Speaker 1: but she had to pretend to be his friend to survive. Michelle, however,
Speaker 1: wasn't mentioned at all in the show. Unlike Amanda and Gina,
Speaker 1: she barely had any media coverage after she disappeared. Now
Speaker 1: Ariel used this against her. He told her it was
Speaker 1: because no one cared enough to look for her. Every
Speaker 1: time Amanda's mother appeared on the news begging for her
Speaker 1: daughter's return, he made sure Michelle saw it. Now whenever
Speaker 1: they were brought together, the women spoke to each other
Speaker 1: however they could, though Ariel tried to prevent it. He
Speaker 1: would put gates up, you know, keep them apart, and
Speaker 1: forbade them from talking at all. Now, when he wasn't watching,
Speaker 1: they'd slip notes or drawings under doors, finding small ways
Speaker 1: to communicate despite his isolation efforts. On the rare occasion
Speaker 1: that Ariel left them alone in the house, they tried
Speaker 1: to reclaim pieces of themselves. They danced, they sang, they
Speaker 1: watched the Vampire Diaries, pretending just for a moment that
Speaker 1: life was normal. Sometimes he let them step outside, but
Speaker 1: only in the backyard a garage, and of course he
Speaker 1: made sure that they were wearing disguises, things like a
Speaker 1: helmet or wigs, ensuring no one would recognize them. Then
Speaker 1: Amanda turned twenty and everything changed. She suspected that she
Speaker 1: was pregnant. For some reason, Ariel didn't force her to
Speaker 1: miscarry like he had with Michelle. He let her carry
Speaker 1: the baby to term. On Christmas Day of two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, Amanda went into labor. There was no hospital,
Speaker 1: there was no doctor. In fact, Ariel had bought a
Speaker 1: plastic baby pool for her to give Burthen and he
Speaker 1: forced Michelle to help deliver the baby. When Amanda fought
Speaker 1: through the labor, Ariel was just sitting back in a
Speaker 1: rocking chair, casually flipping through a book on childbirth, offering
Speaker 1: no help or assistance whatsoever. Now, when the baby was delivered,
Speaker 1: it wasn't breathing at first, and Ariel threatened to kill
Speaker 1: Michelle if she didn't get that baby's life saved, if
Speaker 1: she didn't get it breathing again, because.
Speaker 2: She would know how to do this kind of.
Speaker 1: Stuff, I know, right, So desperate, she blew air into
Speaker 1: the baby's mouth, doing everything she could in a makeshift CPR,
Speaker 1: and finally the child took a breath.
Speaker 2: Oh thank goodness.
Speaker 1: Amanda named her newborn daughter, Jocelyn. For the women, Joscelyn
Speaker 1: became a bright spot of light in the darkest place
Speaker 1: imaginable that they were trapped in. She gave them a
Speaker 1: reason to keep going. But Ariel's delusions only grew after
Speaker 1: Joscelyn was born. He started calling Amanda his life. He
Speaker 1: told them they were all a family. Now, this is
Speaker 1: actually quite common in cases like this that this quote
Speaker 1: unquote family mentality from the captors seems to take place. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, it's just fucking delusion. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it happens. Now. For the most part, Jocelyn was hidden
Speaker 1: from the world, just like the three women were, but
Speaker 1: unlike them, Ariel occasionally let her outside. She went to
Speaker 1: the backyard, the park, even church services with him. And
Speaker 1: just to think, this guy was going to church, imagine
Speaker 1: sitting next to this fucking piece of shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and wouldn't people be like, where the hell did
Speaker 2: you get this kid from?
Speaker 1: I'm sure he had his stories, yeah, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He even took her to visit his family, including his
Speaker 1: mother Lilian.
