Buildings, Building Materials, Hurricanes and Tornadoes

My Note -

I was thinking about the tornado damage in Moore, Oklahoma and other places with there being few places for people to go safe from a tornado. These are some of the things I was looking at today about it and the possibilities for going forward

- cricketdiane

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Company develops new fiber-reinforced wood, concrete ink for 3D printing

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/156305-company-develops-new-fiber-reinforced-wood-concrete-ink-for-3d-printing

One of the things holding 3D printing back is the material used to print objects. A San Francisco-based company, Emerging Objects, has created new printing materials that aren’t just plastic, but composed of wood, concrete, and even salt.

Because the actual idea behind 3D printing isn’t too complex — drip stuff on top of previously dripped stuff — the applications are really only limited by the size of the printer, and the materials used to print.

Emerging Objects has developed a wealth of new materials, such as paper (made from recycled newsprint) as well as a printable salt material. The company has also developed a cement polymer that can be reinforced with fiber, which means the objects can be stronger than standard concrete. Some other materials used for printing are nylon — so you can 3D-print your dog some new bones, presumably — acrylic, and wood (which is made from hard and soft recycled wood) which can also be fiber-reinforced in order to provide it with extra strength.

(etc.)

As for what Emerging Objects envisions its new materials creating? Buildings, or at the very least, structures within buildings that are cheaper, stronger, and more environmentally friendly than standard construction materials.

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Oklahoma tornado: Mayor of Moore pushes for shelter law

22 May 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22630185

The mayor of the tornado-devastated town of Moore in Oklahoma has vowed to push for a new law on shelters, after a huge twister there killed at least 24.

Glenn Lewis said he would propose an ordinance requiring a reinforced shelter to be built in every new home.

Seven of the nine children killed in the tornado on Monday died in a school that did not have a safe room.

Mr Lewis said he would propose the ordinance in the next few days and was confident it would pass the six-member city council.

The law would require a storm shelter or safe room in all single- and multi-family homes and could be in place in a few months.

(etc.)

More than 100 schools in Oklahoma had been provided with state-funded safe rooms. (My note – How many schools are in Oklahoma & in other states of tornado alley where tornadoes are likely and can be expected?)

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Can Anything Be Done To Tornado-Proof A House?

May 22, 2013 4:00 AM
Linda Wertheimer talks to Professor Andrew Graettinger of the University of Alabama about what can be to strengthen buildings and save lives when tornadoes strike. He was part of a study that looked at the structural impact of the 2011 tornadoes that ripped through Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala.
(NPR Radio with audio of the discussion)
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Tornado Facts Infographic from ABC News -

http://abcnews.go.com/US/fullpage/tornado-facts-infographic-abcnews-19226724

The tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma on Monday, May 20, was a powerful and deadly EF4. This list includes the deadliest tornados in U.S. history including a twister that struck Joplin, Mo., in 2011 killing 158 people. What was the biggest tornado? What was the fastest tornado? What was the costliest tornado?

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Stress Makes Gorilla Glass Stronger

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=stress-makes-gorilla-glass-stronger

Stress helps glass resist damage. By incorporating it into the manufacturing process, Engineers at Corning, Inc., in N.Y., can give a normally fragile material super-strength. Their Gorilla Glass product now forms the screens of more than 1,000 different devices, from smartphones to tablets to televisions.

To avoid building flaws into the material, Corning creates large, flat panes of Gorilla Glass mechanically. During the process, the molten glass is suspended by its top edge, leaving it untouched by human hands—or anything else. Despite their stability, these sheets cannot prevent future damage…yet. The next step is to apply stress to the glass, compressing its molecules to strengthen the material and enable it to resist flaws.

Cut to appropriate sizes, the unfinished Gorilla Glass then takes a bath in a molten solution of potassium salts. This process leaches small sodium ions out of the glass and replaces them with larger potassium ions. The large particles squeeze the sheet from the outside in, compressing the material. This creates two outer layers squeezing inwards, towards a central layer that balances out the internal forces by pushing back.

