EP04: The Cleveland Kidnappings
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A true crime podcast that mixes crime and comedy, making it a criminy podcast. I'm your co-host, Hank Sinatra, with my co-host... Investigator Slater. Investigator Slater. She's the real deal. I'm a fraud, a phony, a fugazi.

She really loves crime. She works in the field. She's serious about this. She does her due diligence research. Great writer. Winston Churchill level writing skills and oration skills. And I make memes for a living and I don't get the whole...

true crime thing, really. But usually by the end of the episode, I'm like, that was pretty interesting. You're more than that's pretty interesting. I'm blown away. You are. It takes me a few days to recover from every episode. Credit where it's due. You get hooked.

I get hooked, but then I'm like, the anxiety is too much, and then I got to back off of it a little bit. So anyway, I think doing my own true crime podcast is the only way I would ever be into true crime because I can't pollute myself with the horror and the massacre all the time, which is why...

I am here for comic relief only. So you're Investigator Slater. I'm Tank Sinatra. I just am here to not derail the conversation, but provide some much-needed comic relief to true crime fans and non-true crime fans. So there's a lot to like here. Agreed. Okay. I don't know what you have in store for me today, but I'm sure I'll be reeling from it by the end of the episode. I guarantee it. Okay. So give me some info. All right.

Life in civilized society is reliably characterized by peace, predictability, and a reasonable expectation of safety and security. Yes? Yes. When something or someone poses an actual threat to our survival, it feels somewhat rare, thankfully.

Whether we feel like we're being watched or hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps catching up from behind us. Scary. Our little protective bubble pops. And we're reminded that there actually exists real-life human monsters hiding behind masks of sanity.

American Psycho. The mask is slipping. It's slipping. That's just an aside. That's one reason why I don't love personally true crime things in general because I find myself relating to the people who are fucked up. God, I'm out of here. Yeah. They're like, you know, he was bald. He grew up in Long Island. He made memes for a living. He loved memes. And then he killed his mother. It's like, fuck. Well, I'm three out of four of those. How far am I from, you know, snapping? But

I'm a bit of a mental illness hypochondriac, if you will. Like I thought I was mentally challenged when I was younger. Did you? Oh, I did, yeah. In what way? It was the 90s. So I'll just say I thought I was retarded. Wow. There's so much to say to that. And nobody would tell me because A, I wouldn't understand. B, they love me. So then I asked my mom one day if she thought I was slow and she goes-

What? No, what are you talking about? I was like, yeah, forget it. I'm not, forget it. Okay, good, good. And that was it? You put it to bed? It took me a lot to ask that question. And then I was like, okay, no, I'm definitely not. But yeah, I deal with something called intrusive thoughts, which are... That's human nature. We all have that. Yeah, the thought itself is human nature, but how you react to it can create a problem. If you think you might be actually capable of doing it, which is what causes...

like the panic attack that people have, typical one is their heart palpitates. And then they go, oh my God, that must mean I'm dying. Oh my God, I'm dying. And then their heart rate starts going berserk. I'm able to catch that. I have a heart palpitation. I don't think twice about it. I have an intrusive thought and I'm like, oh my God, am I capable of this? What's an example of an intrusive thought that you have? One that most people will know is like standing on the subway platform and thinking, oh, I'm going to push this person off or I'm going to jump.

I have, I think I've told you this when I'm driving on a bridge, I have an intrusive thought to just jack the steering wheel and drive off the bridge. Yeah, of course. And when I'm with my family, I won't drive across bridges.

And the thought scares you. Because it's terrifying. Yeah, okay. It's so real. This could be a whole episode, but it won't be. Okay, so let's keep going. So, civilized life, footsteps, monsters, masks. Real-life human monsters. Oh, real-life human monsters. They exist. Right. Like Shrek? No, no, no, no. Not like nice ogres with donkeys. No, no, no, no.

Okay. Like fucking torturing. Oh, God. Rapists, sadists. Okay. Next level. Yeah. The case we're covering tonight is truly what nightmares are made of. It is the stomach-churning story about a real-life house of horrors in which three young women were chained, enslaved, and killed.

tortured, starved, raped, and brutalized for over a decade. Oh my God. I thought you were going to say a week. Even that would have been too long, but over a decade. It is a heartbreaking story of unimaginable pain and suffering. Oh my God. While also a remarkable story of survival and perseverance.

So we're going to experience all kinds of feels tonight. All kinds of feels. Have you ever heard of- Strap in. Have you ever heard of McKamey Manor? No. It's a haunted house where you can go get tortured and beaten and all that stuff. You have to sign a waiver. Is it like a sex thing? No, no, no. It might be. They might do sexual abuse in there, but they'll break bones. They'll cut you. Yeah, it's like- What the fuck? Is this real? 100%. And if you finish it, you get like $20,000 or $25,000 or something like that.

What do you mean if you finish it? If you make it through all the challenges. Nobody has ever made it through. So you sign up and you say, do your worst. You sign a waiver. And if you get through it? If I die in here, you're not responsible. Yeah. What is this? McKamey Manor. Never heard of it. The guy who owns it... It kind of scares me that you have heard of it. ...is a bit of a criminal. I think. Well, again, not to get off on too much of a tangent, but basically...

It's coming more to light that this guy has actually found a way to torture people legally. Oh my God. Yeah. Another episode. Maybe that's, I was just going to say, maybe that's next week's episode. Yeah. That'll be Halloween time. But tonight I'm bringing you the absolutely atrocious yet miraculous case of the Cleveland kidnappings. Ever hear of it? Fucking Ohio. Let's go. We're going to start at the beginning.

On August 23rd, 2002, 21-year-old Michelle Knight was traveling to a social services appointment in an effort to regain custody of her two-year-old son.

She couldn't find the building that she was looking for, so she stopped by a nearby dollar store. She was 21. 21 with a two-year-old son. Correct. Lost custody. Lost custody. The truth is she lost custody because she was in a very bad way. It wasn't that she was, God forbid, abusing him or anything like that. She was homeless. 21-year-old kid. Exactly. She didn't have much support, so she lost custody of him to the state.