Speaker 2: What the actual shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jocelyn apparently called Lillian grandma or grandmother, and it's
Speaker 1: unclear if she believed that the child believe whatever stories
Speaker 1: he fed. But whenever she asked questions or sim chose
Speaker 1: whether she asked questions, I mean, or simply chose to
Speaker 1: accept things as they were, she never really raised any
Speaker 1: alarms on where this kid came from. Now. Meanwhile, Amanda
Speaker 1: lived in constant fear of Ariel and what he might
Speaker 1: do to her daughter. In one of the strangest moments
Speaker 1: during their captivity, the women watched breaking news in August
Speaker 1: of two thousand and nine. That's when a story came on,
Speaker 1: a story we may recognize J C. Dugert. She had
Speaker 1: escaped after eighteen years in captivity. The women were glued
Speaker 1: to the updates on this story, fascinated by it, by
Speaker 1: the idea of someone surviving and living through it all
Speaker 1: and finally getting free. What's the most strange about this situation? Though?
Speaker 1: Regarding the j. C. Dugert situation, Ariel Castro made a
Speaker 1: comment quote that guy was crazy.
Speaker 2: What he doesn't want to become compaired to the same
Speaker 2: as the same basically.
Speaker 1: I guess not. He's talking about Philip Garrido, the man
Speaker 1: who captured Jacy Dugard and held her for eighteen years.
Speaker 1: In fact, jac gave birth to a daughter. He very
Speaker 1: much so got this family mentality, same sort of thing
Speaker 1: he held her in captivity, and Ariel's doing the exact
Speaker 1: same thing, and he didn't, for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: In his deluded mind.
Speaker 1: See the parallels between the two of them, and if
Speaker 1: he did, he refused to acknowledge it.
Speaker 2: Wow, I mean, it's not surprising that he, in his
Speaker 2: mind would say he's completely different than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the women actually pointed out the parallels in
Speaker 1: the story directly to him like this is us though,
Speaker 1: and when they pointed it out, he simply asked them, quote,
Speaker 1: are you going to write a book about this?
Speaker 2: Oh? Gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Ariel must have felt invincible. He kept them
Speaker 1: hidden for so long that he wasn't afraid of getting caught.
Speaker 1: He even allowed friends and family to visit the house,
Speaker 1: making the women hide whenever someone came over. Now, during
Speaker 1: one visit, the women were locked in the basement while
Speaker 1: Ariel's daughter Arlene was upstairs. They were so close to
Speaker 1: calling out for help to Arlene, but the fear that
Speaker 1: Ariel was still there and what he would do to
Speaker 1: them kept them silent. In twenty ten, police raided the
Speaker 1: house next door. They were right there, so close to freedom,
Speaker 1: but again they were too afraid to take a risk
Speaker 1: and call out for help. Another time, when family came over,
Speaker 1: Ariel hid them in a van. They sat inside, knowing
Speaker 1: that just feet away were people who could save them
Speaker 1: if they only knew, but again they just could not
Speaker 1: call out.
Speaker 2: Well, the consequences for them would be terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, when police were investigating Gina's disappearance, they did
Speaker 1: look in a look at her connections, including a friend
Speaker 1: that she had Ariel. This should have led them straight. Sorry, friend, Arlene,
Speaker 1: this should have led them straight to Ariel, but instead
Speaker 1: they focused on Gina's stepfather, Fernando. Fernando later said that
Speaker 1: during questioning, he told police they were looking at the
Speaker 1: wrong man and he pointed directly at Ariel instead, even
Speaker 1: mentioning his violent tendencies, but nothing ever came of it.
Speaker 1: Now the FBI claimed that there was no record of
Speaker 1: this warning coming from Fernando. One of the closest calls
Speaker 1: came from Ariel's other daughter, Angie. Apparently that family really
Speaker 1: likes her a names.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's kind of messing you up at.
Speaker 1: Times, Arlene, Angie and their father Ariel. So now she
Speaker 1: received a strange voicemail, likely a pocket dial, you know
Speaker 1: when you sit on your phone pocket on someone right now.
Speaker 1: On the recording was a young woman that could be
Speaker 1: heard in the background screaming get away from me. Angie
Speaker 1: was alarmed. She reported it to police, hoping that they
Speaker 1: would find who made the call. Traced the number but
Speaker 1: concluded it came from a different phone, not Ariels. Many
Speaker 1: people question if there was a mistake made in tracing
Speaker 1: that phone call m and believe it did come from
Speaker 1: Ariel's phone.
Speaker 2: Damn, that is so close. Hey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. At one point police thought Amanda's case had been solved.
