US man faces 329 charges in missing women case
This undated file photo provided by Cuyahoga County Jail shows Ariel Castro. Castro, accused of holding three women captive in his home for a decade, has been indicted Friday, June 7, 2013, on 329 charges including kidnapping and rape, prosecutors said. The grand jury charged the former school bus driver with one count of aggravated murder, saying he purposely caused the unlawful termination of a pregnancy. AP Photo
COLUMBUS, Ohio— A man accused of holding three women captive in his run-down home in Cleveland for a decade and fathering a child with one of them has been indicted on 329 charges including murder, kidnapping and rape, prosecutors said.
A county grand jury returned the indictment Friday against Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver fired last fall.
Castro, 52, is accused of kidnapping Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight and holding them captive along with a 6-year-old girl he fathered with Berry.
The grand jury charged Castro with two counts of aggravated murder related to one act, saying he purposely caused the unlawful termination of one of the women’s pregnancies. Castro also was indicted on 139 counts of rape, 177 counts of kidnapping, seven counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of felonious assault and one count of possession of criminal tools.
Castro’s attorneys have said he would plead not guilty to any indictment. Castro, during his brief arraignment last month, tried to hide his face, tucking his chin inside his shirt collar, and did not speak.
Castro is being held on $8 million bail. He has been taken off suicide prevention watch, jail officials said this week. He has told jail guards he won’t accept news media interview requests.
A telephone message left for one of his attorneys after business hours on Friday wasn’t immediately returned.
Castro was arrested May 6, shortly after Berry broke through a door at the home, yelled to neighbors for help and frantically told a police dispatcher by phone: “Help me. I’m Amanda Berry. I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years, and I’m, I’m here, I’m free now.”
Berry, 27, told officers that she was forced to give birth in a plastic pool in the house so it would be easier to clean up. Berry said she, her baby and the two other women rescued with her had never been to a doctor during their captivity.
Knight, 32, said her five pregnancies ended after Castro starved her for at least two weeks and “repeatedly punched her in the stomach until she miscarried,” authorities said.
The women had vanished separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old. They haven’t spoken publicly since their rescue.
County prosecutor Tim McGinty said the indictment covers only the period from August 2002, when the first of the women disappeared, to February 2007.
Castro will be arraigned on the charges next week, and a trial judge will then be assigned.
The investigation continues, McGinty said. And when the indictment process is completed, the county prosecutor’s capital review committee will weigh whether the case is appropriate for seeking the death penalty.
Days after the women were rescued from Castro’s home, McGinty had said at a news conference that capital punishment “must be reserved for those crimes that are truly the worst examples of human conduct.”
“The law of Ohio calls for the death penalty for those most depraved criminals, who commit aggravated murder during the course of a kidnapping,” he added.
Attorneys for the three women said Friday they were letting the judicial process unfold in the case.
“We have a great legal system plus confidence and faith in the prosecutor’s office and its decisions,” they said in an emailed statement.
The Associated Press does not usually identify people who may be victims of sexual assault, but the names of the women were widely circulated by their families, friends and law enforcement authorities for years during their disappearances and after they were found.
