Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - Ariel Castro: The House on Seymour Avenue

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Between 2002 and 2004, Ariel Castro abducted three young women — Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus — from neighborhoods near his home in Cleveland, Ohio, and held them captive for nearly a decade. On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry escaped with her daughter, born in captivity, and called 911. Castro was arrested, sentenced to life plus 1,000 years, and died by suicide in his cell in September 2013.Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPodIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House 24/7, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow us on SocialYouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudiosInstagram: @cluespodcast | @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaClues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmooreTikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspoundingEpisode Sponsors:Get started now at ⁠⁠https://www.HelloAlma.com/CLUESWith Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Go to https://www.shopify.com/clues to start your free trial today.For a limited time, our listeners can get 40% OFF select Lola Blankets products with code CLUES at checkout. Just head to https://www.LolaBlankets.com and use code CLUES to get 40% OFF your order. After you purchase, they’ll ask where you heard about them — PLEASE support our show and let them know we sent you. Wrap yourself in luxury with Lola Blankets.Get started today at https://www.StitchFix.com/CLUES.

On Reddit, true crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves. Every Tuesday on Crimes of Reddit, we read these posts out loud. I'm Sabrina Deanna Roga. And I'm Alexis Linkletter. One of us brings the story, the other goes in blind, reacting in real time just like you. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcast and Spotify.

Subscribe on YouTube at Crimes of Reddit. of Reddit pod for video episodes. This is Crime House. A 21-year-old woman and two teenage girls vanished without a trace, and for 10 years, no one knew what happened to them. But behind a locked door on an ordinary street, for three women, time barely moves. But then, in 2013, there was hope after all, as one of them is able to pull off the unimaginable. Hi, guys, welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime.

scene taped to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kila Moore, and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released on these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Apshur. I'm the one who's diving into the Reddit forums and anything else I can find online to talk about the lesser known details and pull the threads that just don't add up. Don't forget to share your thoughts on social, want ad-free and early access to clues, and the rest of the crimehouse lineup?

Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus and get at least two bonus episodes from across Crimehouse every month. To join, go to Crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap, try free at the top of the clues page. The case of the Ariel Castro kidnappings of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina

de Jesus starts right now. This case, these cases, rocked me. Do you remember when it happened? I remember hearing on the news that someone had escaped and just, I mean, it

really shattered people's expectations of what missing people cases can look like. I know, I know. I actually remember, because we were talking about this earlier, too, this was a big inspiration for Tina Faye when she was making Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. We just played the intro song for that and I was like, oh my God, it's like the 911 call remix and you guys are like 911 call remix. Yeah, we are going to get there. But this is a heavy one today. I cannot emphasize enough how disturbing some of the details of these cases can be. And so I will try to give a warning before that section when we really start getting into what happened. But it is a heavy one.

So please just listen with care. Yeah. And if you're watching, you're going to see some pictures, videos. You're going to hear some 911 calls. Nothing too graphic. But we'll show these assets so that you have a better understanding of the case. And then if you're listening, you can find all that same stuff on our Instagram. That's at Clues Podcast.

And again, just another warning. This episode does contain discussions of kidnapping, physical and sexual assault, domestic violence, reproductive coercion, child abuse, violence against pregnant women, and suicide. Again, please don't take the warning lightly and please listen with care. And with that, this case starts at around 5.45 p.m. on May 6, 2013 in the Tremont neighborhood on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. There, a 75-year-old woman named Aurora Marti is sitting on a day. neighbors from porch on Seymour Avenue catching up with friends. When suddenly, all of a sudden, these women hear screaming and loud banging coming from across the street.

2207 Seymour Ave. When they look up, they can see that there's a woman's arm that's sticking out of a boarded up house across the street. It looks like she's stuck between an open front door and like a padlocked storm door. But she's been able to force the storm door open just enough to reach her. arm out and start waving it maniacally for help. Aurora brushes over with her friend, 50-year-old Anna Tejada, and they tell the woman to kick out the screen panel at the bottom, but the door is padlocked and she's just not strong enough to do it. And that's when their neighbor, this 43-year-old guy named

Charles Ramsey, jumps into action. After failing to pry the door open, Charles warns the women to get back and he kicks at this door until the bottom panels give away. Finally, this woman gets on her hands and knees and just crawls out onto the porch. And it turns out she's not the only one inside of this house. She reaches back through the door and pulls out a six-year-old girl onto the porch with her. Now, this is shocking the neighbors for many different reasons. First, this is a Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhood. Everyone knows their neighbors here. Yet no one has seen this young white woman before. And what's even more baffling is this woman, now on the porch is crying saying she's been kidnapped.

Charles tries to give her his cell phone to call for help, but she doesn't understand how to use the touchscreen. So she runs with Anna back to her house at 2210 Seymour Ave, where there's a landline. There she tells Anna that her name is Amanda Berry, and Anna cannot believe it. Her jaw is on the floor because she recognizes that name. Everyone in the area recognizes that name.

Because Amanda Barry has been on the news for 10, years when she disappeared in 2003. Even the police thought she was dead at this point. They've been looking for a body. By 5.52 p.m., Amanda is calling 911, and Charles places his own call to 911 at that same moment, and we'll play both of those for you here. Cleveland 911 police ambulance to fire. Yeah, hey, bro, I'm at 2207, Blymore, West 25th.

Hey, check his out, I just came from McDonald's, right? So I'm on my porch, eat my little food, right? This broad is trying to work out the fucking house next door to me. So there's a bunch of people on the street right now and shit. So we're like, well, what's wrong with you? What's the problem? She's like, this motherfucker that kidnapped me and my daughter, and we've been in this bitch. She said her name is Linda Berry or some shit.

I don't know who the fuck that is. I just moved over here, bro. Sir, sir, sir. You know what I mean? Sir, you have to calm down and slow down. Is she still in the street? Seymour. Is she still in the street, or where does she go?

Yeah, I'm looking at it. She's right now. She's calling you? No, she on another phone. Is she black, white, or Hispanic? She's white, but the baby looks Hispanic. Okay, what is she wearing? White, tank top, light blue sweatpants.

Sound like a white beater. Do you know the address next door that she said she was in? Yeah, 22-0-7. I'm looking at it. Okay, I thought that was your address. So that house is... I'm smarter than that, bro. I'm telling you where the crime would.

Okay, sir, we can't talk at the same time. Do you want to leave your name and number? Or is a Ramsey, R-A-M-S-V-Y. Are the people she said that did this? Do you know if they still in the house? I don't have a fucking clue, bro. I just said to get her with her McDonald's. Can you ask her if she needs an ambulance?

You get an ambulance? Or what? She needs everything. She's a panic, bro. I guess she's been kidnapped, so, you know, put yourself in her shoes. We'll send the police out. Thank you. There you go.