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, Robert Wilford, a convicted murderer, suddenly claimed
Speaker 1: that he'd also killed Amanda Barry. Investigators had no reason
Speaker 1: to doubt him. He even passed the lie detector test,
Speaker 1: which as we know, is quite reliable.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: But he told them he could lead them right to
Speaker 1: her remains. It wasn't the outcome anyone wanted, but for
Speaker 1: Amanda's family, it meant closure. So police searched where he
Speaker 1: directed them to, which was an area which was eerily
Speaker 1: close to where she'd actually be held was being held captive,
Speaker 1: but they found nothing, no remains. Then everything changed. On
Speaker 1: May six of twenty.
Speaker 2: Thirteen, two and thirteen.
Speaker 1: Hey, yes, Joscelyn, who had been more given more freedom
Speaker 1: in the house than the other women, went downstairs. A
Speaker 1: moment later, she ran back up to Amanda and said this,
Speaker 1: I don't find daddy. Daddy's nowhere around. And then Amanda
Speaker 1: noticed something else. For the first time in ten years,
Speaker 1: her bedroom door was unlocked. She didn't know if it
Speaker 1: was another one of Ariel's tests, but it didn't matter.
Speaker 1: She knew this was their chance. He wasn't in the house.
Speaker 1: The door was unlocked. She made her way downstairs, heart
Speaker 1: pounding all the while. Jocelyn was right, there was no
Speaker 1: sign of him. Now, the front door had an alarm,
Speaker 1: but beyond that was a storm door, and that's what
Speaker 1: posed a real problem. It was padlocked shut. She managed
Speaker 1: to get through to that storm door and yanked it
Speaker 1: open just enough to squeeze her arm through and start
Speaker 1: screaming outside for help. Now upstairs, Gina was frozen in fear,
Speaker 1: terrified the ariel had actually caught Amanda, and that's why
Speaker 1: she was screaming. She told Miss Michelle to stay put
Speaker 1: instead of running for help, Just stay here, right, We
Speaker 1: don't want to get hurt too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, across the street, seventy five year old Aurora Marty
Speaker 1: heard these screams, and when she saw the arm reaching
Speaker 1: through the dorm, she rushed over. The first thing Amanda
Speaker 1: said upon Aurora meeting her was I'm Amanda Barry. Oh no,
Speaker 1: now Marty, sorry. Aurora Marty barely spoke English, but she
Speaker 1: knew that name.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She shook her head in disbelief, and she said, you
Speaker 1: can't be Amanda.
Speaker 2: Amanda's dead, right, Okay, that's what the world thinks right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hm. Now, because of Aurora's elderly ages seventy five,
Speaker 1: she had some arthritis and she struggled to help Amanda
Speaker 1: pull that door open. Then a man by the name
Speaker 1: of Charles Ramsey saw what was happening. There was I mean,
Speaker 1: there are some different accounts on what exactly happened next,
Speaker 1: but what is certain is that Amanda begged for help
Speaker 1: getting that door open, and Charles grabbed the other side
Speaker 1: of that door and tried to force it open, but
Speaker 1: it's padlock shut and they couldn't get it. So when
Speaker 1: that didn't work, he started kicking at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the door and told Amanda to do the same on
Speaker 1: the inside. So she did, both of them beating at
Speaker 1: the door on the bottom panel. It finally gave way
Speaker 1: just enough for her to crawl through. Charles Ramsey would
Speaker 1: later give an interview that went viral. As we kind
Speaker 1: of talked about at the very beginning, his shock and
Speaker 1: disbelief mixed with his unexpected way of delivering it in
Speaker 1: a bit of a humorous way, ended up in a
Speaker 1: viral YouTube video called dead giveaway that now to this
Speaker 1: day has over thirty seven million views on YouTube. But yeah,
Speaker 1: at that moment, there was nothing funny about it. Obviously
Speaker 1: maybe in hindsight, I mean a little bit, that's his
Speaker 1: way of maybe playing off the traumatic moment. But it
Speaker 1: went viral on YouTube. It went viral across the news
Speaker 1: and the world. These girls were safe. But before we
Speaker 1: get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about still within this
Speaker 1: moment where her six year old daughter in her arms,
Speaker 1: Amanda ran. She sprinted to the neighbor's house and called
Speaker 1: nine to one one. Now Charles was also calling nine
Speaker 1: wood one at that exact moment, so they had multiple
Speaker 1: people getting of the line. Her voice was shaking in
Speaker 1: fear that Ariel would come back at any moment. She
Speaker 1: was still terrified that he was going to hurt her,
Speaker 1: kill her anything. Even though she was now safe, she
Speaker 1: had people around her protecting her, she was still terrified
Speaker 1: that he would get to her.