(etc. – more extensive explanation of why it works included in this article – well worth reading.

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World urged to speed up action on disaster reduction

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation – Wed, 22 May 2013 04:50 PM

http://www.trust.org/item/20130522165057-rtzyp/

GENEVA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The world is still not doing enough to protect people from disasters and prevent them happening, despite taking steps in the right direction in recent years, senior officials told an international conference in Geneva this week.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner for aid and crisis response, said “Mother Nature” is “hammering us with much stronger force than before” and “the wake-up call comes from there”.

Efforts to reduce the risk of disasters are heading in the right direction, but need to speed up, she said.

“The more we spend on preparedness, risk reduction and resilience, the less we will be spending on the response side,” said Geleta.

(etc. – discusses budgets for preparedness around the world, EU and US being cut and the sense of urgency that needs to be re-instilled about it.)

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Resiliency in Oklahoma

Posted by Karl Johnson on May 22, 2013
[Architecture for Humanity]

How Buildings Fail

“Funnel tornadoes are much more powerful than hurricanes,” explains Eric Cesal. “It’s easy for a building to fail in these conditions.”

The first building failure in a tornado is typically the roof, which due to wind and relative air pressures is torn off by the storm. “Then the structure loses strength – the roof is a critical structural element to the rest of the building.” Unsupported walls topple, as they did in hundreds of homes and several schools in Moore.

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Tornadoes and Building Materials / Construction Methods Left Moore Oklahoma in Ruins

The homes, businesses, buildings and public spaces such as schools are currently leaving us vulnerable to severe weather events. These events are sure to happen across the US, possibly as severely and as commonly or even more so than they have in the past. Those are facts. There are no doubts about those two things.

Brief Visual Tornado Infographic for US from ABC News -

http://abcnews.go.com/US/fullpage/tornado-facts-infographic-abcnews-19226724

First, people have to get the information.

Second, they have to take that information seriously and not discredit it.

Third, they have to know the right things to do that will save their own lives and the lives of others.

Fourth, people have to be able to do them – if there is no storm shelter in place, they can’t use it for safety – if there is no high ground, they won’t have it to be safe from flooding.

Fifth, people must know and understand both the hazards and appropriate safe ways of dealing with the aftermath of damage – walking around on debris without heavy soled shoes yields injuries, for instance.

But beyond those things, our nation faces a greater crisis in that very few of our structures can withstand these extreme weather events and provide safety. Most of our structures were not built for these things and any corrective retrofit of these structures has been too costly to be considered, so hasn’t been done.

Our building methods and materials are leaving entire populations of our nation at risk with virtually nowhere to go for safety during an extreme event.

For tornadoes, it is known that basements, storm shelters, storm cellars can save lives, but not if they are not in place and available. Where areas are known to have tornadoes commonly and as a likely event, builders have been allowed to leave off any basement or storm cellar. That is unacceptable. People buying houses in any of these areas can choose to refuse to buy any home that does not have either a basement or storm shelter. Building codes can be more insistent on these safety measures being included in all buildings, residences and especially public buildings, from hospitals to libraries to schools to city and county buildings.

But, the choices are being made across this country to not do those things and those choices have been being made that way for nearly thirty years if not longer, despite knowing the dangers to human lives and communities that it represents not having safe shelter for people during extreme weather events.

Here, today – I thought about our building materials and methods as I watched the photos from the devastated Moore, Oklahoma area on the tele -

And these are my notes -

Are there coatings, or coatings plus architectural fabrics that could be added to retrofit homes and unreinforced masonry buildings to make them stronger such that they would survive a storm’s high winds whether tornadoes, hurricanes – or even earthquakes and storm surges / flooding?

Could a carbon fiber wrap be created that would strengthen buildings, school facilities, brick buildings such as New York has throughout the city to make them safe?

