Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland (15 page)

She was determined to become a public advocate, a voice for the missing kids, but she was often crippled by sadness. One night when she thought she couldn’t take the pain any longer, she prayed, “Please take this burden off of me because I cannot carry it.” She felt immediate relief and a shot of new energy and kept praying, “Please, God, open your arms and wrap them around Gina.”

She remained certain that Gina was alive and that God would watch over her. In a quiet act of faith, Nancy opened a bank account for Gina and deposited twenty or thirty dollars in it every month.

August 2005: Testimony

On August 30, 2005, Fernando Colon stood trial on charges that he had molested Nilda and Ariel Castro’s daughters, Emily, age sixteen, and Arlene, age thirteen. The previous September, at a time when Castro was holding Amanda, Gina, and Michelle captive, he had taken his two daughters to a police station to file a complaint that Colon had touched them inappropriately while they slept.

Colon insisted that the charges were false and had been instigated by Castro, who he said had coached them into making the allegations. Nilda defended Colon in court, corroborating Colon’s testimony that Castro had persuaded the girls to make false charges in exchange for money and gifts.

“If anything inappropriate had occurred, my daughters would have been quick to tell me,” Nilda said in an affidavit filed in the case. She explained that Arlene told her that she’d had a dream that Colon had touched her, and that dream had become “an exaggerated story.”

Five days before Colon’s trial, Nilda reported to police that Castro was pressuring Emily, who was then living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to return to Cleveland to testify against Colon. Nilda said Castro told her he was going to “bring Emily back and beat your ass in front of her.”

Nilda sought a restraining order in domestic relations court barring Castro from coming near her or her children, telling the court about years of violence by Castro and that he had threatened to kill her and her kids. Even though Castro had no visitation rights, she said he “frequently abducts his daughters and keeps them from [her].”

The court issued a temporary restraining order that required Castro to complete “batterer counseling” and banned him from drinking alcohol, using illegal drugs, or possessing a deadly weapon. No home visit was ordered. The temporary restraining order raised no red flags at the school system where Castro was a bus driver. A prosecutor said there were so many domestic violence cases that it was virtually impossible to check them against all school and city employees. The court then scheduled a hearing to determine whether to make that restraining order permanent. On the day of the hearing, Castro and his lawyer appeared before the magistrate, as did Nilda, but her lawyer, Robert A. Ferreri, failed to show up because he had a hearing at the same time in juvenile court.

The magistrate would not proceed without Nilda’s lawyer present, and he gave her two weeks to file for a new hearing. Because she did not, her case was dismissed and Castro was free of any legal constraints. Nilda later told Elida that after her lawyer failed to appear, she lost her nerve to pursue the case.

But Colon’s case went to trial and provided dramatic courtroom testimony about Ariel Castro’s long history of violence against Nilda.

The defense’s central argument was that Ariel Castro was a violent, vindictive, and controlling man who was fully capable of using his own daughters as a means to settle a grudge against a man who was now living with his ex-wife.

“What did take place here is not exactly a love triangle,” Ferreri told the judge. “It’s kind of a power triangle. It’s kind of a control triangle. Mr. Castro is obsessed with power and control over Nilda.”

Just after lunch on Wednesday, September 1, Castro took the witness stand.

Prosecutor John Kosko asked for his address, and Castro told him 2207 Seymour Avenue, where at that moment he was holding Amanda, Gina, and Michelle.

“
Does anyone live there with you?”
Kosko asked.

“No,”
Castro replied.

Under questioning, Castro acknowledged that his relationship with Nilda had been violent at times, but that she provoked it.

“We were always arguing, you know. She always—she always waited until I would come home, like especially on the holidays or something. She always waited for me to have a beer or two before she would start stuff, and I never understood that. Why? When I was okay, there was no fights, but for some reason, when I would have a beer or two, she always started fighting. So I couldn’t understand why.”