Speaker 2: Well. She also has like her daughter to think about
Speaker 2: too now right.
Speaker 1: Exactly now, police were immediately dispatched. Two minutes later they arrived.
Speaker 1: When they pulled up, they saw a woman waving them down,
Speaker 1: little girl in her arms. Now, at first they didn't
Speaker 1: know what to think. They're like, Okay, what's going on.
Speaker 1: You know someone's claiming you know, they're Amanda Berry. Sure, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's probably some crazy person. Who knows. But when they
Speaker 1: pulled up and they realized the situation, they were back
Speaker 1: on the radios to dispatch. This is real. This could
Speaker 1: be Amanda Barry. Then she said something, said something that
Speaker 1: made their blood run cold. There's more girls in that house.
Speaker 1: Two officers forced their way inside through the same broken
Speaker 1: storm door that Amanda had escaped through. They searched the
Speaker 1: basement first, it was empty, and one of them climbed
Speaker 1: the stairs, yelling Cleveland Police. Now Michelle had no idea
Speaker 1: what was happening, but when she finally worked up the
Speaker 1: courage to find out, she opened her door and there
Speaker 1: was an officer standing right in front of her.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I just got goosebumps from this.
Speaker 1: The moment she realized what was happening, she ran into
Speaker 1: his arms, held him tight and said, you saved me,
Speaker 1: You saved me, and she refused to let go.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I can't even imagine this, the emotion
Speaker 2: going through her brain.
Speaker 1: Hey yeah, Now the officer could barely hold back his
Speaker 1: emotions and tears. Oh yeah, him too, and he asked
Speaker 1: if there was anyone else inside, and that's when Gina
Speaker 1: stepped out of another bedroom for the first time in
Speaker 1: over a decade. The three women were outside the house.
Speaker 1: Michelle was now thirty two years old, Amanda was twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and Gina was twenty three. Police wasted no time in
Speaker 1: broadcasting a description of Ariel Castro's vehicle. He was very
Speaker 1: quickly found pulling into a McDonald's parking lot and arrested
Speaker 1: on the spot at six sixteen pm. One of his
Speaker 1: male relatives was in the car with him at the
Speaker 1: time as well, and soon after police announced that they
Speaker 1: had also arrested to other men, Ariel's brother brothers, Pedro
Speaker 1: and O'Neil. All three were taken in for questioning. O'Neill
Speaker 1: had been the one with him in the vehicle at
Speaker 1: the time when he was caught, which raised suspicions, but
Speaker 1: after investigations, police determined that neither brother had any involvement.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I'm like, I didn't think they did.
Speaker 1: They were released without charges.
Speaker 2: They were probably just as shocked as what the fuck's
Speaker 2: going on here?
Speaker 1: Most likely most likely probably knew.
Speaker 2: Their brother was kind of weird, but then didn't think.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he was capable of this exactly.
Speaker 1: Now, the rescue made headlines across the world. Instead of
Speaker 1: celebrating her freedom, Michelle was rushed to the hospital, though
Speaker 1: she complained of chest pains and trouble breathing at the time. Now,
Speaker 1: she was so small when she escaped that house. She
Speaker 1: was just eighty four pounds.
Speaker 2: Wow. Seriously.
Speaker 1: In fact, police had mistaken her for a child at
Speaker 1: first when they found her.
Speaker 2: Oh Man.
Speaker 1: At the hospital, doctor discovered that she had a bacterial
Speaker 1: infection in her stomach, and in fact, she had only
Speaker 1: a few days left to live.
Speaker 2: If went untreated seriously, and they would not have known this,
Speaker 2: she would have died.