My last month. Help me, Amanda Berry. You need police fire or ambulance. Okay, and what's going on there? I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm here. I'm free now. Okay, and what's your address? 2207 Seymour Avenue.

22.7, Seymour, looks like you're calling me from 2210. Huh? Looks like you're calling me from 2210. I can't hear you. It looks like you were calling me from 2210 Seymour. Yeah, I'm using the phone. Okay, stay there with those neighbors, talk with the police and they get there. Okay.

Okay, talk to the police and they get there. Okay. Hello? Yeah, talk to the police when they get there. Okay, I'm going to wait right now and need to know. We're going to send them as soon as we get a car open. No, I need them now before we get the back. All right, we're sending them, okay?

Okay, I mean, like, right now. Who's a guy who went out? Um, his name is Ariel Castro. All right, how old is he? Uh, he was like 52. All right. Steven, I'm Amanda Barry. I've been on the news for the last 10 years. Okay, I got that here.

I already... Anna. You said, what was his name again? Ariel Castro. And is he white black or is he sanis? I need a panic. What's he wearing? I don't know because he's not here right now. That's not going to get away.

When he left, what was he wearing? Two yards. It's a pretty. What? The police are on the way. Talk to when they get there. Okay. Okay.

I need, okay. I told you they're on the way. Talk to him when they get there, okay? All right, okay. Thank you. Bye. You can hear it in the call, but when the dispatcher asks if the woman needs an ambulance, Charles just says she needs everything.

She's in a panic. I guess she's been kidnapped. So, you know, put yourself in her shoes. Two minutes after this call is placed, the first officers arrive. And that's when Amanda drops another bombshell on everyone. But there's two other women still in the house being held captive. At 5.58 p.m., police find that there are two other women inside of this boarded up house. they quickly recognize 23-year-old Gina DeHesuz, another kidnap victim that they've spent years searching for.

There's also a 32-year-old woman named Michelle Knight inside. Shortly, after the discovery, TV journalists are swarming the place. They're live from Seymour Avenue everywhere. And within hours, this is a front-page headline around the entire world. But here in Cleveland, especially on Seymour Ave, a few really big questions remain. One, how were there three kidnapped women inside of this house in plain sight for 10 years? And also, how were they just less than four miles from where they were taken? But let's go back just a minute because I want to talk about how each of these women ended up here.

So the first victim is Michelle Knight. She was born on April 23rd, 1981. She spent her entire life on Cleveland's West Side and didn't have necessarily the easiest life. Her family struggled financially. They even lived in their car for a while, and her parents split up when she was young. She says that they both neglected her. And that is when she started being sexually abused by a family member when she was just five years old. At 14, Michelle ran away to end the abuse where she became homeless and at one point she was sleeping inside of a garbage can. And then she met this drug dealer called Sniper, who let her live with him until he was eventually arrested. A Baptist church then took Michelle under their wing. She bonded with the people there, but eventually a family member spotted her and told her father who came and took her home. As a minor, she really had no choice. In 1998, at 17 years old, Michelle told her mother about another horrible experience that she had, but she had been assaulted on her school's campus. It's terrifying for anyone, but Michelle is a small person. She was only 4'7. She reported it to the police, but she felt like it just wasn't taken very seriously. Eventually, she dropped out of school to avoid her attacker. And then she began dating an older boy. She became pregnant.

And in 1999 at 18 years old, Michelle gave birth to her son. In 2002, when her son was two and a half, Michelle asked her mom Barbara to babysit while she went out job hunting. Now, Barbara was in an abusive relationship, and during that visit, her boyfriend allegedly hit her son so hard it fractured the toddler's knee. Her son went to the hospital, doctors called social services, and he was eventually placed in foster care. but Michelle was determined to regain custody of her son. She moved in with a cousin to prove that her son wouldn't be near her mother's boyfriend, and then she had another court hearing scheduled for the end of August 2002. But on August 23rd, around 2.30 p.m., she got lost on the way to visit her son at his newest foster home.

He had been moved to several homes over this period, and this new one was just in a newer, more unfamiliar part of town. Michelle ended up stopping at a family dollar store to get directions, and another customer that was in there offered to help her. She left the store with him and never showed up for her visit with her son that day. And she also didn't come home that night or the next one either. And then two days later on August 25th, Barbara called the police and officially filed a missing person's report. Officers started checking hospitals, morgues, and relatives' homes, but they didn't find a trace of 21-year-old Michelle.

Police and social workers told Barbara that Michelle had probably just run away, that she probably took off because she was upset about losing custody of her son, even though she was just days away from a hearing to try and get him back. And sadly, her family started to buy this theory, partly because Michelle had run away before. I mean, remember, she was being abused her entire life. She ran away from the abuse. But they also mentioned that Michelle had a mental health condition.

that caused her to get confused about her surroundings. Her cousin told the media that Michelle had, quote, the mind of a child and was slow. Barbara, however, told a totally different story about Michelle's childhood. According to Barbara, Michelle was a happy kid who loved school. She helped with the family garden. She wanted to be a vet or a firefighter.

And after Michelle's disappearance, Barbara said she hung up missing posters all over Cleveland on her own after the police failed to help out. Police logs show that they did open an investigation into Michelle, but it mostly consisted of calling people every few months to ask if they had seen her. Eventually, police closed her case with a note, saying, quote, this report will remain invalid until new leads develop.

She was also removed from the FBI's missing person's database. That feels insane to me. It's just, it's really upsetting. to just remove someone from a missing person database when they are a missing person. Yeah, yeah. Huge oversight hitting it on the botch board. And unfortunately, more women were about to go missing before anyone would realize this mistake. This episode is brought to you by Alma. Alma is on a mission to simplify access to high quality, affordable mental health care.

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to April 21st, 2003, the day before her 17th birthday. So that afternoon, she wrote down her plans for the future in her diary. She wrote, after I graduate from college, I'm going to earn enough money to buy my own house. For her birthday, she considered calling out sick from her part-time job at Burger King to start celebrating a little bit early, but ultimately she decided to work anyways. A little after 7.30 p.m., she finished her shift, and she headed home. It was three blocks away. She called her sister on the walkout, but at 7.45 p.m., she said something to her that changed everything. She said, I've got a ride. I'll call you back. But after that, Amanda never made it home. Her mom, Luana, called her cell phone repeatedly. And finally, at 1 a.m., she reported Amanda missing after

no one could get a hold of her. Amanda never went out of touch with her family. Her cell phone charger was still at home and, you know, she was wearing her Burger King uniform when she had left. Like, it just didn't seem like someone would just dip. No, she's not going out to celebrate her birthday in her work uniform. And her Burger King uniform. If Amanda had plans to go anywhere, they knew that she would have brought a change of clothes. After all, her style was this really big important part of her identity. And yet, the police get the boxboard ready. said the same thing they said for Michelle that she probably ran away or wandered off

which is really just so upsetting. Her family knew that this definitely was not the case though. No, she had just talked to her sister on my way home. She didn't run away. Yeah.