So she was trying to find the building where the meeting was being held, where she was going to fight to regain custody. So she popped into a nearby dollar store to ask for directions, which is something I can relate to because I get lost the moment I leave my house. And it's 2002, GPS, I'm still using a hackstrom selling fence. I have been coming to your house for how many years? And my GPS just geeked out and I was cold sweating. I could not get here.

So at the store, at the dollar store, find me. She saw someone she recognized, a man named Ariel Castro, whose daughter Emily had been like a friend of a friend during their school age years. Yeah.

Ariel Castro offered to give Michelle a lift to the building where the meeting was being held, and grateful for the help, she got into his car on the corner of Lorain Avenue and 106th Street in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland! Michelle noticed right away that Castro started to drive in the wrong direction. Oh, boy.

And when she went to reach to open the passenger door, she discovered that the door was missing a handle. And that is when her nightmare officially began. Michelle's family soon called the police when she didn't return home, but they were apparently told that nothing could be done for 48 hours. I hate that rule. It's so stupid. Well, pop quiz.

How much time has to pass before the police can launch their investigation into a missing person? A, zero hours, B, 24 hours, or C, 48 hours? Is this a trick question? No, it's a multiple choice question. Answer it. C. 48 hours? Yeah. False.

Okay, so it should be zero hours. It is zero hours. So what's with this CSI bullshit? I'm going to take this opportunity to dispel a myth propagated by almost every crime television show, including CSI. Yeah, my six-year-old is missing. Sorry, we can't do anything. Go twiddle your fucking thumbs for 48 hours. We still got 44 hours before we're legally allowed to look for him. You do not.

And should not wait 24 or 48 hours. I was going to say zero hours. Well, you didn't. So you fucked that up for a day. If there's a reward for getting the question right, I should get the reward. Nope. No reward. You jacked it. The initial hours following someone's disappearance are crucial in helping to locate that missing person. The first 48 is a show. Correct. That's the opposite. Right. 48 hours goes by, they're dead. That's it. They often are.

Waiting is probably the worst thing you can do, especially if the safety of the missing person is in jeopardy. Police agencies may not be able to deploy full strength of their resources towards the effort to finding the person, but they can and should and will begin looking the moment you report it.

Waiting this like arbitrary amount of hours, 24 to 48 hours. So why did you just say that they had to wait 48 hours? Because you were lying? No. She alleges that she was told that she had to wait 48 hours before reporting Michelle Knight missing. So she watches a couple of crime shows and starts lying. Maybe. I'm not going to call her a liar. Allegedly. Allegedly. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Don't wait. Report somebody right away. Exactly. And if you wait, I'm going to find you and I'm going to make you regret it. Just going to get that threat out there. And then there will be 48 hours before you get reported missing. Eventually, Michelle Knight's family filled out a missing persons report, which indicated that Michelle had been wearing blue shorts and a white t-shirt, was 4'7", went by the nickname Shorty. 4'7"? Fuck you. Went by the nickname Investigator Slater. Yeah.

And that she had, quote, mental abnormalities and was often confused by her surroundings, which literally would be my missing persons report. Yeah. Listen, she's very small and she's weird as fuck. Good luck. And she gets lost very easily. Yeah. That's me. Wake me up if you find her. That's it.

Her family began posting flyers around the town. But after 15 months of turning up nothing, Michelle was removed from the missing persons list, which is nuts considering the fact that Michelle had not simply vanished into thin air or intentionally disappeared herself. She was actually being kept chained. The Little Mermaid took her. Oh, God. She was actually... Ariel! Stop!

She was actually being kept chained to a wall and forced to endure the most unthinkable acts of physical, sexual, and psychological violence you can imagine day in and day out.

But sure, let's remove her from the fucking missing persons list. Yeah, we're not going to find her. We're good. She was probably still in the neighborhood. She probably felt like going out for a while. Yeah, 15 months or so. Horrible. Horrible. I'll be back in 16 months. If I'm not back, call the cops. And then they're going to wait 48 hours and miss my trail. What's the difference?

A little over one year after Michelle Knight's abduction on the exact date of April 21st, 2003, which was one day before Amanda Berry's 17th birthday. Amanda Berry had just finished working her shift at Burger King on Lorraine Avenue and 110th Street in Cleveland, Ohio. So this is just four blocks from where Michelle disappeared a year earlier. Yeah.

Amanda was waiting to get picked up by either her sister Beth or her boyfriend DJ, but that night she finished her shift a little early. Right outside of Burger King, Amanda noticed a maroon van that she'd never seen before. She did, however, recognize the girl inside the van as being Angela Castro, whom she'd gone to middle school with. FYI, Ariel Castro has five kids, and he wasn't afraid to use any of them as bait.

Oh, no. We know that Michelle Knight had known Emily Castro, and now Amanda Berry knew Angela Castro. So the van pulls up besides Amanda, and the man driving it, who was, of course, Ariel Castro, asked Amanda if she needed a ride. Grateful for the lift from Angela and her dad, Amanda got into the van. But once inside, she realized that Angela was not inside the van anymore. Where was she? She'd gotten out.

But Ariel obviously was still driving the van. He drove Amanda to his house at 2207 Seymour Avenue, and that was the last anyone had ever seen of Amanda Berry for 11 years. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. I hate fans.

There are so many ubiquitous vans on the road, which I think should be illegal. You cannot have tainted windows and unmarked vans on the road. A lot of people have fish in there or speakers. Oh, come on. I'm not going to roll the dice on that. Show me that you have fish and speakers and untinted windows. Nobody should ever be getting in a van. She was young. She recognized the driver. If you're 16 listening to this, don't get kidnapped.

You recognized the driver. You're victim blaming. No, it's definitely Arielle's fault for sure. But like, let's be smart. So I saw a video recently of some girl that was coming out of work and the van was parked very close to the driver's side of her car, right? Okay. Facing out. She was facing in, he was facing out. The van had a sliding door right near the driver's side door.