Speaker 1: She was about to die. If she didn't escape that day,
Speaker 1: she would have died.
Speaker 2: What what? Okay? That is unreal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thankfully she recovered, But the damage that she inflicted
Speaker 1: during this whole ordeal was going to last a lifetime.
Speaker 1: H huh because of his relentless assaults. As I mentioned already,
Speaker 1: she would never be able to have children. Her eyesight
Speaker 1: was permanently affected after spending so many years in the dark,
Speaker 1: repeated beatings, damaged her bones in her face, and at
Speaker 1: one point Ariel had even shattered her jaw with a barbell.
Speaker 2: Whoh, what a monster.
Speaker 1: So that alone tells you that how light I was
Speaker 1: going on the descriptions of their assaults, their various assaults,
Speaker 1: but none of that compared to the mental toll. There
Speaker 1: were moments when she considered ending her own life, but
Speaker 1: every time she reached that breaking point, she thought of
Speaker 1: her son Joey, and that thought kept her going.
Speaker 2: Well, because he was I feel like he was. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was cruel to all of them, but it seemed
Speaker 2: like almost her the worst, especially saying you know, no
Speaker 2: one was looking for her and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just terrible. Exactly. Now, after all three of the
Speaker 1: women were freed, Ariel's house was boarded up and people
Speaker 1: started coming forward with stories about the house on Seymour Avenue,
Speaker 1: the house the three girls were captured and held in.
Speaker 1: One woman, Elsie Centron, who lived just three doors down,
Speaker 1: said that years earlier her daughter had seen a naked
Speaker 1: woman crawling in Aeros backyard. Now she called and reported
Speaker 1: to police, but nothing ever came of it. Another neighbor,
Speaker 1: Israel Lugo, recalled hearing loud pounding from inside the home
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven. It was so alarming that he called police,
Speaker 1: and officers arrived knocked on the door. When no one answered,
Speaker 1: they left it of that. Police later admitted that they'd
Speaker 1: been to Ariel's house twice in the past fifteen years,
Speaker 1: but they insist that neither visit was related to the
Speaker 1: women's disappearance. After his arrest, other neighbors painted a completely
Speaker 1: different picture of him. They told them he was friendly,
Speaker 1: He was respectful, always smiling, and kids in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: even trusted him. He let children ride in the back
Speaker 1: of his motorcycle through the neighborhood. But Ariel was almost
Speaker 1: caught multiple times. Long before he kidnapped these three women,
Speaker 1: he had a long history of violence. Whether he seemed
Speaker 1: friendly in the neighborhood or not, he had these run
Speaker 1: ins with the law. In nineteen ninety four, a neighbor
Speaker 1: went to check on his property and noticed a chaining
Speaker 1: fence was missing. When he confronted Ariel about it, Ariel snapped,
Speaker 1: grabbed a shovel, and attacked him. In two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: while working as a school bus driver, he was charged
Speaker 1: with child endangerment and abduction. He had allegedly left a
Speaker 1: thirteen year old boy alone in the bus, then returned
Speaker 1: earned drove to Wendy's and told the child to lay down, bitch.
Speaker 1: That's quote unquote, before eating in his seat. The fact
Speaker 1: that this heading inside to eat that.
Speaker 2: Is also was like a school bus driver.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, he later denied saying quote lay down bitch,
Speaker 1: but when questioned, he claimed that he just totally fraught
Speaker 1: the kid was there. That's basically what happened. Now. He
Speaker 1: was suspended for sixty days, but the charges were dropped
Speaker 1: due to lack of evidence. He kept his job until
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, when he was fired for leaving the bus
Speaker 1: unattended in a fire lane for hours. Then there were
Speaker 1: police reports about his violent abuse of his common law wife.
Speaker 1: Now his wife's name was Grimilda Figueroa. The report dated
Speaker 1: back to nineteen eighty nine. She called the police on
Speaker 1: multiple occasions, but never followed through with charges. Ariel had
Speaker 1: allegedly threatened to kill her and their children if she
Speaker 1: ever did. One report detailed how she asked him where
Speaker 1: he was going, simple question, and he lashed out and
Speaker 1: slapped her across the face when she tried to escape
Speaker 1: he slammed her into the wall and also against a
Speaker 1: washing machine.