I'm curious how many people actually do run away. A lot. No, I was actually talking to my cousin, who's a cop, about this, and he said that every single shift he gets her runaway. Really?

case and that like 99% of them are like found within the hour. Like it is incredibly common and that's why I it's tough because we're doing all these cases in hindsight so we know that they were incredibly botched or whatever like that they ended up being horrible. But it's also like if you are getting that many runaway cases and most of them end up just coming back. It's like how many resources do you want to allocate immediately? But at the same time there's really clear signs in this that they were not running away. Like incredibly, she was in her Burger King uniform. Like that immediately red flag should be going off. And then I'll say too, like, I know we have officers that watch this show. So like if you have an, can provide insight to like on your shifts, how many people are running

away. I do know that where my cousin works. It is quite a few. That's insane. Yeah. Now, the only lead they had was that Amanda had gotten into someone's car, but she hadn't told her sister who was giving her ride. This was before residential security cameras were common, so there wasn't any way to identify the vehicle or the driver, but Luana believed that Amanda must have known the driver. She wouldn't just have gotten into a car with a stranger. Soon after Amanda's disappearance, her picture aired on the local news. Then about a week later, Luana's phone rang, bringing us to our first clue, a mysterious phone call. The caller sounded male. Luana estimated he was between 18 and 30 years old, based on his voice, and he told her this, quote, I have Amanda, she's fine, and will be coming

home in a couple of days, end quote. Luana thought it was a hoax because when she asked to speak with Amanda, the caller just hung up. Still, she reported it to the police, who didn't take it seriously until the FBI called a couple of days later and told her that they actually had traced this prank call. And it turns out it was not a hoax. The call was made from Amanda's very own cell phone. And luckily, after this call, Amanda's case started being treated more seriously. The Cleveland police and the FBI assigned real resources to it because, like, obviously something is going on now. They tried to locate where this call was placed from, but they could only narrow it down to two cell phone towers. Between the two of them, they covered a 30 to 40 block radius on Cleveland's west side.

at the time location tracking was not what it is today. So that's really the whole radius that they got. It's just like massive amount of land. Still, the FBI agents staked out that area for weeks, hoping that the phone would be used again. But unfortunately, it just never was. The next month, police followed up on a tip that Amanda had gotten into a white car with three large men.

Nothing came of it. Also, nothing came of the phone and email tips that were coming in. Meanwhile, Luana kept up her. own efforts. She started making posters. She was writing to America's Most Wanted, talking to any reporters who would listen to her. In September of 2003, that's five months after Amanda disappeared, Luana and three victims support organizations hosted a prayer vigil at the Burger King where she worked. In October, she organized a rally at Cleveland City Hall that drew about 40 people with posters. That same month, someone called the police claiming to have seen Amanda on Revere Avenue.

It wasn't her. It actually wasn't even a girl that looked like her. The caller just wanted the police to respond to teenagers that were smoking weed. So they called saying that they had seen Amanda so the cops would show up. That's some loser behavior. To arrest kids just like doing kid stuff. Don't use public resources like the police to just no. Oh, there's horrifying stories of that happening. Then in February of 2004, an informant told investigators about a tip that he got from a drug dealer.

They were told Amanda was battling a heroin addiction and living with one of the dealer's associates. police questioned the dealer searched his apartment. They found no evidence that linked to Amanda. Instead, the judge accused police of using Amanda's high-profile case as a pretext for warrantless searches, which that's a big botch. So if you're just using her to get in other people's apartments, it's an abuse of the system. It's a huge abuse of the system. And that was a judge accusing them. It's not even like it was just people on the street accusing them.

It was a judge that said that they were doing it. So that is a botch. In March of 2004, nearly a year after Amanda vanished, a teen girl's body was found in San Diego. The FBI agent in charge of Amanda's case thought that it might be her based on the age and the gender of the remains, but dental records pretty quickly proved that it wasn't. For once, Luana was glad that that tip didn't pan out. And throughout all of this, investigators hadn't noticed that Amanda's last known location was less than four miles from where Michelle Knight had disappeared just eight months earlier. What they did notice, though, was our second clue, and sadly, it is another disappearance. On April 2, 2004, almost a year after Amanda vanished, 14-year-old Gina De Jesus,

disappeared while she was walking home in West Cleveland. Gina was known as the quiet one at school, but she had a witty sense of humor. At home, she was a lot more extroverted. She loved the 1997 film Selena, starring Jennifer Lopez, and it actually learned all of music and choreography. She was Puerto Rican and bilingual, like her idol, Jailo. Despite growing up in a lower-income neighborhood, Gina had the total confidence that she was going to make it to college and then law school. That Friday, she left Wilbur Wright Middle School and walked home with her 13-year-old friend, Arlene. Arlene wanted to come over, and Gina hoped that they could go

to the roller rink later. They walked to a strip mall where Arlene's stepfather, Fernando, worked security and asked him if that would be all right. When he said no, the girls went to a payphone to try Arlene's mom. Gina lent her two quarters, but Arlene's mom also said no, so Arlene headed home. As Arlene walked away towards her house, Gina called after her, You owe me 50 cents! Those were the last words anyone heard Gina say before she disappeared. Now, the payphone that those girls used was at 105th Street and Lorraine Avenue.

Amanda Berry was last seen just five blocks away at 110th and Lorraine. If you're watching on YouTube, we're going to put a map here. So despite how close this was, when Gina went missing, police didn't make that connection. And once again, they made the suggestion that she probably just ran away. I'm so tired of the ran away thing. And I get it happens. But when you have two girls, five block radius, don't. you start to look and be like, there's some connection here?

Yeah, they're all running away from like almost the same intersection, which is so strange. And none of them are like exhibiting any signs of having wanted to run away. They didn't leave with anything. They were trying to go roller skating. Yeah, yeah. And then she just up and vanishes. Yes. It is very strange.

And at that point, Michelle had been missing for over 19 months. And she no longer even had a file in the FBI system. So even if they were trying to make that connection, she's just not in the system for them to even connect the two. It's a ping, no. This time, though, there was a massive search effort for Gina, even though they did say that she ran away. The FBI hired a train Bloodhound, which lost the trail a block from the payphone, which, I mean, immediately, I'm thinking, car. Yeah. If the Bloodhound can only make it a block, I'm like, did someone pick her up?