Are there lessons from aerodynamics that could create other shapes of our structures to facilitate their survival against these storms and extreme events? The shapes of our homes and buildings have little changed from a typical box-based shape for hundreds of years. Is that contributing to the massive structural failures in our living spaces that is evidenced after every tornado, hurricane, flood, storm surge, fire, earthquake, or micro-burst?

Would a change in construction methods make survivability better in homes, businesses and buildings generally? I thought about the glue and screw method that someone had invented after Hurricane Katrina and the fact that many older homes with oak and longer, heavier nails sometimes remain after these events. It is as if the nails have become part of the wood after a hundred years and almost can’t be removed – maybe that is one way that could be added to what is already being done.

There was a home in California that was rebuilt to be completely fire-proof by an engineer after it had burned down. I thought about that house and the one along the Gulf Coast that was redesigned by its owners to withstand any storm surge with its curving shape, waterproof sealing doors and built to have living spaces on the second floor. Why didn’t those around them in those same areas that would surely expect to have future extreme events, not adopt those practices for their own homes and businesses as they were re-built?

Knowing that homes are housing the precious living spaces of our nation’s people – why would the builders have not been required to put basements or storm shelters in place? In areas known to be affected by tornadoes, and where those events are very likely – why would there not be at least a neighborhood storm shelter put in place where everyone could go and be safe?

And one other thing I was considering -

there are new methods for building with concrete using fabric forms – could some of those shapes be stronger against storms and sever weather events?

And why did concrete block wall panels in the elementary school that was decimated in Moore, Oklahoma fall on people as if they were not in any way connected to the adjoining perpendicular wall to keep them in place together? What construction method allowed that to be possible?

- cricketdiane

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Designing Chess Themed Tshirts and Designer Products

optical_knight_chess_cricketdiane_illusion_red_tshirt

optical_knight_chess_cricketdiane_illusion_red_tshirt

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optical_knight_chess_geometric_star_illusion_red_tshirt

optical_knight_chess_geometric_star_illusion_red_tshirt

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chess_red_knight_chessboard_red_grey_tshirt

chess_red_knight_chessboard_red_grey_tshirt

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optical_knight_chess_geometric_star_illusion_red_tshirt

optical_knight_chess_geometric_star_illusion_red_tshirt

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chess_red_knight_chessboard_nerd_geek_tshirt

chess_red_knight_chessboard_nerd_geek_tshirt

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chess_red_knight_chessboard_nerd_geek_tshirt

chess_red_knight_chessboard_nerd_geek_tshirt

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chess_cricketdiane_illusion_design_tees

chess_cricketdiane_illusion_design_tees

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Brutal Sadist Ariel Castro may have been in a photo with a woman missing in the same area –

I noticed how much alike these two photos of a woman are – but I was looking just at the small gap between her front teeth which seems to be identical – still one is from a photo in supposedly 2001 and one is from sometime later because she went missing on October 1, 2011 in the same area.

(from)

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/211289/3/Cleveland-Developmentally-disabled-woman-missing-from-west-side

Cleveland: Developmentally disabled woman missing from west side
1:42 PM, Oct 18, 2011

CLEVELAND — Police say a developmentally disabled woman, 24, was reported missing Oct. 2 by her father.

Police say Christina Kleckner was reported missing from the west side of Cleveland. Her father said he hadn’t seen her since Oct. 1.

Police say she frequents the areas of W. 73rd Street and Lorain Avenue and Pearl Road and Archwood Avenue.

The father said Christina may also go by the name of Christine Preston, Tina Kleckner, Tink Kleckner, or Crystal Kleckner.

Police described her as white, 5’4″ tall, weighing 200 lbs, with brown hair and blue eyes. Police say she is being treated for a bi-polar disorder and mental retardation.

Her father says he is concerned that his daughter may not be taking her medications. Numerous checks with neighbors, as well as area hospitals and shelters, have failed to turn up any signs of her.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Christina Kleckner is asked to call Cleveland Division of Police Second District Detective Bureau at 216.623.5218.