So she goes, I don't know. I don't know if I feel good about leaving right now. So she had somebody walk her out. The person that walked her out, the van left. And somebody was like, yeah, that sliding door, which is right by your driver's side door,

is sketchy as fuck and you should not get that close to a van with a sliding door no matter what time of day it was it was daytime so vans are just like you know they're weird and i don't like them i just feel like if you're going to drive a van your windows have to be transparent and you have to have your van labeled and if not you should get a fucking ticket and you should get it off the road yeah we just know so much nowadays about what those vans can be used for yeah get it off the road

Anyway, he took Amanda, unsurprisingly, in his van. He drove her back to his house and took her into his basement. Once in the basement, he taped her wrists and ankles together, put a helmet on her head, instructed her to stay quiet, and left her down there for days. The helmet was likely used to disorient her as a sort of sensory deprivation technique, and it worked. Was it like a... It was a motorcycle helmet.

Oh, shoot. Yeah. Okay. When he took Amanda back to his house, by the way, the first thing he did was to show her a sleeping woman upstairs. Okay.

Who was that sleeping woman? This isn't a quiz. So when he brought them back to his house, was he bringing them in kicking and screaming or what? No, they knew him and they knew his daughters. So they went in a little bit like, what's happening? You were like, in Michelle's case, you were supposed to take me to a government building to get custody of my son. And in Amanda's case, you were supposed to drive me home from work.

He's probably like, I just got to stop home for a second. Correct. In Michelle's case, he told her, I have a puppy at home. And since you're fighting for custody of your son, Joey, why not bring a puppy and like, you know, entice him a little bit more and make it sweeten the deal a little bit. So he told Michelle he had a puppy back at his house that she could give to his son. So he was creative and he was crafty and he knew exactly what to say and who to say it to, to get them back to his house, not kicking and screaming.

What an asshole. When he got Amanda back to the house, the first thing he did was to show her a sleeping woman upstairs. And that woman was Michelle Knight, who by that point was missing for an entire year. Did this woman know Michelle Knight? No. In an ABC News article from 2015, Amanda said, quote, he took me in there into the room and he told me to pull down my pants and

And from there, I knew like this was not going to be good. Yeah. So he brings her into the basement. He chains her to the wall. He puts this helmet over her head to disorient her, which was very effective. And then he leaves her for Dave's.

Amanda's family filed a missing persons report and they were diligent about keeping her name in the headlines and in the public consciousness. They posted flyers. They made news appearances whenever they could. And Amanda would watch her family's police appeals on a small black and white television that she was allowed to watch in the basement, which is like so fucking excruciating to think about. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But it kept her going during those initial days in captivity. In 2015, Amanda reflected back on those early days, like the first few days of her captivity. And she reflected on being able to see her family on television. And she said, that kept me going. And I said, you know what? I'm going to make it home to you. As long as you fight, I'm going to fight. After four days of being locked in that dark, rank basement,

Castro finally moved Amanda up to a bedroom on the top floor of the house and then changed her to the radiator. But at least she was out of the basement. And where are his kids during all this? So we're going to get into that in a little while, but he had lost custody of his children to his then ex-wife. Because he was using them to kidnap. All that didn't come to the surface, but some other shit did. Okay. Guys, obviously that's not the only bad thing he's doing. Right. No, you can bet on the fact. Probably not a great dad.

Pop quiz. Okay. All right. Since chivalry did not fully elude Ariel Castro. Oh, boy. What item did he allow Amanda to keep with her during her captivity? A, a new device called an iPod shuffle. B, an issue of Maxim magazine depicting a sexy picture of Marge Simpson scrubbing the floor. C, a blank spiral notebook and pen.

A blank spiral notebook at Penn? Yes. Yeah. Oh my God, I'm so proud of you right now. Yeah. He allowed her to keep a notebook. And for the next 11 years, Amanda chronicled everything that was happening to her. Well, that's why I thought. That's how she was able to give such detailed notes about the- Right. I'm smart. Yeah. You're smarter than I think I give you credit for sometimes. Yeah.

So she would keep track of everything happening to her in this notebook, including the number of days that Ariel Castro had kept her confined and had raped her. Oh my God. Her very first entry. What a horrible journal to have to keep. I know. Her very first entry is heartbreaking. It said, you don't know what you got till it's gone. I just can't wait to go home. I'm 17 now, but I don't have a life.

He told me I'm young and I will go home before summer. Another two months, exclamation point. Like all optimistic and all excited and actually believing him when he says he's going to take her home. Yeah. She had no idea what Castro really had in store for her. And maybe it was better that way. Hope is a powerful life force. Maybe it was better for her to really hope and believe that she was going to be going home.

Have you ever heard the story about the rats drowning? No. Side note, they did an experiment where it's very, you know, buckle up because it's not a nice experiment, but they put rats in a cylinder of water one at a time and saw how long it took them to drown. First time was like 17 minutes on average, the rats took to give up and be and not be able to swim anymore.

They did another experiment where at about 15 minutes, they pulled the rats out.

left them out for like an hour and then put them back in. Do you know how long they fucking swam for? 47 minutes. I'm going to throw that out there. No, like 117 hours. Because they had hoped that they were going to be rescued. Yeah. That's really sad. Yeah. I got to find the exact amount. Maybe it's 72 hours. It's way longer than you think. That's what I thought initially, like 43, an hour. It's a long time. Their little muscles must've, but no, they, uh,

They swam forever. Yeah. I think hope is what kept them going through the worst of times. Yeah. And times got really, really fucking bad for them. Ugh. Interesting fact, Amanda Berry-inspired spiral notebooks are for sale on Redbubble. What? Just figured I'd get a little plug in there. Amanda Berry-inspired notebooks? Yeah. Yeah.

You think you got a bed? Go journal about your fucking, like, you know... Yeah, not getting the car you want. Yeah. So, get this. About one week after Amanda Barry's abduction, Castro called Amanda's family to fuck with them. Oh, my God. Which guy's out of his mind? I mean, you have no clue. You will find out, and by the end of this episode, you will have a clue. But right now, we haven't even scratched the surface.

He called their family. He said, I have Mandy and she wants to be with me. Castro used Amanda's cell phone to make the call.

which led a rescue team to within two blocks of Castro's home. Wow. But in 2003, the FBI was just starting to develop call tracing technology that could track a cell phone's location if it was turned on. But Castro never used Amanda's phone again, and the lead went cold. Oh, my God. But they were so close.

Why don't they just rip apart every house in the area? Good question. They came. I guess you can. They came so close to 2207 Seymour Avenue, his house, so many times and never actually led them to the girls. Wow. Horrible.