Percent Trail Stop because picked up. Yeah. A nonprofit made 2,700 cold calls to nearby households asking people to help them look for Gina. And police held an assembly at Gina's school where they even spoke. with students in private rooms just to see if they had any leads. That private tip strategy actually worked, and that's how we get our third clue, a description, and partial license plate. An eyewitness reported seeing a man in a car on Lorraine Avenue around the time that Gina disappeared. He was described as Hispanic, driving a light-colored,

older model compact car. They even got a part of the plate. The letters were SMS. police published the description in local papers. They canvassed a 50-block area on foot, but they didn't seem to find anything concrete, so they quickly moved on. One lead they did pursue, though, was Arlene's stepfather, Fernando Cologne. Since that tipster saw Gina talking to an adult man,

and Fernando was the last adult known to have seen her, police brought him in for questioning. They also searched the patrol car that he used at his security job, and then the FBI gave him a polygraph. He assumed he passed because they left him alone after that. But three months after Gina's disappearance, police returned to Fernando's door. And this time, it was to arrest him for allegedly molesting two of his stepdaughters, 13-year-old Arlene and 16-year-old Emily.

Fernando said that he was innocent, but he did have a theory about what was really going on. So his wife, Grimilde Figueroa, Arlene and Emily's biological mother, had previously had a common-law marriage to a West Cleveland man named Ariel Castro. Ariel was also the father of all four of Grimilda's children. According to Fernando, Ariel had recently re-entered the girls' lives after years of minimal contact, showering them with attention and expensive gifts, and had now taken them to the station to file a report against Fernando. Fernando and Grimilda believed Ariel had manipulated the girls into doing this.

Fernando told the police that there was a lot of ugly history between them and Ariel, that Ariel had been extremely abusive to Grimilda during their time together. Fernando said that he'd helped her escape that relationship, and she and her four children then moved in with him and she later married him. According to Fernando, Ariel cornered him after that and said, quote, one day I'm going to get back at you and I'm going to ruin your life. Talk about a threat. Yeah.

So he knows that he was like going to do something one day. So it's easy to connect these dots for him because he's like, one, didn't do this. Two, this guy said he's going to ruin my life. Yes. Three, here he is trying to do it. And now my stepdaughters are like saying this against me. Yeah. So Fernando pretty much immediately figured that this was Ariel's way of finally making good on that promise.

But Fernando also had this even darker theory, one that connected Ariel to the kidnapping of those three girls. After being interviewed as a suspect in the kidnappings, Fernando says he pieced together our fourth clue, which is a connection between the victims and Ariel. You see, it turns out, Ariel actually knew Gina de Jesus the same way Fernando did, through her friendship with Arlene. But Ariel also knew Amanda Barry because Amanda was actually friends with his older daughter Emily. So Fernando's like, this is obviously my kids,

real dad, it's their bio-dad, and he knows both of these girls that are missing. Missing from five blocks away from each other. Fernando says he told the FBI agents that they should look in Ariel. But the FBI denied this conversation ever happened. Their records showed no mention of Ariel Castro in any of Fernando's interviews. Either way, the FBI apparently never interviewed Ariel

as a suspect in the kidnappings, despite a connection to obviously both these missing girls. But you know what did move forward? The abuse allegations against Fernando. His case went to a bench trial in 2005. Arlene and Emily testified against him. Grimilda and her son Anthony testified in Fernando's defense. According to Grimilda, in the lead-up to that trial, Ariel offered to buy her a brand-new car if she went along with the accusations against Fernando. After she told him no, she said that he threatened to kill her and her kids if the girls didn't testify against Fernando. And we have more than just her sworn word, Grimelda did file a formal domestic violence complaint on August 29, 2005, which is about 17 months after she. Gina disappeared. Her report stated that during their marriage, Ariel broke her nose and ribs, dislocated both shoulders, and hit her head so hard that she actually developed a blood clot,

which later led to an inoperable tumor in her brain. Since the divorce, he'd threatened to kill her three to four times just that year, including just four days before she filed that report. Grimilda was granted a temporary restraining order that was set to be. become permanent. But her lawyer didn't show up to the hearing to finalize it. Botch on the lawyer. So the order was dissolved. How does that happen where if your lawyer decides to not show up for work, they just can dissolve that? I don't know why, you know, if this is in front of a judge, why they couldn't reschedule. Like, I get the judge is probably pissed, like, oh, you're wasting my time. but that's not on her. That's on the lawyer.

Well, I just think, unfortunately, this is what happens with a lot of DV cases. Is there, like, not worth it? It's just horrible. Fernando was acquitted of most charges, but convicted of four counts of gross sexual imposition, which is an Ohio sex offense involving unwanted sexual contact without intercourse. He was sentenced to three years of probation and mandatory sex offender registration. After that, he couldn't find any work. Grimilda ended up leaving him and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

And Ariel, who knew both Amanda and Gina through his daughters, was still not investigated in any connection with these kidnappings. So by this point, Amanda's mom, Luana, was totally desperate. She went on the Montel Williams show to speak to a self-proclaimed psychic named Sylvia Brown, who told her, quote, she's not alive, honey. your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call. And after Luana hears this from a psychic on TV, she believes it. She went home, grief-stricken, she cleaned out Amanda's bedroom, she took down her posters and gave away her computer. And after that, she never really recovered. Her health

declined really rapidly. From late 2005 to early 2006, she was hospitalized repeatedly for multiple illnesses. And in March of 2006, Luana died at just 43 years old. still believing that Amanda was dead. And the police also shared that view. They were now mostly looking for Amanda's body. They weren't really looking for a living victim. Six months later, in September of 2006, police received a tip that Gina's remains were buried under a driveway in Cleveland. They arrested the owner and a registered sex offender. They tore up the driveway and the garage floor. They even brought in cadaver dogs. But nothing. They didn't find anything and both men were released. After that, both girls' cases went quiet for about three years,

though Cleveland police and the FBI continued to respond to tips. And then in April of 2009, the FBI announced that they believed Gina, Amanda, and another missing teenager named Ashley Summers may all have been kidnapped by the same man. And they said this hoping that the news would generate more leads. But none of those leads led to any new evidence. In 2012, nine years after Amanda's disappearance, Ohio inmate Robert Walford, who was incarcerated since 2007 for killing a homeless man, wrote to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office. He confessed to Amanda's murder and he offered to show them where she was buried. He passed a polygraph test, so police spent two days and $150,000 digging up a vacant lot in Cleveland, bringing Robert from prison twice to pinpoint the location. Nothing was found.

journalists later learned that he had been assaulted in prison and hoped that a false confession would just get him transferred. Which goes back to, we talk about this all the time on the show, polygraphs shouldn't just be this like heavyweight piece of evidence because he passed. But it turns out he was lying. He wasn't telling the truth. They spent 150,000. Like that is. Wow. I know. Like resources that could go to something else. In January of 2013, he was convicted of. obstruction of justice and he got four and a half more years added to a sentence plus a $10,000 fine. After that, there were no major leads in Amanda's or Gina's cases. And investigators still didn't even think that Michelle had been kidnapped. She's not even in the FBI database. Right. That brings us back to May 6, 2013, and now 27-year-old Amanda's shocking escape, which is our fifth clue. It was around 5.45 p.m. when neighbors heard Amanda's screams and rushed to her.

