The owner of the Ohio home in which three women were held against their will for years was charged with kidnap and rape on Wednesday, two days after the victims were freed. Prosecutors said there was no evidence that his two brothers, arrested at the same time as him, had played any part in the crime.
At a news conference in Cleveland, prosecutor Victor Perez said Ariel Castro, 52, would be arraigned at the city's municipal court on Thursday morning.
The ordeal of Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 30, ended on Monday when Berry saw a chance to break free from the house and alert neighbours. When Castro was out, Berry hammered on the front door, attracting the attention of neighbours who helped her escape. She emerged from the house with a six-year-old daughter who was born in captivity.
Prosecutors said Castro would face three counts of rape, relating to the women, and four counts of kidnap, which included the child. Ed Tomba, the deputy police chief of Cleveland, said the women had only ever left the house twice, when Castro allegedly forced them, in disguise, to the garage.
Tomba said he would not go into details about whether there had been any other pregnancies in the years the women had been held in the house. But police said earlier in the day that they were apparently bound with ropes and chains, and a city councilman briefed on the case, Brian Cummins, said that they were subjected to prolonged sexual and psychological abuse and suffered miscarriages.
"We know that the victims have confirmed miscarriages, but with who, how many and what conditions we don't know," Cummins said. He added: "It sounds pretty gruesome."
Perez stressed that Castro's two brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, were not linked to the women's disappearance and captivity. He blamed the "chaos" of the time immediately after the women's release for their arrest. The two men were still in custody on Wednesday evening, held on outstanding warrants for separate misdemeanour cases. "There is no evidence that these two individuals had any involvement in the commission of the crimes committed against Michelle, Gina, Amanda and the minor child," Perez said.
Asked if the women were held together in the house, Tomba said: "They were not in one room but they did know each other and they did know each other was there."
Tomba said FBI agents were searching a house two doors away from Ariel Castro's home on Wednesday afternoon. "During the course of our investigation over the last couple of days information was obtained that provided us enough probable cause to seek a search warrant to go into that house with an attempt to secure evidence," he said, adding that there were no suspects at the house. He would not elaborate on the connection between Castro and the property.
Castro's son, Anthony Castro, had said earlier this week that his father's house at 2207 Seymour Avenue "was always locked". "There were places we could never go. There were locks on the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage," he said.
There were joyful scenes earlier in the day when Berry and DeJesus returned home with their relatives. Berry was brought under police guard to her sister's home in Cleveland and was welcomed by a huge cheer from hundreds of neighbours. The house was festooned with balloons and placards, one saying "We never lost hope" and another reading "We missed you very much". DeJesus had a similar rapturous welcome.
Arriving at her sister's home, Berry did not stop before the bank of TV cameras and reporters that had assembled in expectation that she might say her first words in public, other than the 911 call she made on Monday night. Instead her sister, Beth Serrano, above, delivered a brief statement while engulfed by a huge media scrum. "We have Amanda and her daughter home," she said. "I want to thank the public and the media for their support and their encouragement over the years. At this time our family would request privacy so my sister and niece and I can have time to recover."
After welcoming DeJesus home, her aunt, Sandra Ruiz, made a similar request for privacy and asked that people not seek retaliation against the suspects. "I'm asking God to watch over all of us, and the last thing the family is asking is that we as a community do not go retaliate against the family or the suspects of this crime." She praised the police and FBI, and they should be left to "do their job".
Michael McGrath, the Cleveland police chief, revealed earlier on Wednesday that ropes and chains were among several hundred items removed from 2207 Seymour Avenue, where the three victims had been held for between nine and 11 years. He told NBC that the women were in good physical condition, "considering the circumstances".
Federal investigators, dressed in white jumpsuits to avoid contaminating evidence, have been coming through the house and yard at Seymour Avenue, recovering the first clues to how the women were treated over their prolonged imprisonment. Several vehicles were taken away for laboratory examination, as well as dozens of items wrapped in black plastic sheets.
Cadaver dogs have also been brought to the crime scene, suggesting that the FBI wants to rule out the possibility of human remains being buried in the house or yard. None have so far been found, according to Martin Flask, Cleveland's director of safety. "A thorough search of the scene … did not reveal human remains," he said.
Authorities attempted to dampen frenzied speculation that has been swirling around Seymour Avenue by pushing back on reports from Castro's neighbours that over the years they had reported unusual activity that the police had failed to act upon. In the most lurid accounts, neighbours said that a naked woman in chains had been seen crawling on her hands and knees in the back yard of the house. Cleveland city hall released a statement that read: "Media reports of multiple calls to the Cleveland police reporting suspicious activity and the mistreatment of women at 2207 Seymour are false."
McGrath also disputed the reports, saying that police had checked their records and found only two interactions with Castro. The first, in 2000, was before the first of the victims was abducted. Officers responded to a call by the suspect regarding a fight outside his house. The second, in 2004, was in relation to an incident in which he left an unattended boy on the school bus he was driving.
"If officers in this district had any indication there was a problem, they would have been here, as we have been all over these missing cases," McGrath told Fox News. Castro was fired from his job as a school bus driver last November.
At the home of Berry's sister in west Cleveland, residents of this poor but normally quiet part of the city expressed joy at the homecoming. Andrea Berr said she had come to stand outside the Berry family home to show her support. "I'm feeling happy," she said, "but sad too that her mother wasn't here to see this."
Berry's mother, Louwana Miller, died in 2006, having spent three gruelling years searching for her lost daughter.