So regardless of the fact that law enforcement continued to hit dead ends with any sort of lead or investigation, Amanda's family kept her name alive and her image in the press at every opportunity. Amanda's family. Correct. Michelle's family, sadly, not so much. So knock against them. No, well, to digress just slightly, and it's probably a well-taken digression because she deserves some content on her. Yeah.

She is the least covered victim

out of all the victims we're going to discuss tonight, because she came from a family that had very little to do with the media with respect to finding Michelle. Yeah. She came from a broken family. When she was kidnapped by Castro, she was living on the streets. Yeah. She was a substance abuser. Yeah. She had a difficult upbringing and a different backstory, say, from Amanda Berry, which is where we are in the story. And because of that, she's often covered a lot less.

in any footage you read nowadays or back in the day. They probably just don't know that much about her. They don't know that much about her. She had little to do with them.

And they just didn't- No, I'm saying the press doesn't know that much about her. Right, but why wouldn't they make it their business to still try to keep her in the headlines to find her? I guess when- They didn't have anybody advocating for her. She did not have a family going to bat for her. It's a reality. It's the truth. There are so many people out there who go through not this exact thing,

But somebody who is, you know, a recurrent drug addicted person who steals from their family and the family's already kind of fucked up. And then one day the person disappears and they're like, you know, I haven't heard from my son in three years or five years or whatever. I don't know where he is. I can't find him. I hear this all the time. And then after a while, maybe you assume they're dead. Maybe you don't. Well, you know what we call that group of individuals? What? The less disappeared. Yeah.

Yeah. Let it hit you and let it hurt you because you need to feel the pain of this. I don't want to feel it. The less disappeared sex workers, um, substance abuse, that homeless,

When things happen to them, the media does not cover it the way they will cover a white girl from a middle-class family who goes missing. It's just the reality. I don't agree with it. It's the fucking reality. And this is a case study. The Cleveland kidnappings are a case study into that because Michelle Knight was a substance abuse addict. She came from a broken family. She was living on the streets. She had a very difficult life.

And her family didn't look for her the way that Amanda's family looked for her. And the media didn't look for her or care enough to cover her. Yeah. It's the reality of it. In 2004, Amanda's mother. So we're talking about Amanda Barry now. She's the one who has the family who's keeping her in the headlines. And the notebooks. And the notebooks and keeping her name alive. So Amanda's mother, Luana, in 2004...

Oh my God.

Sadly, Amanda's mother, Luana, died in 2006 of pancreatitis, thinking that her daughter was dead. Stress. Her daughter was not dead. And maybe, maybe the pancreatitis was brought on by the horrendousness of your child being gone one day. While Amanda was being held in captivity for those 11 years, everything she ever wanted or needed came at a price.

Oh, my God.

Like Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry was continuously starved, beaten, humiliated, and tortured. And raped. And raped. I mean, I know that's a form of torture, but it's a little... It's so beyond. Then, on April 2nd, 2004, so just under one year after Amanda's abduction, Castro added a third victim. I thought you said there was more than two. To his house. Yes.

14-year-old Gina DeJesus was walking home from school with another one of Castro's daughters, Arlene. Fucking stay away from the Castro family. Fuck, man. He's got five kids. I mean, and he knows how to use them.

The girls parted ways, so Gina and Arlene parted ways, and moments later, a maroon van pulled up next to Gina on Lorraine Avenue and 105th Street. Gina recognized the driver as being Arlene's dad, so when he asked if she would go in the van with him to help look for Arlene, whom she had just been walking with moments ago, Gina was like, sure, I'll help you. I was just with her. So she jumps in the van. While driving around in the van with Gina...

This is a pop quiz. Did Castro, A, jerk off, B, trim his nose hairs, or C, taunt Amanda by playing Kelly Clarkson's A Moment Like This? Jerk off?

Trim his nose hairs. Two very different choices. They're all very... They're all about upkeep, those first two, but... I think he taunted her with the song. No. Jerked off. No. Trimmed his nose hairs. You don't get any better. It's a little alarming.

They're all wild guesses, by the way. He trimmed his fucking nose hairs while driving her around in his maroon van after kidnapping her.

You should have said taunted her by trimming his nose. No. That's not normal. It's not like a normal thing. None of this is what out of those three choices, what would have been considered normal? None of them. I'm glad Kelly Clarkson didn't get dragged into this mess. She's innocent. Sylvia Brown, different story. Not innocent. Not innocent. Terrible what she did.

Castro brought Gina back to 2207 Seymour Avenue. Then he notified Gina, this is so sinister, that he was bringing her home now before escorting her into the dark basement and chaining her neck to the wall.

Isn't that sinister? You're going home now. Oh, that's a new home? Yeah, she's like, okay, cool. I'm going home. We're going to go back in this maroon van. You may trim another, I don't know, your eyebrows maybe. I can handle the nose hairs. Right. And then I'm going home. But he brought her to the basement. He chained her neck to the wall. And then he whipped out his penis and masturbated in front of her. To Kelly Clarkson? Nope. Okay.

The basement was filled with junk as well as boxes and boxes of porno magazines. Always porn. Gina was so young when she was abducted and had still been a virgin. So when Castro raped her for the first time, he said, now you'll never forget me. I was your first and you never forget your first. How old is Ariel Castro? By this point,

Beginning of... He was born in 1960. So 19... So 2002, he's 42. Yeah, around there. We're at... Oh, God, I'm 40. Oh, God, I'm 42. Yeah. Oh, God. Oh, George, you are so screwed.

So Gina later down the line talked about how she felt that very first time when she was raped and had her virginity stolen from her. Yes. In the most horrific way possible. And she said, quote, I'm crying and bleeding. I've been terrified he would do this, but having this old pig on top of me was even more horrible than I'd imagined. He just took something. I'll never get back. I want to die. Yeah. Yeah.

Like Amanda Berry's family, Gina's family kept her name in the headlines as often as they could. This is so fucked up. Castro would attend search parties and candlelight vigils. He would donate money. He would hug the relatives. And he would generally creep on Gina's family to stay close to their pain. What? I mean... Next level. Yeah. Yeah.

He even helped the police to dig a 40-foot hole next to his house when they were searching for any type of clue or even the possibility of finding remains belonging to the girls. At his house? Yeah, 40 feet away. Castro literally taped the crime scene tape around the area.

