A DNA test has confirmed another dark twist in the story of three women imprisoned in a house: Kidnapping and rape suspect Ariel Castro is the father of the 6-year-old girl who was rescued from his house with three women this week after a decade in captivity, a prosecutor said Friday.
As the investigation into the women’s ordeal continued, the FBI also said no human remains were among more than 200 pieces of evidence collected from the house.
Two of the women, including the one who gave birth to the girl, returned to relatives’ houses earlier this week. The third woman, Michelle Knight, was released from a hospital Friday with a request that her privacy be respected.
In the days since Castro’s arrest, family members have portrayed Castro as a “monster” who terrorized the mother of his children, frequently beating her, playing twisted psychological games and locking her indoors.
Castro, 52, who worked as a school bus driver for more than two decades, remained in jail under a suicide watch on $8 million bond while prosecutors weighed what charges they might bring against him, including the possibility of charges carrying a death penalty. He currently is charged with the rape and kidnapping of Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 22, and Michelle Knight, 32.
The women vanished separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20.
Prosecutors said they plan to bring additional counts, possibly including murder charges punishable by death, for allegedly forcing at least one of his pregnant captives to miscarry five times by starving her and punching her in the belly.
The three women said Castro chained them up in the basement but eventually let them live on the home’s second floor. Each woman told a similar story about being abducted after accepting a ride from him.
The police report also states Berry was forced to give birth in a plastic kiddie pool.
A sample of Castro’s DNA was delivered to state crime investigators Thursday and scientists rushed to process it and enter it into a national database to see if it links him to other crimes, officials confirmed Friday.
The FBI has not recovered human remains in its search of the house, officials said, although agents have removed more than 200 pieces of evidence but declined to say what was found.
Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said Castro will be charged for every act of sexual violence, assault and other crimes committed against the women, suggesting the counts could number in the hundreds, if not thousands.
Knight was removed from a national missing persons database in 2003 after Cleveland police couldn’t locate anyone to confirm whether she was still missing, based on police policy in such cases, the department said Friday.
“Despite this, Cleveland police kept Michelle Knight’s missing person’s case open and checked on the case numerous times,” the city said Friday. “Records indicated Cleveland police checked on the case as recently as November 2012.”
Also Friday, the FBI said publicity surrounding the women’s rescue had generated new tips in separate cases involving a 14-year-old girl and 18-year-old woman who disappeared years ago in the same area. FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson said the FBI was checking possible leads in the cases of Christina Adkins, last seen Jan. 10, 1995, and Ashley Summers, last seen July 6, 2007.
Relatives, meanwhile, continued to describe the signs they overlooked through the years.
He installed padlocks on every door leading into his dilapidated Ohio home and always kept the basement bolted shut.
When relatives showed up at Castro’s front door, he made them wait for half an hour before emerging, and nobody was ever allowed past the living room.
Castro also kept a life-sized mannequin, with a mop-like wig and creepy eyes, propped against a wall of his house and liked to scare people with it. Sometimes he drove around town with it in the back seat of his car.
“He threatened me lots of times with it,” said Castro’s nephew, 26-year-old Angel Caraballo, who was terrified of his uncle as a little boy. “He would say: ‘Act up again, you’ll be in that back room with the mannequin.’ ”
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