help her break out of 2207 Seymour Ave. She called 911 at 5.52 p.m. and at 558, police entered the property and found now 23-year-old Gina De Jesus and now 32-year-old Michelle Knight can find inside. Michelle and Gina were locked in separate upstairs bedrooms when police broke in. They heard noise downstairs and someone shout, quote, police. Michelle hid behind a cabinet, but when officers came upstairs and she saw their uniforms and badges, she threw herself into a female officer's arms. Officer Barbara Johnson initially thought Michelle was a child. It wasn't until she let her go that she actually realized she was an adult. She was so badly starved at this point that she weighed only 86 pounds, nearly 20 pounds less than when she was taken in 2002. Police took Michelle and

Gina out where paramedics gave them oxygen and began evaluating injuries. By that point, a crowd had gathered outside, to a lot of people standing out there watching, it felt like three women had just come back to life, a miracle and this tragedy kind of all at once. And was even more shocking as, you know, the public starts realizing and investigators look at where this house is located. Again, it is just four miles from where each of them had disappeared. And despite being so close to home, they had just lost a decade of their lives, being a decade of their lives, held hostage. But who exactly had been keeping them captive? That is what we were about to get into. One of this week's partners is Shopify. No matter what stage you're at in your business, whether it's

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In each episode of Dateline's award-winning series, we will focus on one missing person's case and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them. Maybe you could help solve a mystery. Search Dateline missing in America to listen completely free or subscribe to Dateline premium to unlock new episodes early. So during her phone call to 911, Amanda had given the dispatcher a name. Ariel Castro, the father of Emily and Arlene, Amanda and Gina's school friends.

It was his house that they were inside of. Not only had he been living there this entire time, he had had visitors and overnight guests who never discovered that he was holding three women captive. side. That same day, another team found Ariel in the parking lot of a local McDonald's, and they arrested him, almost as soon as the FBI began interrogating 52-year-old Ariel. He confessed to kidnapping the three women. So a little backstory on this guy, Ariel. He was born on July 10th, 1960 in Puerto Rico. He told investigators that he was repeatedly sexually abused by an older boy starting at age five, but it stopped when he moved to the United States when he was six years old. He claimed that his parents, especially his mother then physically abused him, beating him so badly he would pray for her death. He said he began suffering from depression at around 10 years old, and by 20, he was having bouts of confusion where he would make bad decisions. At 20 years old, he met Grimilda, Arlene, and Emily's mother. He was arrested at least twice for domestic violence during that

relationship, but both times charges were dropped. He worked briefly at a plastics factory before he was eventually fired. And in 1991, he got a job at a Cleveland school as a bus driver, and he ended up being a bus driver there for 21 years. Horrifying. Including throughout the kidnappings, before he was finally fired in 2012 for leaving his bus unattended and unlocked for hours while he went home to rest. And despite, you know, the guy that he actually was being someone who kidnapped women, he was not really the quiet lone wolf type that you would think of. During the entire decade that he had three women locked in his house, he had a very active social life. He played bass with a local band and they said that he was pretty talented, enough that they wanted to go on tour,

but Ariel was really adamant that he could only play local shows. And after his arrest, his bandmates all realized why. He was also active on social media at this time. He regularly posted about his adult daughters and his five grandchildren. Four days before the rescue, He actually posted, quote, miracles really do happen. God is good. All three women were taken directly to the hospital after their escape. A huge crowd, including relatives of all three, surrounded the building, cheering and singing. Meanwhile, the story went absolutely viral. Charles Ramsey, the man who actually helped kick in the door, his 911 call was auto-tuned to a song called Dead Giveaway,

and that spread around the world. Police shielded the women from the media, but the victims already had a good sense of how big the story was going to be because it turns out, Ariel had actually allowed them to watch the TV news coverage of their own kidnappings,

which like the psychological abuse of that, insane, and our sixth clue comes here when we get into the victim's experiences over their decade of captivity. And again, just a quick warning, this next part does get into some pretty disturbing details, so if you can't handle that today, please skip ahead. So going back to August 23, 2002, when Michelle was kidnapped first at 21 years old,

Ariel brought her to his house at Seymour Avenue, bound and gagged her in an upstairs bedroom, and left her alone for a while before returning to sexually assault her. Afterwards, he complained to her about his divorce and his childhood abuse. He then moved Michelle to the basement, where she was chained at all times, except during his frequent assaults. And Michelle said that as his band practiced in the house each Saturday, she could actually hear them from downstairs where she was in the basement. Ariel taunted her constantly, telling her that nobody was looking for her. Her family didn't care.

She wasn't even allowed to shower for the first eight months. Even after being moved back upstairs, she was required to use a bucket instead of a bathroom. Ariel also tortured her about her looks, saying that he liked blondes. He often told her how he wanted to kidnap someone who looked like Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears and that he wished he could have kidnapped John Bonae Ramsey.

Dude is an absolute freak, clearly. Yeah, I know. And he's just so forthcoming with all this information, too. who would just like info dump on her. Again, psychological, physical torture. What he didn't tell Michelle, though, was that he had taken another victim. It wasn't until she saw news coverage

of Amanda Barry's disappearance in April 2003 that she figured Ariel must have taken her to. Around the time Amanda disappeared, Ariel had started playing loud music in the basement while Michelle was chained upstairs. She figured that he did this to create a lot of noise to cover Amanda's assaults.

Meanwhile, Amanda knew Michelle was there from the get-go. The day she arrived, Ariel actually took Amanda to the upstairs bedroom and showed her Michelle, who was sleeping. Amanda was put in a separate upstairs bedroom eventually and chained to a radiator. After that, they could hear each other talking to Ariel through closed doors, but rarely saw each other. And this was kind of a tactic that, Ariel used because he really wanted to pit the women against each other.

When he assaulted Michelle, he would actually tell her it was because Amanda had rejected him. He wanted Michelle to blame Amanda. He also made Michelle watch news stories about Amanda's family who was actively searching for her while Michelle's wasn't. He would use food as a weapon, sometimes withholding it for days. Amanda actually described a good day as getting some warm French fries. a bad day as getting cold fries, and the worst was getting nothing. Michelle rebelled in small ways.

She refused to call Ariel by his name, only ever calling him, quote, dude. But Amanda's rebellion looked a little different. She begged for a diary, and when Ariel brought one home, she developed a code to record how many times she was assaulted each day. Most of the time, both women had to disassociate just to survive. Amanda described it like this. Quote, you like, put your mind somewhere else

so that you're not there. You know, you're not in that room with him, end quote. When Gina was kidnapped in 2004, Ariel repeated the same process, chaining her downstairs, assaulting her, and then moving her to an upstairs third bedroom.