Speaker 2: It's almost surprising that she was able to get away
Speaker 2: from him, Hey, it is.
Speaker 1: Another time he brutally stomped on her head with his
Speaker 1: boots in front of their kids. Now her son managed
Speaker 1: to run out of the house, and in that split second,
Speaker 1: she locked Ariel out of the home and called the police.
Speaker 1: When officers arrive, Ariel tried to run and they caught
Speaker 1: him by then. The damage that he inflicted on his
Speaker 1: wife or common law wife, Figueroa was horrific. According to
Speaker 1: a court petition, she had a broken nose, broken ribs,
Speaker 1: two dislocated shoulders, and a missing tooth. The repeated head
Speaker 1: injuries caused her to develop a brain tumor as well. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: she finally built up the courage to testify against him
Speaker 1: in court, but just before she could, Ariel allegedly threatened
Speaker 1: her once again, this time at the court house entrance,
Speaker 1: and she never took the stand. Oh Man, Without her testimony,
Speaker 1: prosecutors didn't have enough evidence and Castro Ariel Castro walked.
Speaker 2: Free, okay, Because I'm like, how on earth is someone
Speaker 2: like this able to even be a bus driver? But like,
Speaker 2: he just gets away with shit.
Speaker 1: Now. He may have been able to get away with
Speaker 1: that incident, but of course with a new one, with
Speaker 1: these three survivors, it was going to be a different story, y'all.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's no way he can escape this now.
Speaker 1: During his trial, he tried to paint himself as the victim.
Speaker 1: He claimed to have an addiction to adult content and insisted, quote,
Speaker 1: I'm not a monster. I'm sick, oh man, this nasty bastard.
Speaker 1: He denied the evidence found in his home, the chains, ropes,
Speaker 1: locks and everything he used to keep them trapped, and
Speaker 1: he said that he treated them well. When he was
Speaker 1: asked about forcing Michelle to miscarry multiple pregnancies, he admitted
Speaker 1: to it, but he claimed it was always a mutual,
Speaker 1: consensual decision. He refused to take responsibility, making excuses all
Speaker 1: along the way, insisting that he wasn't a bad person,
Speaker 1: but he knew exactly what he was what he was doing.
Speaker 1: He kidnapped, he tortured, and he controlled them for decades,
Speaker 1: and so how can you not be a bad fucking person.
Speaker 2: He just thinks in his mind, he's not a bad person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gosh, yeah, honestly, he's a textbook narcissist. He had
Speaker 1: an inflated sense of self importance, demanded admiration, felt entitled
Speaker 1: to everything and anything that he wanted, and exploited others
Speaker 1: without any sort of sense of remorse. Now, he also
Speaker 1: had he was also sadistic, let's put it that way,
Speaker 1: taking pleasure in the suffering that he caused, which is
Speaker 1: clear because he went out again and again to go
Speaker 1: seek that feeling of that power, first capturing someone and
Speaker 1: not only that, but then going out and doing search
Speaker 1: parties and consoling people like just sick shit. Now, at
Speaker 1: one point, he admitted that he could have been caught
Speaker 1: very early on. He said police would have found him
Speaker 1: if they just reviewed surveillance footage from Wilbur Wright Middle School,
Speaker 1: middle school near where he took Gina. Then, in the
Speaker 1: statement dripping with absolute arrogance, he said, quote, if they
Speaker 1: would have questioned me, it's possible that it would have
Speaker 1: ended right there. I feel that the FBI let those
Speaker 1: girls down.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, just putting this completely on someone else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, deflecting any sort of responsibility. It's your fault that
Speaker 1: they didn't get found. Like what the fuck?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, Like I'm literally holding
Speaker 2: these girls in captivity. But it's your fault, yeah, that
Speaker 2: you didn't find them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now there's no surprise that he was convicted. Uh
Speaker 1: huh and had his sentencing hearing. Only Michelle So showed up.
Speaker 1: She had something to say to him. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to quote one sentence here. Quote. I spent eleven years
Speaker 1: in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. On August first,
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, Ariel Castro was sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 1: He pleaded guilty to nine hundred and thirty seven counts
Speaker 1: of kidnapping and assault in exchange for avoiding the death penalty.