While the girls remain chained up in his home. Are they not able to yell or it's like soundproof? He would blast the radio inside his home to drown out any yelling. And you're going to hear as we continue to go that they were conditioned to not fight back. I mean, I think that's pretty standard when you lose, not hope, but. You're conditioned, you're fear conditioned. Yeah, yeah.

That's why I'm not this type of person, but people always think, or they say like, oh, why didn't they do anything? Like, why don't you get yourself into a fight, flight or freeze situation? See what the fuck you do. Well, I'm glad you just said, or freeze because people typically will say it's a flight or fight situation. It's really not just those two. That's what I thought it was forever. And then I realized, and then I heard freeze. I was like, oh yeah, I'm a freezer. And that's where the

The majority of people live in the freeze zone. I've never ran away from a scary situation, but I'm not a fighter either. Or you may not be when your life is truly on the line. Yeah. And you feel that primitive fear to survive. Most people freeze. Yeah. So Michelle, Amanda, and Gina slept, ate, and were raped on stained and filthy mattresses

They were chained either by their necks or stomachs, like the heavy, heavy chain was wrapped around their stomachs to the wall, having just a five-foot lead in which they could move. So that was their world. Five feet. Five feet. They were fed garbage food, sometimes like a powdered donut for the entire day, a lot of times just like McDonald's. And that's when Castro would decide to feed them at all. And sometimes he would even feed them poison.

The girls were given one single bucket to use as a toilet. And each time he left the house, he would duct tape their mouths shut so they couldn't cry out for help and he would blast the radio. He'd make all the girls celebrate the anniversaries of their abductions by forcing them to eat cake.

They weren't ever allowed to see the light of day and spent every waking moment for 11 years inside that shitbox house. Chained up. Chained up. Yeah. If somebody did that to an animal, I would fucking. That's right. But one of the cruelest things that Castro did. Oh, come on. It gets worse. How does it get worse? You're right. You need a break.

One of the cruelest things that Castro did was to play mind games with all the girls. He would force the girls to play Russian roulette with him, taking turns pointing a loaded gun at their heads before pulling the trigger, never knowing if or when the gun would go off.

He would often give one girl more food than the other two, intentionally causing tension and jealousy and infighting. Yeah. He would lie to each girl about the others so that they wouldn't trust one another and then band up against him, potentially. So it was a smart move on Castro's part because if he allowed them to form a bond, it may have led to some type of rebellion. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Sure.

The mind games were constant. In 2004, Castro forced Amanda and Gina to watch an episode of America's Most Wanted, which featured their disappearances, complete with tearful pleas from their families.

Amanda and Gina years later said that they would videotape like some of the news segments and replay the footage on their most desperate days to give them strength and hope, knowing that people were still looking for them. Wow. That's fucking terrible. On their most desperate days, they would replay news footage segments of their families saying how they weren't giving up the fight. Okay. Yeah.

Castro would often test how obedient the girls were by intentionally leaving a door unlocked. Then he'd wait behind the unlocked door and savagely beat them if they attempted to escape. It's like the black phone. What's that? You ever see that movie? No. Ethan Hawke? Uh-uh. Eerily similar, to be honest with you. Yeah.

There have been movies made about the Cleveland kidnappings, but I don't think that's one of them. Could have definitely been based on it because he trapped this kid in the basement. And then there's a, it's hard to describe. I don't want to give anything away, but there's a part where he leaves the door unlocked and the kid is warned not to go out the door because he's sitting there waiting to, you know, beat the shit out of him. I mean, so could be inspired by. Absolutely.

When Castro's daughters would occasionally visit, he would force Michelle, Amanda, and Gina to hide in the basement.

And the girls would think about trying to yell for help. But it's like what we're talking about. He had done such a thorough job of fear conditioning. At this point, they're years in. They're years in. They remain quiet. They don't know what's going to happen. They don't know if the girls are in on it. Right. At best, he's going to just beat the shit out of them for making a sound. Yeah. At best. At best. Michelle had fallen pregnant five times.

times during her captivity and each time Castro induced a miscarriage by aggressively beating her. Oh my god. That's the worst thing I've heard so far. Yeah. It's bad. Then on Amanda's 20th birthday she came to the terrifying realization that she was pregnant.

But for some reason, Amanda was allowed to carry her baby to term. And on Christmas Day 2006, she went into labor. Castro brought in a baby pool for Amanda to sit in while laboring because he didn't want her to mess up the bed. He also instructed her to stay quiet and gave her a filthy t-shirt to bite down on to mask her screams.

Castro forced Michelle to deliver the baby and advised that if the baby were to die during childbirth, he would kill her. Pop quiz. Oh, God. I'm sorry. Fuck.

While Amanda endured the unrelenting pangs of childbirth with a totally unqualified and petrified Michelle at her side, did Castro A, leave to hit a bar on Lorraine Avenue, keeping the radio on full blast in the house to mask her screams, B, sit quietly and unaffected in a rocking chair while casually reading a book, or C, keep a loaded gun firmly pressed against Michelle's head?

Disaffected. Yes. Yay. I'm starting to know this asshole. Yes. This psychopath. He sat in a rocking chair, totally unaffected, reading a book. How did you concentrate on the book? How do you do anything you're doing? How do you rape and enslave and change? No, no. That I get. It's the book thing. Oh, do you? No, I don't get any of it. But how do you sit? This guy is...

I mean, 50 shades of fucked up. Yeah. Something is very, very, very wrong with this guy on every level. Usually if somebody is violent or, you know, whatever, it's like, all right, that person's violent. They're evil that way. This guy's evil in every way you can imagine, every way you can imagine. And then some, you can't. Right.

Miraculously though, Amanda eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl who she named Jocelyn Jade Berry. And moments after delivering Jocelyn, Castro placed a heavy chain back around Amanda's ankle.

Okay, what about the baby? So the baby was given slightly better treatment than Gina, Michelle, or Amanda, but still horrible. I read something that said he took a white sweat sock, like a tube sock, and he ripped two holes in it to slip her tiny little infant legs through, and that's what they used as a diaper. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Amanda, Gina, and Michelle, however, took an instant liking to little Jocelyn. That must have really changed the dynamic in there. Right. They found her to be like a welcome distraction. Yeah.