WKYC-TV

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/211289/3/Cleveland-Developmentally-disabled-woman-missing-from-west-side

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Woman with disabilities still missing from her West Side home
Published: Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 10:43 AM     Updated: Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 12:54 PM
christina.jpgFamily photoChristina Kleckner

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A 24-year-old woman who has mental retardation and bipolar disorder remains missing from her West 48th Street home.

Police asked again today for help in their search for Christina Kleckner.

Her parents reported her missing Sunday, Oct. 2, after last seeing her at 8 p.m. the day before, when they argued about her going trick-or-treating. Her mother told Kleckner that she is an adult and cannot go, according to the police report.

Kleckner became angry and knocked things down before going to her bedroom. In the morning, her father discovered she was not in her room. Her black vinyl jacket was gone.

“He is concerned that his daughter may not be taking her medications,” Sgt. Sammy Morris said.

Kleckner frequented the areas of West 73rd Street and Lorain Avenue and Pearl Road and Archwood Avenue, Morris said.

She has brown hair, blue eyes and a scar from a dog bite on her left ankle. She has used the names Christine Preston and Tina, Tink and Crystal Kleckner.

“Numerous checks with neighbors, as well as area hospitals and shelters have failed to turn up any signs of Ms. Kleckner,” Morris said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Second District detectives at 216-623-5218.
Related topics: christina kleckner, cleveland police, mental disabilities, missing adults, west 48th street
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/10/woman_with_disabilities_still.html
**
Search continues for missing special needs woman
8:29 PM, Nov 7, 2011

CLEVELAND — A Cleveland couple is desperately searching for their 24-year-old special needs daughter who has been missing since Oct. 2.

Christina Kleckner slipped out the back door of her W. 48th Street home after a fight with her mom. Mom, Sandy Kleckner, says her daughter suffers from bipolar disorder and is mentally challenged.

She’s concerned her overly trusting daughter may have ended up with the wrong person.

“It’s like the first guy (Christina) meets is her boyfriend, the first girl she meets is her best friend, whether she’s seen him before or not.”

Christina is 5’7″ tall, weighs 200 pounds, and has brown hair and blue eyes. A check of area shelters and hospitals has turned up nothing.

Christina also goes by the names Tina, Tink, Crystal and Brown.

Cleveland Police are asking anyone with information to call (216) 623-5218.

WKYC-TV

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/214107/45/Search-continues-for-missing-special-needs-woman?obref=obinsite

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AND

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Ariel Castro and “girlfriend” – maybe 2001

the caption in the Daily Mail article says -

Signs: In a photograph taken in 2001, suspect Ariel Castro stands with a former girlfriend in front of a padlocked door, which led to the basement, at his home on Seymore Avenue, Cleveland

(from)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320902/Ariel-Castro-Son-abductor-reveals-father-padlocked-doors-basement-attic-garage-places-werent-allowed-go.html#ixzz2TFADMIr9

**

My note -

Anyway, the 24 year old that was listed as missing on October 1, 2011 would have been 14 in 2001 and because drugs she was being given all those years in between cause teeth to be lost – it is possible that the two women may be the same. The front teeth are the same with exact same gap – and the photo of Ariel and this girl may or may not be from 2001 regardless.

The other thing I noted about the photo of him with this girl is that by enlarging the photo a little, it is clearly obvious that his hands have signs of beating the hell out of something or someone – she has such heavy makeup around her eyes in a light blue or white that even this woman may be hiding bruises. After I had noticed the red bruises on his hands and around his knuckles, it wasn’t that hard to see them in the photo without even enlarging it. And obviously his friends, neighbors, family members, employer and anyone else like law enforcement who ever approached him would have had to have seen that in person but ignored it.

