When her chance came, kidnapping victim Michelle Knight lit into Ariel Castro, the man who held her captive and raped her in his Cleveland home for a decade.
“You took 11 years of my life away,” she said. “I spent 11 years in hell. Now, your hell is just beginning.”
In handing down a sentence of life without parole plus 1,000 years in prison, Judge Michael Russo told the kidnapper there was no place in the world for his brand of criminal.
Castro’s first stop after country jail will be the Lorain prison in Grafton, Ohio, where officials will evaluate him and decide where he will serve his sentence.
“You don’t deserve to be out in our community,” Russo told the defendant, explaining he would never leave prison. “You’re too dangerous.”
Castro pleaded guilty last week to 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping, in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table. The charges stem from his kidnapping, rape and assault of three women: Knight, abducted in 2002; Georgina DeJesus, abducted in 2004; and Amanda Berry; abducted in 2003.
Castro is the father of Berry’s 6-year-old girl, DNA tests confirmed. All three women kept diaries with Castro’s permission, providing many of the details of their abuse.