In an exclusive interview with CNN, Onil Castro and Pedro Castro — brothers of Ariel Castro, who allegedly held three women captive in his Cleveland home for nearly a decade — said Ariel is completely dead to them.
Police took the brothers into custody on May 6, the night the women fled the house, and released them Thursday after they found no evidence that the two had anything to do with the abductions of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus. Now their brother Ariel, a 52-year-old school bus driver, has been charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. Bail has been set at $8 million, and paternity tests show he is the father of Amanda Berry’s six-year-old daughter, who was also found the night the women escaped.
(MORE: The Prison Next Door)
Onil Castro described Ariel to CNN’s Martin Savidge as a “monster. I hope he rots in that jail…I want him to suffer.”
“He’s a goner,” added Pedro, who was particularly horrified that Ariel helped the family of Gina DeJesus, one of the abducted women, in the search for their missing daughter, even though he had been holding her captive in his home the entire time.
Onil and Pedro told CNN that they only learned the details about the kidnapping from the detectives who interrogated them in jail last week. If they had any inkling that Ariel carried out the kidnapping, “I would have grabbed him by my neck myself,” Onil said. The allegations have “torn my heart apart,” he said. “This has killed me. I am a walking corpse right now.”
Pedro told CNN he never noticed anything suspicious at Ariel’s house because he had always been “a strange dude.” For instance, Ariel claimed he kept the windows covered to save energy, and he kept the TV and radio blaring all day long. Occasionally, he would cook food for his brothers, but they would always have to eat outside on the steps of the house. In the last 10 years, the brothers said they were never allowed past the kitchen.
MORE: The Challenge of Proving Fetal Homicide in the Cleveland Kidnapping Case
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Onil Castro and Pedro Castro — brothers of Ariel Castro, who allegedly held three women captive in his Cleveland home for nearly a decade — said Ariel is completely dead to them.
Police took the brothers into custody on May 6, the night the women fled the house, and released them Thursday after they found no evidence that the two had anything to do with the abductions of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus. Now their brother Ariel, a 52-year-old school bus driver, has been charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. Bail has been set at $8 million, and paternity tests show he is the father of Amanda Berry’s six-year-old daughter, who was also found the night the women escaped.
(MORE: The Prison Next Door)
Onil Castro described Ariel to CNN’s Martin Savidge as a “monster. I hope he rots in that jail…I want him to suffer.”
“He’s a goner,” added Pedro, who was particularly horrified that Ariel helped the family of Gina DeJesus, one of the abducted women, in the search for their missing daughter, even though he had been holding her captive in his home the entire time.
Onil and Pedro told CNN that they only learned the details about the kidnapping from the detectives who interrogated them in jail last week. If they had any inkling that Ariel carried out the kidnapping, “I would have grabbed him by my neck myself,” Onil said. The allegations have “torn my heart apart,” he said. “This has killed me. I am a walking corpse right now.”
Pedro told CNN he never noticed anything suspicious at Ariel’s house because he had always been “a strange dude.” For instance, Ariel claimed he kept the windows covered to save energy, and he kept the TV and radio blaring all day long. Occasionally, he would cook food for his brothers, but they would always have to eat outside on the steps of the house. In the last 10 years, the brothers said they were never allowed past the kitchen.
MORE: The Challenge of Proving Fetal Homicide in the Cleveland Kidnapping Case