Multiple rape and kidnapping charges over Ohio abductions

Ariel Castro was charged last night with raping and kidnapping the three women who were rescued on Monday after nearly a decade in captivity at his house.

Castro’s two brothers Pedro and Onil, originally arrested in the case, were not charged, said prosecutor Victor Perez at a news conference.

Castro (52) faces four counts of kidnapping relating to Berry, DeJesus, Michelle Knight, and Berry's 6-year-old daughter who was conceived and born during her mother's captivity, authorities said.

Castro will be arraigned today. There was no evidence Pedro Castro, ( 54), and Onil Castro, (50), were involved, the prosecutor said.

Further details of how the three Ohio women were held in captivity for about a decade have emerged as police confirmed that ropes and chains were used to detain the women in a Cleveland house.

Investigators have not confirmed how the ropes and chains were used, a Cleveland public safety official said, but police chief Michael McGrath confirmed they were used to restrain the three women.

“We have confirmation that they were bound,” McGrath told NBC’s Today programme. The women were “very rarely” allowed outside or were “released out in the backyard once in a while,” he said.

The three men were held after Amanda Berry (27) escaped with her six-year-old daughter with the help of neighbour Charles Ramsey who heard her calls.

They alerted police after Mr Ramsey helped her to break down the door to the worn-looking, two-storey property in a Hispanic neighbourhood of small houses.

“I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms,” said Mr Ramsey, who is seen as a folk hero over his role in Ms Berry’s escape, and subsequent colourful interviews.

“Either she’s homeless or she’s got problems. That’s the only reason she run to a black man,” he said.

Police later freed two other women Georgina “Gina” DeJesus (23) and Michelle Knight (32). The three women disappeared between 2002 and 2004 from the same street in Cleveland, Lorain Avenue.

In good spirits
Ms Knight disappeared a year before Ms Berry was last seen. She was not treated as a missing person as her family believed at the time that she might have run away from home voluntarily.

Ms DeJesus vanished in 2004 at the age of 14 while walking home from school. Her sister Mayra (32) said that Gina was in “good spirits” despite all she had been through. She returned home yesterday.

The six-year-old who escaped from the house with Ms Berry was born to her during her time in captivity in the house, police believe.

Ms Berry and her daughter yesterday arrived at the home of her sister, Beth Serrano, who in a public statement to the media asked for privacy for the family after her sister’s decade-long ordeal.

Ms Berry’s freedom came more than 10 years after she disappeared at the end of a shift working at a local Burger King outlet.

Her sister's home, a short distance from the house she escaped from on Seymour Avenue, was festooned with balloons, ribbons and posters welcoming her return yesterday.

Neighbours have recalled unusual incidents at the Seymour Street house in recent years, including yelling and the sight of a naked woman in the back yard of the house, but police say have records of only two incidents in which police called to the house and found nothing unusual.

Further case
Investigators are looking for possible links between the three suspects and the case of Ashley Summers, who went missing in 2007 at the age of 14, three years after the disappearance of Ms DeJesus.

Police had believed that the cases of Summers, Berry and DeJesus could be connected because they were similar ages when they vanished and they were last seen in the same area before disappearing.

“We are keeping Ashley in our thoughts as we go, every step of the way,” an FBI spokeswoman told Ohio newspaper The Plain Dealer.

The Castro family had close connections with Ms DeJesus.

Her best friend when she disappeared was Arlene, daughter of Ariel Castro. The two girls had walked home from school shortly before Ms DeJesus vanished and had hoped to play together at the house she lived in with her mother and siblings but her mother had refused them permission.

Arlene Castro appeared on the television programme, America’s Most Wanted in 2005 to raise public awareness of the DeJesus case.

Ariel Castro, had participated in neighbourhood searches to try to find Ms DeJesus and performed music at a fundraiser held in her honour.

The remarkable Ohio abduction story has also drawn in other characters.

A self-proclaimed psychic who incorrectly told of the death of Amanda Berry in 2004 has faced an online backlash.