When asked if their confrontations had ever gotten physical, Castro replied, “There was times that she did get physical with me. She would throw herself on me, striking me. One time, yes, we struggled together, and we fell and she fell and hit . . . her head on the doorjamb.”

Castro denied more than twenty times that he had ever laid a hand on Nilda.

 • • • 

Nilda took the stand the following day, describing publicly for the first time what Castro had done to her over the course of many years.

“Did Mr. Castro ever physically assault you?” Ferreri asked.

“Yes.”

“Did he do that more than once?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mr. Castro ever strike you in such a way that you required medical attention?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever do that more than once?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mr. Castro ever cause you to get medical attention at a hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever receive any cuts or any bruises from Mr. Castro?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever have any dislocated limbs from Mr. Castro?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever have any problems with your eyesight or your nerves in your face as a result of Mr. Castro?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever have any problems with your brain or the inner workings of your brain?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks to Mr. Castro?”

“Yes.”

Nilda recounted the first time Castro beat her, when a small disagreement escalated and he punched her in the face, grabbed her by the head, and threw her onto the concrete floor. She said Castro had punched her so many times in the face over the years that she required two reconstructive surgeries on her nose, as well as dental surgery.

She recalled that one time when she was pregnant, he demanded that she wash the dishes.

“I told him I was tired and to wait, and I yelled a little, but I don’t usually yell, but I was too tired, so he just punched me in the mouth and took my teeth out. . . . He dislocated my shoulders about twice by just throwing me around, most of the time pulling my arm to the back. He felt that it was some kind of punishment that I needed.”

“Did he always just hit you with his hand, or did he sometimes use other objects?”

“He used whatever he can get his hands on. Once he used a metal pipe.”

“And what did he do with the pipe?”

“He beat me over the head with it. It was always on the head. Most of the time.”

“And did the hospital do any surgical procedures on you at that time when he hit you with the metal piece?”

“Yes. I had maybe about twenty-five, forty stitches on my head at that time.”

“Did Mr. Castro ever hit you in the head again?”

“Yes.”

“
Did he use his hand or did he use an object?”

“Then next time after that it was with a hand bar, weight.”

“An exercise weight?”

“Yes. I was nine months pregnant with Emily. . . . He hit me over the head with it, beat me.”

Nilda testified that Castro had punched her so hard in the eye that her sight was severely damaged, and it left one of her eyes permanently “squinty.” She said Castro repeatedly referred to her as “his property.”

“He says it all the time, repeats that to me all the time. . . . I’m scared of him.”

Asked about the prognosis for the tumor that had been discovered, she testified: “I have none. I mean, there’s nothing they can do for the tumor. They tried. But they couldn’t do anything.”

“Would it be fair to say that the prognosis is, in medical terms, terminal?”

“Yes.”

Emily and Arlene had testified at the start of the trial that Colon had touched them inappropriately many times. But Nilda asserted in her own testimony that she believed Castro had manipulated the girls into making up the allegations against Colon. She said both girls had emotional and behavioral problems, and Arlene’s had become much worse since her close friend Gina DeJesus had disappeared the previous year:

“
I took her, Arlene, to a psychologist and he evaluated her with post-traumatic stress disorder. She was Gina’s best friend, and she was with her when she disappeared, shortly before that, so it traumatized Arlene because Arlene felt responsible for her disappearance.”

Gina’s vanishing had affected the entire family. Arlene had to change schools and repeat seventh grade and ultimately was expelled from her new school for poor attendance and disruptive behavior.

Ferreri pressed Nilda about why she hadn’t sought more help from the police over the years of beatings she endured.

“Because I always thought that he was gonna change.”

“In your culture, is it likely—or in your family, if there’s something that goes on, do you run to the police, or do you try to fix it up among yourselves?”

“Yes [we try to fix it among ourselves].”

“Do you consider it an intrusion on your family to bring the police into anything?”

“Yes.”