Ariel showed favoritism to the newest victim and again would drive wedges between the women. He forced them to do household chores, While deliberately withholding supplies, like he would order dishes to be washed, but only give them a single drop of soap. Ariel eventually moved Gina into Michelle's bedroom while Amanda got her own.

Again, another jealousy strategy. But because of that, Michelle and Gina grew really close. Michelle said that it was actually thanks to Gina that she stayed alive long enough to be rescued. All of this is so heartbreaking, but this next part is very, very, very triggering for those that might have struggled with miscarriage or pregnancy loss. During her years in captivity, Michelle became pregnant five times. Each time, Ariel beat and starved her to ensure that she wouldn't carry to term.

She would comfort herself during these times by thinking about her son, hoping he was growing up somewhere safe. After the last induced loss, she was unlawful. she was unable to get pregnant again. Ariel had beaten her so severely that she actually could no longer conceive. But in April 2006, Amanda realized that she was pregnant. Ariel didn't force a miscarriage this time. Michelle said that she was told to just help deliver the baby.

The girl was born on Christmas Day, 2006. As she grew, she was allowed more freedom than the adults, moving between rooms, interacting with everyone. The women were actually forced to tell this little girl that their chains were bracelets. She almost never saw the women without them and was never told that they were imprisoned even. And Amanda was actually able to teach her to read and write. She would hold school lessons, no formal lesson plans, no supplies. Yeah, I listened to an interview where she was talking about this. She would like take her on their like commute to school and then she had set up a room to look like a little school room and she would say, she would like stand at the door and say like, bye,

have a good day at school. And then she'd run to the front and start pretending to be the teacher. So it was like she was trying to make it as normal as possible for this little girl. And over time, Ariel actually started taking her outside and telling people that she was his granddaughter. Charles Ramsey, again, the one who helped save them, actually recalled seeing Ariel walking around the neighborhood with her. By 2013, Amanda's daughter was six. and it actually started begging Ariel to stop locking all of the doors. At that point, it was clear he was kind of losing his grip. I mean, he had been fired from his bus driver job

and was having trouble affording even the tiny amount of food that he gave all of the women. On May 6, he told the FBI he gave in to the little girl's pleading and left Amanda unchained and her door unlocked while he went to McDonald's. And that is all it took. But isn't that wild that it was the only time that happened? happened in 10 years. The one time she wasn't chained. Yeah, in 10 years.

In 10 years. That day, Amanda escaped bringing the other three with her. She was saved by her own courage and her daughter's bravery, tenacity, strength, everything. I mean, it's just incredible. So after they were rescued, Ariel was indicted on a massive 977 charges. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

All three women told prosecutors, that they prefer to plea bargain over a trial because, you know, during a trial, you have to relive all of your experiences in court and they just didn't want to do that, understandably so. Yeah, testifying on the stand to all of that. Amanda specifically said she didn't want a capital trial because it would mean participating and killing her daughter's father. Like, even in all of this, she's just thinking about her daughter and she just doesn't want to go forward with that.

But one person who actually did want the death penalty was Ariel's daughter Arlene, Gina's friend. She went on Good Morning America to apologize to the survivors and told the mail online that her father deserved to be executed. Another of Ariel's children called him a demonic criminal and said that he was dead to her. Grimilda herself had passed away the previous year at 48 years old after a long battle with that inoperable brain tumor we talked about, the one that she believed was caused by Ariel's abuse. Prosecutors respected the survivor's wishes and offered Ariel a deal taking the death penalty off the table. On July 26, 2013, he pled guilty to 937 of the 977 counts in exchange for a sentence of life in prison plus 1,000 years. His formal sentencing hearing on August 1st turned into a rambling speech, the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

I couldn't even watch it. It's horrible. He gets up there, first of all, talks about himself the whole time. He does say he's like, sorry to the victims, but that's at the very. end. He gets out there and he's like, I'm not a monster. He keeps saying that. I'm not a monster. No, you are. And he keeps bringing up that he's really good at bass. Like, as that's part of it, he's like, I got my music. I'm a really good musician. Like, I'm not a monster. Could someone who's a monster be that good at base? Like, he literally says something like that. Then he starts talking about like, you know, I was abused as a child. I have porn addiction. It's, it's the porn that made me do this. Like he and he uses the phrase harmony in the house a lot. He's like, I never. tortured anyone. I think the direct quote is something like, I never tortured anyone. I just kept them there so they couldn't leave. And I never even abused them. They would ask me for sex.

There was a lot of harmony in that house. And I know Amanda and Gina feel that way too, right, girls, there was a lot of harmony in that house. And then it pans to Amanda and she just looks completely dead inside. Someone gelled him. Like, I just, I could not believe what I was hearing. And he put a lot of blame on the survivors, too, because after Amanda, Amanda was rescued. There were pictures of her taken. She either went out. I think she went to karaoke.

I'm going to have to fact-check that, but she went to karaoke and someone got a photo of her. And he literally tells the judge at the sentencing, I didn't torture them. Look at Amanda. Would someone who was tortured for 10 years be able to go out and have fun? No, she would be sitting and crying. And as if there's no way that they could have ever enjoyed their lives for a single second after what he had done. And so he was like, that's proof enough. Like she, there's a picture of her smiling. Like, would she smile if I had tortured her? I have no words. Like, what a sick

twisted. The sickest man. What? They never had a psychologist actually talked to him and diagnose him, but someone did, it was like on behalf of the New York Times. They watched his speech and they did say that it was like pretty typical of like narcissists or like sociopathic. Catholic narcissist, whatever. And it also, like, there's so many people that go through horrible abuse. And, like, that, if that's true, what he said, like, that is really sad. But there's so many people that go through horrific, horrendous things in their life, and they don't do this to other people.

Yeah. Like, you, sir, harmony in the house. Harmony in the house. I don't know how anyone didn't rush and, like, kick his ass. I think they already knew that he was just going to go to jail for the rest of his life. so, but it just, it's horrible to watch. And even his defense attorneys are watching it like this. And I know.

Like head in their hands like, Jesus, fuck this guy. Because what are you too? Yeah. Everyone deserves representation, but like, oh my God. And I know violence isn't the answer. But like, just what he did is so horrific and disturbing. And it's just, oh, it just makes me so upset. Yeah.

He was just trying to like talk them out of sentencing him or something at the I don't even know why he was saying any of that. Dude, life in prison plus a thousand years, you're done. Yeah, and Michelle chose to confront Ariel in court herself, and she said, quote, I spent 11 years in hell, and now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all this that happened, but you will face hell for eternity. And she hugged Amanda's sister and Gina's cousin as she left the stand. So even after the sentencing, the city of Cleveland was very outraged by all of this. Why did the women have to rescue themselves after 10?