Speaker 1: His sentence was extended by one thousand years, ensuring he
Speaker 1: would never walk free again. Good but Ariel Castro would
Speaker 1: never even come close to serving his entire time.
Speaker 2: Why is that? I have my thoughts? But why is that?
Speaker 1: Okay? Well, in prison, he complained constantly. He believed his
Speaker 1: food was being tampered with, and he accused guards of neglect,
Speaker 1: and he hated losing any sort of control. Less than
Speaker 1: two months after, on September third, twenty thirteen, he was
Speaker 1: found dead in his cell. He hanged himself with a
Speaker 1: bed sheet.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was thinking someone else maybe did the job.
Speaker 1: No, he did it on his own.
Speaker 2: Huh really seriously, that almost pisses me off that he
Speaker 2: just did this. I agree, Like, what a complete asshole.
Speaker 2: He couldn't even handle two months in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when he forced these three girls over ten years?
Speaker 2: Whoa Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, officers found his body approximately twenty seven sorry, exactly
Speaker 1: twenty seven minutes because they kept track of it after
Speaker 1: their last rounds of checks. Now, he was found kneeling
Speaker 1: with a bed sheep tied around his neck and attached
Speaker 1: to a window hinge. Oddly enough, his shorts were around
Speaker 1: his ankles at the time. Now, at first, there was
Speaker 1: speculation that he may have died of erotic autoerotic exphyxiation,
Speaker 1: which is where you know, you kind of yeah, you're
Speaker 1: choking yourself while you're choking yourself, let's put it that way.
Speaker 2: Oh my ben Okay.
Speaker 1: But after speaking with inmates, authorities learned that Ariel had
Speaker 1: lost quite a lot of weight in prison, causing his
Speaker 1: pants to frequently slip down. He was always pulling them up,
Speaker 1: which they believe explains why his pants were down. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he went unconscious, his pants slipped and then he
Speaker 1: died with his pants around his ankles. Now. He left
Speaker 1: behind a note with a little bit of religious scripture,
Speaker 1: writing quote, those who confess with their heart will be saved.
Speaker 1: In another way, he's another one. He simply wrote quote
Speaker 1: my kids and grandkids and drew a heart around those words.
Speaker 1: Other scribbles in the page included names of family members, hearts, flowers,
Speaker 1: and music notes. I'm going to say one thing right now,
Speaker 1: Aero Castro, you will never be saved. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: you're going to burn for all eternity if there is
Speaker 1: any sort of afterlife.
Speaker 2: No kidding, this guy deserves nothing.
Speaker 1: For the women he tormented, tormented, His death was rather complicated.
Speaker 1: On one hand, they robbed him of any satisfaction of
Speaker 1: knowing that he was suffering behind bars. Yes, the same
Speaker 1: thing you were discussing. But on the other hand, it
Speaker 1: meant that their nightmare was truly o Ariel Castro was
Speaker 1: gone and no longer even in this world. That he
Speaker 1: could never track them down, nothing, He couldn't even write
Speaker 1: a book and publish it. When his point of view,
Speaker 1: those sort of things right, No worry about that man anymore.
Speaker 1: So rebuilding their lives this was the next step. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't easy. After a decade in captivity, re entering
Speaker 1: the world came with its own challenges. All three women
Speaker 1: suffered from very complex PTSD. After the years that they suffered,
Speaker 1: Michelle had dreamed of regaining custody of her son Joey,
Speaker 1: but it unfortunately would never happen. Instead, his adoptive parents
Speaker 1: agreed to send photos and updates. It was a painful reality,
Speaker 1: but Joey had spent most of his life in another
Speaker 1: home and uprooting him would have been, you know, against
Speaker 1: his own best interests.
Speaker 2: Seriously, But like I was hoping she would at least
Speaker 2: get to go and see, like, you know, have a
Speaker 2: relationship with him. Yeamn.
Speaker 1: Now, I mean that's possible that when he's an adult
Speaker 1: he can seek that out. Yeah, But she she gets
Speaker 1: photos and updates to the very least right now. As
Speaker 1: part of her healing, Michelle Michelle changed her name one
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to share here because hey, that
Speaker 1: defeats the purpose of, you know.