“And when Mr. Castro said, ‘I won’t hit you anymore,’ did you believe him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you want to believe him?”

“I wanted—yes, I wanted to believe him because I thought that maybe he would change.”

“Did you hope and pray that he would change?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Do you believe he’s ever capable of change?”

“No.”

 • • • 

Colon was convicted of “gross sexual imposition,” a felony, and sentenced to three years’ probation, but was acquitted of the more serious charges of rape and being a “sexually violent predator.” Without any physical evidence or witnesses, the only evidence against Colon was the testimony of the two girls. John Kosko, the prosecutor, said that because the case was in the end a matter of “he-said, she-said,” the judge delivered a compromise verdict, which Kosko believed was fair. In the end Kosko didn’t believe the theory that Castro had orchestrated the entire affair, saying that the girls’ testimony was “pretty convincing.”

Nilda and Colon ultimately split up.

August 23, 2005: Back to the Basement

Amanda

“Pack up everything. I want it all out of here,” he says.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“My kids have been asking a lot of questions. They want to know why they can’t go upstairs and see their old bedrooms.”

I’ve always wondered why his mother has never been here, and why his brothers and kids don’t think it’s suspicious that he never lets them past the kitchen. He tells them he doesn’t want them to see upstairs because it’s such a mess. But I guess now they’re insisting, and his daughter Emily is coming for a visit from Indiana. She’s going to stay here for a couple of days, he tells me, “So I’m putting you in the basement.”

I can’t believe he’s going to take the risk of having his daughter sleeping in this house, and I hate the idea of going back to the basement. But what can I do?

He unchains my ankle and hands me a plastic laundry basket, and I start filling it with my stuff. I gather my pens, crayons, paper, my picture of Jesus and my mom’s photos and stack them neatly in the basket. I fold up the few clothes he has given me and I put them on top. I slip my diary to the bottom so he won’t see it, because I’m afraid if he reads it he might rip it up.

He walks with me down to the basement, where I leave the basket. We go back up to the room and he watches as I pick up my sheets and trash-can toilet and carry them downstairs, too. Then he helps me carry out the mattress and the TV.

Every trace of me is gone from the bedroom, except for the chains. They run through a hole in the wall and are attached to something in the next room. He pulls the chains through, then moves the dresser in front of the hole to hide it.

I pray that his kids notice something is not right. We’ve cleaned the room up pretty well, but maybe they’ll wonder why there’s wood covering the windows behind the curtains.

He takes me back to the basement, where this all started more than two years ago, and then goes back upstairs. I sit on the mattress on the floor, wondering how long I’ll be down here. I look around to see if there might be a way to escape, but the door to the backyard is bolted and padlocked.

After a while he comes down with Gina and Michelle. They’re carrying their own things and look scared. We’re all wondering what he really has in mind down here.

“I need more privacy,” I tell him. “I don’t want to go to the bathroom in front of them. It’s embarrassing.”

I can see his mind working. He always thinks that he can rig up some gizmo and find the answer to any problem somewhere in his piles of junk. And sure enough, he sees a dirty old wooden dresser and drags it to the middle of the room, like a divider.

Now when I’m sitting on my mattress, I don’t have to see them. I just wish I didn’t have to hear them.

Gina

I don’t want to be back down here. He kept me here for two weeks after he kidnapped me. This time I’m chained to Michelle and the pole.

Amanda’s ignoring us on the other side of the dresser. She’s trying to pretend that we’re not even here. He’s told us that she doesn’t like us, but I don’t know why.

“You know the rules,” he warns all of us. “You know what you’re not supposed to talk about.”

He loves rules. He has rules about which size spatula to use, which direction to flip an egg, what songs I can listen to. When I cook I have to keep the pan exactly in the center of the burner, or he calls me “retard” or “dumbass.” But his biggest rule is that we’re not allowed to talk about anything he says or does with us.

He must really be freaked out about his kids coming over if he’s putting us all together like this.