Kidnapping ordeal of three Ohio women went undetected for decade

By Kim Palmer and Daniel Trotta

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Three Ohio women newly freed from a decade-long kidnapping ordeal huddled privately with loved ones on Tuesday as police scoured the Cleveland house where the captives had been held, seeking clues to how their confinement went unnoticed for so long.

Three brothers were arrested as suspects shortly after Monday evening's rescue of the women and are expected to be formally charged soon. One of them, Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver and owner of the house, was thought to live there alone.

Mayor Frank Johnson confirmed that child welfare officials had paid a visit to the house in early 2004 because Castro was reported to have left a child on a school bus while he stopped for lunch at a fast-food restaurant. But the ensuing inquiry found no criminal intent, officials said.

Otherwise, the mayor denied that authorities overlooked or failed to respond to suspicious activity at the two-story home since any of the three victims were reported as missing.

The women, believed to have been abducted separately from the surrounding neighborhood and held prisoner for years, were found alive together by a neighbor alerted by cries for help coming from the house.

He broke through the door to rescue one of the women, Amanda Berry, whose 2003 disappearance as a teenager was widely publicized in the local media, and helped her place a frantic emergency call to authorities.

"Help me! I'm Amanda Berry. ... I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm here. I'm free now," Berry can be heard saying in a recording of the call released by police.

Found with Berry, now 27, was her 6-year-old daughter, conceived and born during her captivity, and two other women - Gina DeJesus, 23, who vanished at age 14 in 2004, and Michelle Knight, 32, who was 20 years old when she went missing in 2002.

Ariel Castro, 52, fired from his job last November after school officials cited him for a "lack of judgment," was arrested almost immediately. Two brothers, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Casto, 50, were taken into custody a short time later.

Police have not said what role each man is suspected of playing in the case, but Berry named Ariel Castro in her 911 call as the man from whom she was trying to escape.

Initial euphoria in Cleveland's West Side over the women's rescue soon gave way to questions about why their captivity went undetected, despite what neighbors said were a number of suspicious or disturbing incidents at the house in the low-income community.

NEIGHBORS REPORT SUSPICIOUS INCIDENTS

"We didn't search hard enough. She was right under our nose the whole time," said Angel Arroyo, a church pastor who had handed out flyers of DeJesus in the neighborhood where she ultimately surfaced.

Aside from the school bus incident in 2004, city officials said a database search found no records of calls to the house or reports of anything amiss during the years in question.

"We have no indication that any of the neighbors, bystanders, witnesses or anyone else has ever called regarding any information, regarding activity that occurred at that house on Seymour Avenue," Mayor Johnson said at a news conference.

Israel Lugo, a neighbor, said he called police in November 2011 after his sister observed a girl at the house holding a baby and crying for help. He said police came and banged on the door several times but left when no one answered.

More recently, about eight months ago, Lugo said, his sister saw Ariel Castro park his school bus outside and take a large bag of fast food and several drinks inside.

"My sister said something's wrong ... That's when my mom called the police," he said. Lugo said police came and warned Castro not to park the bus in front of his house.

Neighbor Anthony Westry said a little girl could often be seen peering from the attic window of the Castro house.

"She was always looking out the window," he said. Castro would take her to the park to play very early in the morning, "not around the time you would take kids to play," he said.

Cleveland police, who have said they believe Berry, DeJesus and Knight were confined to the Castro house for their entire captivity, did not immediately respond to repeated requests for comment about reported calls from neighbors.

In the one acknowledged visit to the house by Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services Department officers in January 2004, more than a year after Knight disappeared and eight months after Berry went missing, no one answered the door, the mayor said.

They "knocked on the door but were unsuccessful in connection with making any contact with anyone inside that home," he said.

Police said Castro was interviewed extensively during the investigation regarding the child left on the bus, and that no criminal wrongdoing was found. A witness had reported Castro telling the child to "lay down, bitch," but child welfare officials concluded the complaint was unsubstantiated.

'BELIEVE IN MIRACLES'

On Tuesday, FBI and other law enforcement officials searched the Castro house and other properties, according to police, who did not elaborate. The houses in the neighborhood stand close together, typically separated only by a driveway. Two houses to one side of his home are boarded up.

After their rescue, the three women at the center of the saga were taken to a local hospital, reunited with family and friends and released. As authorities pressed their investigation, the trio remained secluded with family members.

Cleveland FBI special agent Vicki Anderson told Reuters that federal agents were "taking care of the victims" to help shield them from the media onslaught, which has included news teams from around the world.

"If you don't believe in miracles, I suggest you think again," DeJesus' aunt Sandra Ruiz told reporters on Tuesday in comments on Cleveland TV.

"This is a miracle," Ruiz said. But she added: "Watch who your neighbor is because you never know."

Ruiz later emerged from the home of DeJesus' father to appeal to a throng of reporters to respect the family's privacy, saying, "Give us some breathing room."

The disappearances of Berry and DeJesus were well known in Cleveland, although Knight's case had attracted less attention, evidently because authorities and some relatives believed she had run away, a grandmother told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

An uncle of the Castro brothers has said members of their family and the DeJesus family "grew up together."

Born in Puerto Rico, Ariel Castro played bass in Latin music bands in the area. Records show he was divorced more than a decade ago and his ex-wife had since died. He is known to have at least one adult daughter and son.

Hired by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in 1991, he received favorable performance appraisals over the years, according to personnel records released by the district.

But he was suspended for the 2004 incident involving the child left on a bus, and twice more - for making a U-turn in rush-hour traffic with a busload of students and for using a bus to go grocery shopping - before he was finally fired last fall after leaving a bus unattended in a school parking lot during the day and going home to take a nap.

On a Facebook page believed to be his, Castro said last month that he had just become a grandfather for a fifth time. Court records show he was arrested in 1993 on a domestic violence charge that was subsequently dismissed.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Greg McCune and Atossa Araxia Abrahamian; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Grant McCool, Bernard Orr, Cynthia Johnston and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/authorities-tried-earlier-visit-house-where-ohio-women-033825027.html

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