The four of them, so the three women now and Jocelyn, lasted an additional six years together under strict lock and key. The adults enduring continuous sexual assault, starvation, and brutality. What happened with the girl's two-year-old in the beginning of the story? Nothing. She was fighting for custody. The state had custody of him. So when she didn't show- Another casualty of the situation. Correct. Correct.

One day, however, their collective fate finally changed course. Before we get to that, I'm sorry. You may be wondering, as I wondered, who exactly was or is Ariel Castro? Yeah. And like what the actual fuck happened in his life to have led him to commit such horrendous atrocities? I was wondering that. Okay. So let's get into it.

Ariel Anthony Castro was born in Puerto Rico in 1960. His parents were Lillian and Pedro, and Ariel was one of four children. His father was an interesting cat. Here's a nice little pop quiz. Which of the following answer is correct with respect to Ariel's father, Pedro? Pedro, Puerto Rico. Right. A. Cat.

No cat. Human Pedro. Okay. Did he have a chopped off hand resulting from a machete fight over a woman? B, did he have an actual second family, including another four children, prompting Ariel's mother to divorce him? Okay. Did he open a used car lot in Cleveland after emigrating to America from Puerto Rico? No.

Or D, all of the above? D. Yes. Yeah. Is that because I never give you all of the above options? That played into it for sure. I'm going to do better next time. No, no, no. He had a separate family. He had a chopped off hand. He opened up a used car dealership in Cleveland, Ohio. Correct. He did all of those things. You were right. D, all of the above. You were right. He was living the American dream. I'm impressed. Okay, good.

Castro, Ariel Castro's upbringing was unsurprisingly turbulent. Yeah. After his mother, Lillian, divorced Pedro, Ariel and his father had little to do with one another. Ariel claims that Pedro abandoned him and that his mother physically and emotionally abused him using belts, sticks, and her open hand.

In later reports, though, he indicates that his mother did a good job raising him, which I beg to differ. Well, she let me leave the house. To find good job. To find good. Yeah. I mean, this guy's idea of what's acceptable in life is obviously out of whack. And it just shows he's not the most reliable historian with respect to his upbringing. Yeah.

I mean, I'd bet the house that his situation was the former and that his mother was abusive because Ariel just screams of mommy issues. Oh, yeah. Up the wazoo. He's a woman-hating sadist who masks his inadequacies with chains and brutality. Whoa. You like it? Did you make that up? Yeah, he's all about control. Say it one more time. Slower. Slower.

He's a woman-hating sadist. A woman-hating sadist. Who masks his inadequacies with chains and brutality. Bruh. Yeah, next level shit. Oh my God. I only look dumb. What you been reading? I only look dumb. Dang. He's all about control. He hunts his victims. He chains them up like slaves. He treats them like animals and sex dolls. And then he refers to them as his girlfriends.

So what are the common factors? Yeah. Power, control, and specifically control over women.

And we see that a lot in men, particularly in serial killers, where their mothers were overbearing and domineering and constantly belittling them. So if I had to put my money on whether his mother did a great job raising him or fucked him up royally, I'm going to go with fucked him up royally. So just a side note here, the whole, this thing going on right now with men and Andrew Tate and we're fucking, we're going to fight back and whatever. Yeah.

I almost want to launch like an anti-Tate channel where I'm like, yeah, bro, she doesn't like you. Move on. Like next fucking...

Next conversation. Right. Not everyone's going to like you. No. Just because one girl rejected you when you were 14, that doesn't mean that all women are fucking useless sluts. Correct. That message, maybe because it's so like, yeah, you shouldn't have to say that, but maybe like people do need to be told that you can't just lump a whole entire group of people in

together with all of the negative characteristics, if it was all good, great. I think all women are capable and powerful and intelligent and beautiful and amazing. All right, that's cool. We're not going to address that. But this whole thing of men aren't having sex as much and who? Okay, and?

First of all, nobody owes you sex. Right. So that's part one. Part two, figure something else out. Yeah. Not everyone gets laid all the time. I know. It's very rare. Like, what do you want me to tell you? Anthony, age, you know, 22, who's can't get a good job. Like, it's not her fault, bro. Right. And by her, I mean all hers. All women. It's not all of their fault that you have not been able to figure out your life. Correct. Correct.

Oh my God, George for president. Side note, yeah, total tangent. So while Castro's story varied regarding his relationship with his mom, he did consistently maintain that he had been anally raped for a full year by a neighborhood boy when he was just five years old. This sexual abuse that allegedly happened to him likely was a factor that contributed to his sadistic tendencies down the line. Yes.

This is precisely the point in time when Castro believes that his compulsive sexual appetite began. First, it presented as an addiction to masturbation. Then it manifested into the sickening, violent sexual compulsions that I've been highlighting for you. It's like he was putting chicken heads on his dick or anything. Well, listen, we've seen that. Masturbating to slaughtered cows. Which is worse.

Castro did not tell anyone at the time that he was being sexually abused, but he did wind up screaming it from the rooftops down the line as part of his defense, arguing that in life's epic story, he was the actual victim. Oh, yeah, of course. And once you're a victim, that gives you the right to make everyone else a victim. The license to just fuck with everyone else. If you're going to be miserable, so am I. If I was a victim, so will you be.

Eventually, Castro ended up getting married to the mother of his children, Nilda. Nilda! During their marriage, Castro was extremely controlling, and he would force Nilda to wear long skirts and to cover herself like every inch of her body when they were in public. Yeah. He was like the epitome of a wolf in sheep's clothing, because out in the real world, he was this normal guy, but behind closed doors, he was this animal. Pop quiz. Pop quiz, hot shot. Did Castro...

Volunteer as a troop leader for the Boy Scouts of America. Oh, God. Play the bass guitar in a Latin band. Ay, Dios mio. Drive an ice cream truck called the Drippity Lickity Cone during summer months.

Drove an ice cream truck? No. How the fuck? Why would you come up with a drippity lickety cone name for an ice cream truck? Because I forced you to get it wrong, didn't I? Yeah, you did. I was like, no, she's not. That couldn't... She's not that creative. Drippity lickety cone? Yeah. That sounds good. Sounds drippity lickety, I guess. I mean, so...