Speaker 2: For change her name.
Speaker 1: She later would write two books under her birth name,
Speaker 1: one Finding Me and another Life After Darkness. On May sixteen,
Speaker 1: May sixth, sorry twenty sixteen, exactly three years after her escape.
Speaker 1: She got married.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, I love.
Speaker 1: That Amanda was finally able to raise Jocelyn in a
Speaker 1: safe and loving home. For Gina, one of the biggest
Speaker 1: milestones was something most people take for granted, giving a
Speaker 1: driver's license. It was something that she wanted to do
Speaker 1: all those years she was locked up. She dreamed of
Speaker 1: getting her driver's license.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 1: She went back to high school and started building the
Speaker 1: life that she once had stolen from her. In twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: Amanda and Gina co wrote a book with two Polaritizer
Speaker 1: Prize winning journalists from The Washington Post titled Hope Today.
Speaker 1: All three women work to help survivors and missing persons cases.
Speaker 1: Michelle founded Lily Ray of Hope, an organization that provides
Speaker 1: victims with housing, clothing, education opportunities. Amanda became a news
Speaker 1: host covering missing persons cases in Cleveland. Gina is now
Speaker 1: an ambassador for the Northeast Ohio Amber Alert and founded
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children's and Adults. And
Speaker 1: that is the story of the Aerial Castro kidnappings. Sorry
Speaker 1: I'm stumbling my words at this point. Aerial Castro kidnappings
Speaker 1: and the three women who survived.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, that is like hell and back. Really my gosh.
Speaker 2: But I mean cases like this, there's always a little
Speaker 2: bit of light at the end, you know, where they
Speaker 2: have their living their life now and they're using their
Speaker 2: experiences to help other people. Still, it's oh so hard
Speaker 2: to listen to stuff like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what they went through, we can't even imagine it's
Speaker 1: going to affect their lives till the day until the
Speaker 1: day they die. But they're using it to their advantage
Speaker 1: to help others, for their advantage, to get them through
Speaker 1: their tough times. And I know we usually do it
Speaker 1: to name a single, but today I'm going to name Michelle, Amanda,
Speaker 1: and Gina. All three are badasses of the day.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, one percent. The fact that they went
Speaker 2: through all that and got.
Speaker 1: Out, they never lost hope. Yeah, kept pushing forward and
Speaker 1: the day finally.
Speaker 2: Came and that piece of shit scumbag couldn't even last
Speaker 2: two months exactly, and was treated far better and.
Speaker 1: Was complaining about it. Not only did he not last,
Speaker 1: he was complaining about it.
Speaker 2: That is just mind blowing. Hey, yeah, what a complete
Speaker 2: piece of shit.
Speaker 1: Agreed, Well, thank you for being here on this episode.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you got all the way through this and you're
Speaker 1: not vomiting by the thought of this man, Aeriel Castro
Speaker 1: ever existing at all and what he did to someone,
Speaker 1: because trust me, it makes my stomach churn thinking that
Speaker 1: someone like that ever existed at all. But at least
Speaker 1: he's not in this world anymore, and the world is
Speaker 1: a little bit better off because of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say so.
Speaker 1: If you want to check out our links, they're all
Speaker 1: on the description of this podcast. We got all our information.
Speaker 1: Social media is a website. It's all down there. I
Speaker 1: want to shoot us some message, you can go ahead
Speaker 1: and do that. If you want to give this podcast
Speaker 1: a review. We're an indie podcast who are operated, We're researched,
Speaker 1: we're published, all of that on our own and things
Speaker 1: like that. Things like reviews really help our show thrive.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for what you do being
Speaker 1: here and listening. It means the world.
Speaker 2: Well done on this. It was a doozy of a case.
Speaker 1: It was. I contemplated doing a two parter, but I
Speaker 1: was like, you know.
Speaker 2: Ww bucket, it could be.
Speaker 1: I guess, eh, it definitely could be. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, We're just going to do a one
Speaker 1: large fucking episode and bang this one out.
Speaker 2: Well there you go, well done so until next
Speaker 1: Episode, Happy pie Day, and stay wicked.