Investigation Underway in Ariel Castro Hanging

Brutal rapist and dungeon master Ariel Castro, who abducted three young women and imprisoned them for a decade as his sex slaves, was found hanged last night in his jail cell.

Ohio officials surmise Castro probably committed suicide rather than face life in prison plus 1000 years, but they are investigating his death regardless since there was such a small window of opportunity for him to pull it off.

Following his sentencing and incarceration in early August 2013, Ariel Castro has been housed in protective custody, which means he was to be checked on by jail guards every 30 minutes.

Castro however was not considered suicidal and was most likely being confined under those conditions for his own safety. 

Nevertheless, guards making the evening rounds at approximately 9:30 PM on September third found him hanging in his solitary cell, just barely alive.

Efforts at resuscitating the 53-year-old prisoner failed and an unresponsive Castro was then rushed to the nearest hospital, but pronounced dead there sometime before midnight. 

"A thorough review of this incident is underway and more information can be provided as it becomes available pending the status of the investigation," an Ohio Corrections representative speedily announced.

Ariel Castro is the second inmate from the state of Ohio to hang himself in as many months -- on August 4th Billy Slagle, 44, was found swinging in his jail cell too. 

The convicted murderer was on death row and set to be executed in only a matter of days for the vicious stabbing death of his neighbor Mari Pope in 1987. But he sought to deprive authorities of that right.

Either which way though, be it by suicide or homicide, it's doubtful that monsters like Billy Slagle and Ariel Castro will be truly missed.

Life plus 1000 years for Ariel Castro

Serial kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro had already accepted a plea deal for life without parole before yesterday's sentencing hearing. Agreeing to that term and an additional 1000 years rather than gamble with a possible death verdict.

 

So there were no courtroom surprises in store for the world's "worst sexual predator" to date, save, perhaps, for being confronted by his most battered victim.

 

An emotional Michelle Knight made a courageous appearance in the proceeding, bearing witness against her now-shackled abuser and warning him that while her and her fellow captives' nightmare had finally ended, his hell "is just beginning."

 

She's right about this too, because child rapists, kidnappers and killers have a tough time once incarcerated, viewed by their prison mates as the lowest of the low, even among other murderers and sex offenders.

 

In fact, many such inmates are slain behind bars in assassination plots hatched well in advance of their integration with the general population. So Castro can expect a similarly harrowing prison experience, although, in his own eyes, he really isn't a bad guy after all, nor violent...

 

Standing unmoved and remorseless during sentencing, a bespectacled Ariel Castro once again conveyed his firm belief that he "is not a monster" but rather just a harmless, "sick man" with a "porn addiction."

 

Those proclamations fly in the face of his confession and recent plea deal though, as well as the mountain of evidence which eventually led to his 937-count indictment for abduction, assault, sexual assault, and murder.

 

The defendant's unapologetic statement, delivered in a calculatingly beseeching tone, belies a criminal attitude that seemed to enrage the presiding judge, but which isn't that uncommon for perps as incurably deviant as Castro is.  

 

This brand of violent sociopath can distort reality with relative ease, even to the degree where hundreds of vicious rapes and beatings, committed against defenseless victims held in bondage, can all become "consensual."

 

Coincidentally, that same perverse perspective was embraced by criminal justice officials for centuries, and even today the state of Ohio, from Steubenville to Cleveland, is grappling with an alarmingly high rate of violence against women.

 

A dangerous situation for Ohio's female citizenry in general, and one greatly exacerbated by law enforcement's historically wanton approach in guaranteeing the "weaker sex" equal protection.

 

 EPONYMOUS ROX

FORSAKEN: Michelle Knight needs our support

Please welcome back MICHELLE KNIGHT and lend her your support

It takes character and courage to endure the severe abuses that the Cleveland Captives were subjected to each and every day without interruption for a decade.

 

Of those three women, Ms. Knight suffered the longest and received the harshest treatment during her brutal confinement in the heart of Cleveland Ohio, where she wasn't even acknowledged by authorities to be missing.

The Cleveland house of horrors is a sensational story of sadism and survival, but what we know about this disturbing matter at the moment, only days since the victims' liberation, will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg. It is not just a juicy headliner; it is a case of unprecedented perversion and cruelty.

This we must consider too: Knight was not the first young woman the now-52-year-old pedophile and rapist Ariel Castro snatched -- she says there was already at least one other female imprisoned when she arrived at his dungeon at the age of 20, and who shortly thereafter "disappeared" without a word.

 

Investigators say they also found a woman's name written on one of the walls in the captor's basement, together with "Rest in peace."  Considering this phrase's common usage, and what the basement itself was used for, it's pretty easy to guess the meaning. 

 

And at Castro's hands, Michelle was not merely held against her will in bondage and repeatedly raped, either. She was starved and viciously beaten, sometimes punched in the stomach in order to abort a developing fetus.

 

In all, she believes she was impregnated by this demented psychopath five times, and five times she was compelled to abort a baby through this shockingly violent and life-threatening technique of his. Whilst at the same time being required to successfully midwife another captive's pregnancy, on threats of death should that infant have died during childbirth. 

 

Michelle Knight's tormentor additionally and routinely pummeled her head and face, and because of that she is now said to be hearing impaired and possibly even disfigured from the ordeal.

 

But, prior to the nightmare that unfolded once Michelle was abducted and placed in chains, she was also mistreated by police, social workers, her school system, and the courts, in a journey to hell that began at her high school with a rape that the Cleveland police refused to prosecute.

 

Not arresting her rapist, seizing custody of the baby once it was born, failing to investigate her disappearance, not discussing her miraculous reappearance this month, quietly trying to force her out onto the street...

 

The city of Cleveland is mum about Michelle Knight now because they know they owe this forsaken woman, that someday soon they'll be forced to pay up for all the neglect and disdain they've treated her with.

Contempt which was unmatched, by the way, until she had the misfortune of accepting a ride with a *friendly* neighbor in August 2002.

 

So, before you leave this site today, please take a moment to deliver Ms. Knight some much needed words of encouragement, either below as a comment or on the Facebook page which a kindly stranger has set up for that purpose.

 

This heroic but injured woman has no support system such as her younger co-prisoners obviously do, which is no doubt the reason why she promptly returned to the hospital upon being released. She therefore requires our care and compassion, or else she might perish, and in the process allow a sadistic predator a victory he doesn't deserve.

 

EPONYMOUS ROX