He was either a Boy Scouts troop leader or he played guitar in a Latin band. Played guitar in a Latin band. Yeah, he did that. Okay, I'm getting better. He drove a school bus for the Cleveland School District. He played bass in local bands and he was close with his brothers and he had four kids. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Totally normal guy. But behind closed doors, he would show his teeth to his wife. And there were serious incidents of domestic violence, including, shocking, chaining his wife to the wall. Oh, okay.

punching her, breaking her jaw and ribs, dislocating her shoulders, and causing a blood clot in her brain, resulting from blunt force trauma to her head. Yeah. It was a peach. A peach of shit. Castro would force Nilda to have sex with him intentionally within earshot of their four children and then toss her down a flight of stairs to induce a miscarriage when he'd get her pregnant.

Oh, so this guy's got like a set way. Nilda was definitely victim zero. Yeah. You know, in 2207 Seymour Avenue. Eventually, Nilda mustered the courage to call the police.

A felony conviction could have put Castro behind bars, which would have prevented any of this nightmare stories from happening with Michelle, Gina, and Amanda. That would have been great. And that's where he should have been. But in 1994, a grand jury refused to indict him since Nilda refused to testify. Quick little thing about the law. So I consulted with one of the attorneys at my firm. Shout out to Stephanie, by the way.

And contrary to popular belief, the victim of a domestic violence assault does not decide whether or not to press charges. The prosecutor makes that decision. And the prosecutor can prosecute the case even if the victim refuses to testify. The problem is that if the victim's testimony isn't there, there's often not a lot of evidence because that's the strongest piece of evidence. It's the victim's testimony. Yeah.

Now, in this case, they could have done an evidence-based grand jury presentation where the prosecution would have introduced, like, hospital records and stuff like that, right? Because she had the broken jaw. She had a blood clot in her brain. You only need, which I thought this was interesting, you only need reasonable cause to believe that there's a crime versus proving that there was a crime beyond reasonable doubt.

There's like a very low burden to indict. In fact, there's like this judge in New York that this attorney was telling me about. And his like very famous quote is you can indict a ham sandwich. Like it does not take much to indict, but they didn't. In a domestic violence case. Got it. Eventually Castro's wife divorced him, took the children and sought refuge at a woman's shelter. And Castro was never arrested for what he did to his wife.

So before we move on to the climax slash conclusion of this case, I have another pop quiz for you. Wow, you're really bringing the quizzes. Yeah. Good, I like the quizzes. I like to watch you squirm. Okay. When Castro was in his early 20s, did he, A, keep the torso of a dark-haired female mannequin in the passenger seat of his car? Oh, my God. Yeah.

B, walk a ferret on a leash around his neighborhood. Okay. Or C, occasionally wear body glitter. Fuck, these are hard. Did he keep a torso of a mannequin in the front seat of his car? Walk a ferret on a leash. Or occasionally wear body glitter.

Keep a torso of a woman in his car? What? Yes! Yeah. Yes! That's exactly what this fuckface did. He got this mannequin from a garage sale and he kept it in the passenger seat of his car. For like the HOV lane? I don't know, man. For fucking the weirdness of it. Headless torso? He kept the torso of a dark-haired female mannequin in the passenger seat of his car. He was probably just trying to get, you know, take the HOV lane home. Maybe. Maybe.

So fast forward and we're at the end now. It's May 6, 2013. Castro now has four prisoners in captivity. Michelle, Tina, and Amanda, correct. And now six-year-old daughter, Jocelyn. Yeah. On this fateful day, Jocelyn noticed that Castro uncharacteristically had left the front door unlocked. And for whatever reason, he hadn't chained the women to the wall like he would typically do. Uh-huh.

So of course the girls wondered, is this another obedience test? Yeah. So they didn't do anything. But after 11 years of captivity, having never left the house once. That's crazy. Amanda Barry somehow mustered the courage to pull open the front door.

She couldn't get the storm door open because there was a padlock on it, but she had just enough room to stick her arm out and to wave it around while screaming, help me, help me. I've been kidnapped for 10 years. Help me. So there was a padlock on the door in Black phone also. Really? Yeah. They definitely hijacked this case. For sure. Two neighbors walked right past her.

This actually reminded me of something, of a story you told me, because I think it's not uncommon for people to not get involved when they see something like this happening. But I remember you telling me a story, but correct me if I'm wrong.

You were driving once, right? And there was a woman who ran out of a car like screaming. Yeah, she was all bloody. Her shirt was ripped. Yeah, so tell us about that. You like pulled over, right? So basically, no. So what happened was there was something going on in front of me and I couldn't tell what it was. It looked like two people were having a road rage incident, right? Somebody was swerving and not letting somebody pass them.

And I was like, that's fucking, I'm going to keep my distance from that. I don't know what that is. But then finally there was a red light. The truck in front stopped. The car behind the truck stopped. And a girl got out of the car and went running, screaming down the street, crying.

unintentionally, I open the window. I go, hey, are you okay? She opens the door and jumps in my car. Oh, wow. She was not okay. I was like, oh, this chick needs help. Yeah. Well, I could tell she wasn't okay. Her shirt was all ripped. She was all bloody. Her hair was all messed up. So I stopped my car, get out of my car because I'm big in person. And I don't know who this person is, right?

Not to profile, but the girl was of Spanish descent. And I was in Farmingville, which is, you know, Spanish town. MS-13 on this island is not insignificant. Doesn't mean this guy was, but I wasn't about to take any chances. So stupidly, now I'm telling the story. I got out of the car to assert myself. And the car swung around, drove up to my car, and then drove off. And then...

I felt kind of comfortable because the guy in the front, instantly I knew, okay, this guy's trying to help this girl. He saw in his rearview mirror this guy was beating the shit out of the girl in his car, and he was trying to get the guy to stop his car so he could get out.

I stopped my car. The girl is still in the car. The guy in the truck that was stopping the car, trying to get them to stop, gets out. He has a full sling on his arm. I was like, what were you going to do, bro? What was your plan? Unless there's like a machete hiding in the sling. Maybe. You have to be a true crime fan to think like that. Yeah. So the cops came, they took her, whatever. That was it. That was the whole story. Who called the cops?