The map I’ve been making about the disappearances, murders and other information about the area -

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=208353048844404935873.0004dc6a01def5518b07b&msa=0&ll=41.470901,-81.753216&spn=0.049778,0.125742

**

I really wanted it to be a collaborative map but to have people add advertisements to every listing on it is not going to help. By the way, there was a subscription service map of crimes, including sexual assaults in Cleveland that was culled from every police department which showed absolutely none in this little triangle of Cleveland / West Cleveland which seems extremely odd.

It is found here – look at the triangle of West Cleveland where the girls were taken and then later found deep in its corner – no crime there according to this map from police records -

http://www.bustedmaps.com/incidents/ohio/cleveland

The entire area where I’ve found all of these showed nothing on their maps. It is impossible – but many of the things I found from news reports and other sources, as well as Department of Justice files. I actually made another map but made it unlisted as I found some of the other things from the area and now I’m working on combining the two.

My question of course is whether Christina Kleckner and other women particularly those with disabilities may have gotten into relationships with Castro and then as they came back around believing he was their friend or wanting to re-establish that relationship, he got rid of them or something. One woman is actually missing since 1995 right on the street where his mother’s house was – on Kinkle Ave.

2317 Kinkle Ave.Name: Christina Adkins
Female, 37
Last seen on: 1/12/1995
Last seen: 2317 Kinkle Ave.
Date of report: 1/12/1995
Height: 5 ‘ 7 “, Weight: 127 lbs
Hair: Blond, Eyes: Brown
Detective: Det. Grabski 216 623-5218
Case number: 1995-002778
(from)

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2013/05/nearly_100_missing_person_case.html

And, before everyone starts looking cross-eyed at all their neighbors, they need to remember this – the man Ariel Castro was not even looked at by police despite him spending years upon years brutalizing his wife and acting as a threat to his neighbors – and police were called about much of it without them doing anything. That is significant.

I found this one last night – but she didn’t disappear from Akron but from a foster home in an area she didn’t know of West Cleveland – (but she is listed as a missing person from Akron, Ohio.)

18-year-old Akron woman with mental disabilities missing in Cleveland

Published: Sunday, November 13, 2011, 2:34 PM     Updated: Sunday, November 13, 2011, 3:27 PM
marlena.jpgMarlena Manzie

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Police are asking for help to find a missing 18-year-old woman who has mental disabilities.

Marlena Manzie was placed in a foster home Oct. 31. Police said she was walking to a nearby store and didn’t return.

A missing-person report was filed at 5 p.m. Nov. 1.

Manzie, who has mood and attention-deficit disorders and a child’s IQ, is from the Akron area and has limited knowledge of Cleveland, police said.

Manzie told her new foster mother that she was going to buy cigarettes at 8:30 p.m. She was seen at West 96th Street and Madison Avenue, then didn’t return to the foster home in the 2100 block of West 96th.

She has no history of running away from home, according to the police report.

She was wearing a denim jacket, black pants, purple shirt and white tennis shoes. She is 5 feet 5 and 160 pounds.

Anyone with information is asked to call First District detectives at 216-623-5118 or 9-1-1.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/11/18-year-old_akron_woman_with_m.html

**

However, for another look at the Castro kidnapping and keeping these three women prisoners -

Details emerge on Cleveland kidnap suspect’s history

Donna Leinwand Leger, USA TODAY9 a.m. EDT May 14, 2013

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/13/castro-kidnapping-rape-cleveland/2155187/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=206567

**

And it isn’t said in this article but if Castro’s abuse of his wife that is known started after her first child was born – that could’ve been 1981, though these details from this article carry back to 1989 – certainly more than enough for the family and community, the police and his brothers to know what he was doing to women that was already horrific and wrong.

The problem is that in America, any crime against a woman is not considered a crime at all. Had Castro been treating his dog as he treated his wife, he would likely have been arrested and been in jail even to this day from any of those points in time when it was known he was brutally beating and sadistically abusing his wife. How could his mother have stood by and done nothing with her son treating any woman this way? It is no wonder that he took three women and held them captive, tortured them and treated them horrifically – none of the authorities around him thought there was anything wrong with the things he had been doing to women and children all along.

