The son of Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man suspected of abducting three women and keeping them hidden in his home for years, wrote about the disappearance of one of the victims, Gina DeJesus, for a local newspaper in 2004.
Under the byline Ariel Castro, the younger Mr. Castro, who now goes by the name Anthony Castro, interviewed the victim's mother, Nancy Ruiz, about how she was managing in the months after her daughter did not come home after school.
At the time, Anthony Castro was a journalism student at Bowling Green when he told the editor at the Cleveland Plain Press that he needed to do an article for a class assignment.
On Monday night, Anthony Castro told a Cleveland television reporter that he was shocked to learn his father was being tied to the case.
The article, which appeared in the June 2004 edition of the Cleveland Plain Press, a monthly newspaper, began:
Since April 2, 2004, on the last day that 14-year-old Gina DeJesus was last seen on her way home from Wilbur Wright Middle School, neighbors have been taken by an overwhelming need for caution. Parents are more strictly enforcing curfews, encouraging their children to walk in groups, or driving them to and from school when they had previously walked alone.
“You can tell the difference,†DeJesus' mother, Nancy Ruiz said. “People are watching out for each other's kids. It's a shame that a tragedy had to happen for me to really know my neighbors. Bless their hearts, they've been great.â€
On Cleveland's west side, it is difficult to go any length of time without seeing Gina's picture on telephone poles, in windows or on cars along the busy streets.
As my colleague, Christine Hauser reports, Ariel Castro, a 52-year-old former school bus driver, along with his two of his brothers were arrested after the dramatic discovery Monday night that the three women had been abducted and held captive for years.
They escaped after a neighbor broke down part of a door when he heard one of the women screaming and asking for help. In her 9-1-1 call to police, she said: “I'm Amanda Berry, I've been on the news for the last 10 years.â€
Ms. Berry was 16 years old when she disappeared after her shift at a Burger King restaurant in 2003. Also found in the house were Ms. DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who was 20 when she was last seen in 2002.
Sara Shookman, a reporter for WKYC Television in Cleveland, broke the news that the suspect's son, now 31, wrote about the missing person case for the monthly newspaper in 2004.
She interviewed the younger Mr. Castro last night. When they spoke, she said, he replied: “This is beyond comprehension … I'm truly stunned right now.â€
In an interview Wednesday, Chuck Hoven, managing editor for the Cleveland Plain Press, said that the younger Mr. Castro was a journalism student at Bowling Green when he reported on the missing case of Ms. DeJesus. He said that he wrote the article for a class assignment and did not report regularly for the monthly publication.
Mr. Hoven said that the disappearance of Ms. Berry, followed a year later by Ms. DeJesus in the same area, transfixed the neighborhood for years. He said both families worked hard not to let police, the media and people in the neighborhood forget about the girls.
“You can even see posters around today in different stores for both girls,†he said.
Mr. Hoven recalled that Amanda Berry's mother, until her death, would go out every Friday to the site, near the Burger King, where her daughter was last seen, still wearing her uniform.
A local television news station, WEWS-TV, covered one of the vigils.
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In a 2010 interview with WEWS-TV, Nancy Ruiz spoke about her belief that her daughter was still alive and that someone must know something about her disappearance and whereabouts.
Mr. Hoven said that he had been unaware of the 2002 disappearance of Ms. Knight.
The house in which the three women were found is about three and a half miles away from the neighborhood, where they were all last seen, he said.
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