TORONTO – A man accused of holding three young women for about a decade in his house appeared in a Cleveland court Thursday morning.
Ariel Castro, a 52-year-old ex-school bus driver, is charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape.
A $2 million bond was set on each case.
READ MORE: Ariel Castro arraigned on kidnapping, rape charges after 3 missing women found in his home
Three women missing for ten years were rescued Monday from a Cleveland home in Ohio. Amanda Berry, 27, Michelle Knight, 32, and Gina DeJesus, about 23, had apparently been held captive in the house since their teens or early 20s, police said.
Also in the house was Berry’s 6-year-old daughter. On Friday, Ohio’s attorney general said tests confirm Castro is the father.
While they’re not revealing many details, authorities do say the women were kept inside Castro’s house for all but a brief few minutes over the last 10 years. Police say what remains a mystery is how the women were kept in the house so long.
Prosecutors brought no charges against Castro’s two brothers, who were arrested along with him on Monday, saying there was no evidence they had any part in the crime.
READ MORE: Actions of dispatcher who took Amanda Berry’s 911 call ‘under review’
While many details are still unknown, Global News takes a closer look at what is known so far about Cleveland abduction suspect Ariel Castro.
Castro’s home visited on “multiple” occasions
Born in Puerto Rico, the BBC reports that Castro owned the home on Seymour Avenue since 1992.
Officials say police visited Castro’s home at least twice in the past 15 years, but not in connection with the women’s disappearance.
RAW VIDEO: Ariel Castro dashcam of traffic stop in 2008
On Tuesday, one neighbour said she called police after her daughter saw a naked woman crawling on her hands and knees in the backyard of the house a few years ago. Another said he called after hearing pounding on the doors and noticed plastic bags over the windows.
Police showed up at the house both times, the neighbours say, but never went inside.
Neighbours also said they would see Castro sometimes walking a little girl to a neighbourhood playground.
“Active” member in neighbourhood
According to Reuters, Castro played bass in Latin music bands in the area.
Neighbours say Castro was also active in the neighbourhood searches and vigils for the missing girls.
MORE: In Ohio neighbourhood, kidnap suspect was familiar figure
In the years after his friend’s daughter Gina DeJesus vanished while walking home from school, Castro handed out fliers with the 14-year-old’s photo and performed music at a fundraiser held in her honour. When neighbours gathered for a candlelight vigil just a year ago to remember the girl, Castro was there too, comforting the girl’s mother.
Alleged history of violence
Castro was accused of twice breaking the nose of his children’s mother, knocking out a tooth, dislocating each shoulder and threatening to kill her and her daughters, according to a 2005 domestic-violence filing in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court.
The filing for a protective order by Grimilda Figueroa also said that Castro frequently abducted her daughters and kept them from her. Figueroa died in April 2012 after a battle with cancer.
Figueroa’s father, Ismail Figueroa, said Wednesday that Castro would regularly lock his daughter inside a second-floor apartment in the house where they lived when they were first together.
Later, when they moved a few blocks to the house Castro purchased – the house from which, years later, the women would escape – he kept a close eye on her and refused to let people come inside to visit her or even let her pick up their children from school, said Angel Villanueva, who is married to Grimilda Figueroa’s sister.
Grimilda was “not allowed to go nowhere,” said Villanueva. No matter where she wanted to go, “it had to be with him.”
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