10 years of investigation. Well, that's when the local news outlets investigated and found a really disturbing series of missed clues. And we're going to hit this botch board pretty hard. So in January of 2004, between Amanda and Gina's kidnappings, police actually visited Ariel's house after he was reported for failing to drop a special education student off at school. What? So, Morgan, he started his bus route with two. two students. He dropped one of them at school, and then he allegedly told the remaining boy, a special education student, to, quote, lay down, bitch, before he parked and went to a Wendy's

so he could get a burger. He then drove around with this student for a couple more hours before he finally dropped him off. After that happened, officers went to Castro's house where two women were being held captive, but they found that no one was home. And they later interviewed Ariel elsewhere. they decided that even though he told a special education student, lay down, bitch, he had no criminal intent and they just closed the case. And he got his job back. Oh, he got his job back. That part.

After a 60 day suspension. You should not be anywhere around children. If that is how you are going to treat a child, let alone a vulnerable child. You did not get to not bring them to school when that's your job. Also, how come one of them ended up at school and the other one didn't? Like, what are you doing? It's like for hours. How do you not get charged with kidnapping for that?

He should have been. It should have been game over right there. And the fact that the cops are like, eh, no criminal record. What do you mean? No criminal record. What was his intention? What did he do? No criminal intent.

That's what they said. Like, oh, I guess he just wanted a burger and was feeling mad about it. Like, it's just so strange. Fucking school. Horrible. So then later in 2004, Ariel's daughter, Angie, received a strange answering machine message. And it sounded like a butt dial. But this message was a woman.

screaming, quote, get away from me. So Angie went and reported this to police, and they traced that call and they found that the phone's owner was safe. But Gina's mother later believed that the police made a mistake in tracing it and that the call had actually come from inside of Ariel's house. I wonder what the documentation on that is. Like, did they actually trace it? Did they really find the person and they were safe? Or, like, you know, we hear all the time that sometimes tips come in and it's just like, whatever. Yeah, yeah.

I'm very curious how that. Was it the right phone that they got? So over the years, multiple neighbors said that they contacted police about strange things happening at Ariel's Seymour address. There was a naked woman in the backyard. There were women on dog leashes that they called the police about. Ariel was buying an unusual amount of food for a single person. They heard screams coming from the basement and they saw a little girl in an upstairs window. But Cleveland police said that they never.

received any of these reports. How are this many people coming forward and saying that they said something, though? And then, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I know. It's so tough because like at, like, they are obviously pouring resources into this case. Like, they're spending $150,000 to dig up. A driveway. A driveway. Yeah. They're, they are spending resources on this case. But then there's all these people after the fact. I want to believe people are good in that they actually were making these calls and they weren't saying after the fact, like in hindsight. Well, I called about the girl in the window. I just don't know what would have happened to those reports and why they weren't investigated. I know. And I mean, we saw it on our episode with Anne Marie Fahey. Like,

we had so many normal heroes on that. And like, here seemingly our normal heroes trying to come forward and be like, hey, I saw women on on dog leashes. I have a feeling, uh-huh. Sure you did click. You know what I mean? Like, where she's not believed. And I know, I also think, you know, unfortunately, the area that they were in, I think the cops just didn't take any of those people seriously. It's so sad. So a thorough communications review showed that they were called to Ariel's address only twice, once before the kidnappings. And then in 2004 for the school bus incident. So Ariel also told investigators if they looked hard enough, because this is part of the thing, too, is he was like really blaming the investigators for not being able to solve this. He was like,

I, he basically insinuated he wanted to get caught. So he told them, if you had looked hard enough, you would have seen me on the surveillance footage from Gina's middle school as classes led out 15 minutes before he took her because he was in the area. So he's kind of like blaming the police for that. He was convinced that if the FBI had reviewed that footage, they would have immediately spotted him and solved the case. Then in 2008, five years before Amanda's escape, Ariel was pulled over on his motorcycle for having a sideways plate. Body cam footage showed him behaving pretty suspiciously and also lying to the officer that pulled him over. the officer could have arrested him, but he let him go with two tickets, partly because he was a school bus driver and they just didn't want to arrest him.

Cleveland Police and the FBI basically say hindsight is 2020, which is that's kind of what I was getting at. They were doing everything they could. They did have vested interests in finding Amanda and Gina and that they were actually putting real resources into this case and attention into it. But a lot of people in the community still see this entire case as one big, massive body. A man previously reported for kidnapping who knew two of the survivors with a history of serious domestic violence. And he was never once seriously considered a suspect and also lived in the area. It does start to feel like a botch. I mean, if you just look at, you know, investigation after investigation we talk about, you start your web and you go closest relation to the victim and you go outward.

And it is so, like, kind of baffling how you have these two girls that go missing. And the common connection is him. And he's never looked at. And he lives in the area. And he's like, oh, he already has domestic violence on it. Yeah, it just, it is. Like, how? It is so.

Like, how was he never brought in for an interview? And seemingly by his own admission, hey, guys, if you would have got me in here, I would have admitted it right away. Yeah. And I'm all over, like, the CCTV at the school. Like, you could have just got me. It's so crazy. It is frustrating in hindsight. Crazy.

So Ariel's life plus a thousand years ended up meaning a lot less time than anyone could have expected. And that's because on September 3, 2013, one month after his sentencing, Ariel Castro took his own life. His note that he left behind read in part, quote, if you confess you will be saved and Christ is my savior and yours. He was not on suicide watch at the time, but he was in protective custody when this happened. So a little context to suicide watch involves far more restrictions, including more frequent checks, no access to anything that could be used for self-harm. They'll take like your shoelaces and stuff. Protective custody, which is what he was under, keeps inmates safe from other prisoners, but not from themselves. So Ariel was being checked every 30 minutes.

A later independent review found the prison was not negligent. However, Ariel had complained of mistreatment by guards and had wrote in his journal about considering suicide. In the end, Ariel showed none of the strength that his survivors had demonstrated. He was not willing to take any sort of accountability. And the second, there was going to be punishment. He just took matters into his own hand and decided that he didn't want to deal with any of the punishment. And that he was saved. He wrote a little note saying that he was saved by Christ and he was all good and he could just go.

No, you're down under. They had survived 9 to 11 years in conditions worse than any prison in the entire world, and he lasted one month in a private cell with three meals a day and health care. As for the survivors, they kept healing. Gina finally had the Kinsenera that she missed because she was kidnapped before she had turned 15. And in 2015, Amanda and Gina both received honorary diplomas from John Marshall High School. Michelle's son was adopted after her kidnapping, and though the adoptive family sent pictures, they felt that it would be too traumatic for him to learn what had happened to his birth mother. And unfortunately, it does seem like she's still waiting for him to reach out when he's ready.