I did. We did. Oh, you did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But the point is, is you took action.

That's what I'm saying. I don't think many people do that. I'm not even blaming those people. It's a very awkward thing. It is. And I didn't, to be honest with you, all I did was roll down my window and ask if she needed help. And she ran into the car. I didn't say, hey, jump in. Right. It was like, you know. She sort of took the decision making out of your hands when she did that. Instantaneously, yeah. She just needed to be somewhere safe. Did you ever find out what the deal was? No. So the police took her? We left once the police got there and we gave our statement. Wow.

Medal of honor to you. I'm a hero, basically. Thanks, Sinatra. Yeah. You are a hero, ma'am. No big deal. I forget about that. I'm not a hero. That's what all fucking heroes say. Right. You are, actually, so shut up. So in Amanda's case, she's waving her arm out the storm door, and she's literally saying, help me, I've been kidnapped for 10 years. And two neighbors just blow right past her. Wow. But then a man approached the porch, and he tried to open the door. He

He couldn't get it open, but he instructed Amanda to kick out the bottom panel of the storm door and to crawl out. Sure. And she does that. And she grabs Jocelyn and the two of them run free for the first time since her abduction. In 11 years. Yes. She feels wind on her face. Oh my God. She begs this neighbor for a phone and she makes the 911 call heard around the world. You have to hear this. It is skin crawling. She's like,

I just got out of this house. I've been kidnapped for 11 years. Send help. And the dispatcher's like, we'll send help when we have an available car. And she's like, you need to send help right now. Wow. Then the neighbor who found her, who helped her escape, said something like, this is great. Put yourself in her shoes. Send help now. Yeah.

Moments later, the house was surrounded by police. Thank God. And the girls were free from Ariel Castro. Oh my God. So less than an hour after the girls' escape, Ariel Castro was arrested. He was charged with three counts of kidnapping and four counts of rape. He ultimately pled guilty to 937 criminal counts and was sentenced to a life in prison plus 1,000 years. Oh my God.

He maintained that he was not a monster, just a, quote, sexual predator who needed help. Yeah, that's it. Just a sexual predator. One and the same. A lot of help. 33 days into his sentence, Ariel Castro had written several Bible verses on scrap papers in his prison cell. But the last one he wrote was, quote, for all our sinners, we all fall short of the glory of God.

Then he tied a bed sheet around his neck and hanged himself. All right, good. Adios. I'm not, listen, death is final and it's whatever, but I still do firmly believe that some people are just too spiritually ill to be in society or emotionally ill or whatever. This is very interesting. So they had the death penalty on the table for him. Yeah. Why? Because in Cleveland, the death of a fetus can

can put you on the table for the death sentence. Yeah. So because he induced so many miscarriages. Yeah. When he got Michelle pregnant after raping her, they actually had the death sentence. But you know why they didn't go with it? Why? Because they felt it was an easy way out. Yeah.

And they actually took it off the table. I thought you were going to say 33 days in prison, he got killed by some of the prisoners. That might have happened. What do you mean? They tied the bed sheet around him? No, no, no, no. I mean like that. Oh, it might have happened eventually. Yeah, because there's a hierarchy in prison and child abusers and rapists typically are at the very bottom. Yeah.

So where are Amanda, Michelle, and Gina today? And this is where we're going to leave off. Okay. Amanda Barry now has a TV segment on missing persons in Northeast Ohio. She's a hustler. Yeah, she is. She's a boss. She fucking gets it done. In 2020, she partnered with U.S. Marshals for Operation Safety Net and helped to locate 35 missing children. Wow.

Gina DeJesus lives in Cleveland, where she works as a victim advocate as part of the Northeast Ohio Amber Alert Committee. Another win. Another win.

Michelle Knight, who now goes by the name Lily Rose Lee, she's married, but she's unlikely to ever be able to have children as a result of the abuse she sustained. Horrible. Right? And all the forced miscarriages. She's written two books about her experience and runs Lily's Rays of Hope Foundation that helps women and young girls...

Wow. Wow.

Now, if you recall at the top of the show, I opened by telling you that this was a stomach-turning story about a real-life house of horrors, but that it was also a remarkable story of survival and perseverance. So, I'd like to close with the paragraph taken from the first page of Amanda and Gina's book. Okay. Quote, Okay.

But our story is not just about rape and chains, lies and misery. That was Ariel Castro's world. Our story is about overcoming all that. Yeah, that's their story. That's it. That's a nice way to put it. That's the takeaway. That's what they want you to take away. Yeah. Well, it's very hard to ask people to put aside their...

lesser interpretation of something because I see it all the time on Tank's Good News. I'll post something about, let's say some guy raises money to pay off a bunch of school lunch debt. People will go, well, there shouldn't be school lunch debt. Well, there is. And this guy fucking erased it. So how about give a hand for him and stop talking about the fact that it exists. It is like, it's very similar. I like that they detached themselves from the violence and the horror of it. Not

In an unhealthy way, just like, hey, that wasn't our thing. We're the survivors. We're not the criminals. Right. Fuck this guy. I love it. I love their message. And the story was horrendous. Absolutely. And it's nightmare inducing. Yeah.

But at the end of all my research and at the end of watching all the documentaries and reading all the books, because obviously I bought their books, I was left feeling, I don't know, strength. It's nice that they were able to, I feel like obviously this isn't the case, but if you suffer that greatly in life, you really shouldn't have to worry about what you're going to do to earn a living for the rest of your time on this earth. And they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Yeah. Living out their purpose based on factors out of their control. Right. Turning it into, you know,

the strength to be able to help people that are either going through that or have gone through it. Cause nobody can help somebody who's been through that except for somebody who's been through that. Right. So good for them for turning it into something positive. Absolutely. Michelle, Amanda and Gina and Jocelyn. Jeez. I was wondering, I, my first thought when you told me everyone was kidnapped, I was like,

God, their life now must be horrific. But I guess it's not. They're turning it into something good. It's a story of perseverance. So this story wasn't about rape and kidnapping and beatings. It was about hope. It's not what they would want this story to be about. Good. All right. So we'll call it. So let's leave on a light note. Yeah. Well, that is a light note. So I think we'll just say goodbye and we'll see everyone next week. Sounds great. Bye. Bye.