I still bet his daughter tried to kill her 11-month old child because of it being his from rape and incest – it is the most likely of all and that when she told her husband to be – he left her and sent her over the edge with his contempt and obvious disregard of her and the child. But there will never be justice for them either. Police in Cleveland continue to say that no other victims could be the result of Ariel Castro’s actions – even after finding the three women he has brutalized. Before it is over, the law enforcement there and the community will probably be blaming those three women for what happened to them. It is disgusting, but that is too common to think it won’t happen.

- cricketdiane

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Castro’s run-ins with the law date back to at least Sept. 30, 1989, when common-law wife Grimilda Figueroa called city police from their 98th Street home to report that Castro had assaulted her.

Figueroa, who had two small children at the time, told police that Castro’s brother had come by wanting to go out. When Figueroa asked where they were going, Castro became violent, she told police.

“Suspect slapped the victim several times in the face,” the police report said. “Victim tried to get away from the suspect. He then grabbed her and slammed her several times against the wall and several times against the washing machine.”

Figueroa ran to the family living upstairs and called police, the report said.

Figueroa, who was treated at the hospital for an injured shoulder, told police Castro had assaulted her on several other occasions but she had not filed complaints.

The outcome of the case, like most other cases involving Castro, was not available.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/13/castro-kidnapping-rape-cleveland/2155187/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=206567

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Before the Cleveland nightmare, hints of darkness

by Luz Lazo

The Washington Post

A car pulled up. The driver was the father of one of her best friends. She got in the car.

For the next nine years, authorities say, Knight, Berry and DeJesus together endured an excruciating ordeal as captives in a seemingly normal house on a seemingly normal street in a busy residential neighborhood less than 7 km away. Until their remarkable rescue last week, authorities say, they were physically, sexually and psychologically abused by their captor, Ariel Castro, a school bus driver who played salsa music in nightclubs and harbored a dark past that foreshadowed the crimes he’s now accused of committing.

At Castro’s home on Seymour Avenue, he chained the young women in his basement, according to a police report. Eventually, investigators say, he moved them to the second floor of his house, a two-story place with a small back yard, a saggy porch, peeling paint and faded white siding. Most of the time, they were trapped inside, and on the rare occasions they were allowed to venture into the yard, Castro forced them to wear wigs and sunglasses, the report says. He told them to keep their heads down.

Castro, now 52, raped all his captives, authorities say. Five times he impregnated Knight, she told police, but he never let her have a baby. He’d starve her. He’d punch her in the stomach over and over until she miscarried, the police report says.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/05/13/world/before-the-cleveland-nightmare-hints-of-darkness/#.UZKQ42evCVp

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My Note -

Unfortunately for women and girls in America, if these girls had gotten away from Castro and then told who did it – no one would have believed them. And left to psychologists and psychiatrists and police they would have had to make their story to – none of them would have believed any of the things they were claiming happened to them could have happened at all.

And that is what is likely to happen to every single woman, girl, daughter, wife, mother, single mother, elderly woman and disabled woman in America – it is more likely than any of the wonderful happy life kinds of things that we would all see on tv commercials and sitcoms as life possibilities. It didn’t start being this way yesterday – it started being this way about thirty years ago during the 198-s and has been that way ever since. The horrific events happening to women are the American Dream that is truly the only things likely for any female to experience in America. There is something seriously wrong with our men to have allowed this to go on unabated for so long – and something extremely wrong with our police and other authorities that they could not find these women nor ever considered questioning Ariel Castro about them – and with nearly 800 police agencies in Ohio – that can’t be right.

- cricketdiane

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I did find one thing that is taking up a lot of police time in Cleveland, Ohio – particularly in the last few years -

West 117th
Posted: May 31, 2012 9:05 AM EDT Updated: May 31, 2012 7:48 PM EDT

Charges dropped against driver helping homeless
CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) -

The city of Cleveland has dropped charges against a man ticketed after helping a wheelchair-bound homeless man.