As for Amanda's daughter, she'll be about 19, as of this recording, a little older than Amanda was when she was kidnapped. And sources do say that she and Amanda are very close. And she wants to go to school to study cosmetology. As for the three survivors, they each wrote a book. So Michelle wrote two memoirs. There's Finding Me, A Decade of Darkness, A Life Reclamed, and also Life After Darkness. Amanda and Gina co-wrote Hope, a memoir of survival in Cleveland. And all three books are maybe the best way to support the survivors telling their own stories. If you're able to buy copies of these books, I highly recommend because a lot of that money goes straight to them. And they also appeared in a 2020 ABC special called Trapped, though they didn't appear together.

Amanda and Gina are no longer close with Michelle, who does now go by another name. They all say that the distance is about shared trauma and the way. that Ariel pitted them against each other. It's not really, it doesn't have to do with any dramatic falling out or anything. But Michelle has expressed hope that they'll eventually reconnect after they all heal a little bit more. But let's talk about some loose ends in this case. Now, a lot of people in the Cleveland area do wonder if Ariel had other victims that were never identified due to what he did after sentencing. Now, none of the three who were rescued saw other women confined in the house, but

Ariel was an expert at hiding his captives from family visitors. I mean, we listened to a clip of his brother talking. He's like, I went to the house sometimes and I just went in the kitchen and there was always music and TV playing. Always had something playing. And then also apparently there was like a curtain or some sort of sheet hung up so you couldn't really see past the kitchen. Yeah. And also his brother was like, I'd go over and we'd rip shots and there'd just be like a TV and a radio playing and like all these weird curtains. And I just thought my brother's a weird guy. Like they all thought he was a weird guy. Yeah.

So a lot of people speculate, you know, it's possible he could have had other victims. One that people wonder about is Ashley Summers. She was again mentioned in one of the police news releases to stir up more awareness for the cases. But Ashley Summers was another local teenager. She disappeared on July 8, 2007, when she was 14 from the very same neighborhood. So Ashley actually vanished roughly one mile from Ariel's house on Seymour Avenue. She disappeared from the area of West 96th Street and Madison Avenue. She was walking from one relative's house to another, which was just a couple blocks away.

Like it was like a 10 minute walk, I think they said, which is also less than one and a half miles from where all of the other victims were abducted. So she's going missing from this same exact area. She's the same age as the other victim, same area, same time frame. Yeah. And so the FBI believed for a time that she may have been connected to these kidnappings, potentially a fourth victim. However, there's some other weird happenstance with Ashley's family. So her great uncle, Kevin Donathan, is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence.

for sex crimes against minors. Law enforcement maintains him as a person of interest in her disappearance as well. And there's something really weird that came out in an article. And I think this was before he had these other crimes pop up. But he had said that during an argument with Ashley on the morning of her disappearance,

he grabbed her phone and broke it. And so it's like that was his excuse of like why she had no way to contact family or friends. Yeah. And so it's just like, again, it's like, why did you have an argument? Why did you break her phone? Yeah. And then he was later accused and convicted of these other sex crimes. So a lot of people are like, was it Ariel or was it this great uncle? Now if Ashley Summer's name sounds familiar for some of you listening,

we did highlight her as one of our missing people. We do want to give you info on Ashley as she still is a missing person. Ashley is described as 5-5-130 pounds with low. long brown hair, blue eyes, and a red heart tattoo with the name Jean and black ink on her upper arm. Ashley would now be 33 years old today. There has been an age-progressed photo that's been released recently. If you have any information on Ashley's disappearance, you can give investigators a call at 1-800 call FBI. You can also submit tips online anonymously at tips.fbi.gov. Now, Gina de Jesus and her cousin Sylvia Cologne founded an organization called Cleveland Missing to help families search for their missing loved ones. They provide resources, including guides on filing missing persons reports, what to do if a child is kidnapped, and a free tool to create missing persons posters.

For those in Cleveland, they operate a brick and mortar family resource center on West 25th Street, staffed by a social worker dedicated to working with missing persons families. You can visit Cleveland andmissing.org to reach out. for help finding a missing person in Cleveland or to support their work. And on that note, the missing person we are going to highlight this week is one of the cases that Gina De Jesus features on her website under cold cases. Ashley Summers, who we mentioned is another one, as well as our missing person. The missing person we're going to highlight this week is Kishon Williams, who is actually Ohio's longest amber alert.

On June 17, 23, Kishan was supposedly kicked out of a party on Fleet Avenue in Cleveland's Slavic Village. Kishan's mother said he had called that night to let her know that he was on his way home, but he never arrived. Witnesses later told police they had spotted him in a vehicle tied up and beaten, setting off an amber alert. At the time he disappeared, Kishan was described as 5'7 tall and 130 pounds with black braids and brown. brown eyes. He was last seen in the area of Gertrude and Fleet Avenues, wearing black jogging pants and a t-shirt. He would be 18 years old at the time of this recording. There is a 27,500 reward for information in regards to Kishon. Anyone with information can call Cleveland Police at 216-623-5400 or contact the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force at 1866 for Wanted.

Tips can also be submitted online at us marshals.gov. Tipsters can remain anonymous. And that is all we have for this episode of clues. We want to hear from you, your thoughts, theories, feedback. It's what makes this community so special. Obviously, this was a really heavy one for all of us to dive into together. So thanks for coming on the journey with us. I think, I don't know, we were talking about it earlier.

It's like, in a way, it is a happy story because there are survivors in this. And it reminds me of the Kimmy Schmidt theme song where the guy screams, females are strong as hell. Females are strong as hell. And I think this is a really incredible showing of that. I also think it's a great reminder of there is hope. Like these women were able to come home and are living their lives. And we've talked on other episodes where someone has been found after 60 years, after 70 years. Like there is hope. And it's why getting. the news out there about people that are missing. It's so important. And so please share the assets we make on your stories. You never know who could be sparked, have an idea spark. Oh, I did remember something. I saw that person. And yeah, absolutely. It happens. So be sure you're getting the word out. And if you have any missing cases, we should highlight. Please put them in the

comments. Yes, that's usually where we get our missing person's cases from is you guys. So at crime house, we value your support. You can share your thoughts. on social media and remember to rate, review, and subscribe to clues to help others discover the show. And don't forget for early ad-free access, subscribe to Crimehouse Plus at crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, try free at the top of the clues page. Thanks guys. Bye. On Reddit, true crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves. Every Tuesday on Crimes of Reddit, we

read these posts out loud. I'm Sabrina DeAnne Roga. And I'm Alexis Linkletter. One of us brings the story, the other goes in blind, reacting in real time just like you. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe on YouTube at Crimes of Reddit pod for video episodes.