John Davis was driving on West 117th near the I-90 interchange on May 17 when he stopped to hand $2 out his window to a homeless man, but the money fell to the ground. A Cleveland police officer pulled the Elyria man over, and gave him a $344 ticket for littering.

Davis went to court to fight his ticket on Thursday morning, and won.

“I saw him sitting in the wheelchair,” Davis told 19 Action News. “I don’t care what anyone says, he’s not going to be there if he didn’t need help, but I guess it’s not good to do it in the manner I did it. That won’t happen again, but I will help again.”

Davis says he will help by donating through charities.

He also says he holds no grudge against the officer who gave him the ticket or the Cleveland Police. He’s just glad the ordeal is over without being hit with the hefty fine.

Thursday afternoon, Cleveland Police took to Facebook to address what’s legal and illegal when giving homeless you hard earned cash.

“Cleveland Municipal Court, the City Prosecutor moved to nolle, or dismiss, the littering citation issued to John Davis for allegedly tossing money out of his car window to a homeless man. Now that the court proceedings are complete, we want to set the record straight.

1. In the City of Cleveland, it is illegal to ask for money from the side of the roadway and it is also illegal to GIVE money from your vehicle to someone soliciting funds.

2. When people ask for, or solicit, money from the roadway they place themselves and others in harm’s way. If you take a close look at this photo, the man pictured is very close to the edge of the curb. If he rolls his wheelchair less than a foot, he would topple right INTO the off-ramp of I-90. Traffic can, and does, become a major issue as each person stopping to hand this man money is, in fact, IMPEDING the FLOW of traffic. This causes traffic to back up (which, let’s face it, can make for some serious road rage) and increases the likelihood of accidents.

3. A number of individuals who are homeless suffer from mental health issues and/or substance abuse problems. Oftentimes, well-intended contributions made directly to individuals are spent on drugs or alcohol. Therefore, it is the recommendation of the Cleveland Division of Police that any charitable contributions be made to an accredited advocacy program, of which there are many. Funds collected by the advocacy groups are spent on healthcare, food and shelter for the homeless.

As always, the primary concern of the Cleveland Division of Police is the safety of the public we serve. Let’s all take this opportunity to learn from what happened and to make Cleveland a better place where we can truly help those in need and keep each other safe.”
http://www.19actionnews.com/story/18664721/elyria-man-fights

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And apparently Castro was driving the school but with special needs children – that is also after he was known to have abused his wife horrifically – but they hired him anyway.

I still don’t see how he afforded most of the things he was paying for – including music equipment, a Jeep Cherokee, truck and motorcycle, feeding himself and four others in the house, light bills and insurance and everything special he had to buy to keep these women and to brutalize these women. That would all have to be far more than his income from driving a bus could provide even getting a little money from playing music too. But maybe -

He couldn’t have started with these three women either – he took them already prepared for keeping them, got them into his house in a very close quarters neighborhood and took them in daylight without them getting out and running off – too refined for him to have started with them. And, he couldn’t have started at that age – more likely he started these behaviors in his twenties. Anyone who thinks it is sexual should think again – his crimes are about something else with sexual brutality no more than a tool of that abuse and sadistic control games. But in the photo shown from the Daily Mail – even in 2001, he had obvious signs that his hands were beating something or someone so viciously that the signs of it even show up in the photograph. Police can’t be that stupid to believe there are no other victims of this man. Why do they continue to protect him?

**

 

 

Ariel Castro’s Mom lived on a short street where a woman disappeared in 1995 – Cleveland Ohio

I made a map of some info about the Ariel Castro kidnapping and missing persons in Cleveland, Ohio -

Just noticed that there is a missing woman from 1995 on the same street as Ariel Castro’s mother had lived before moving where she lives now -

1-12-1995
Last Updated by cricketdiane 1 hour ago

2317 Kinkle Ave.

Name: Christina Adkins
Female, 37
Last seen on: 1/12/1995
Last seen: 2317 Kinkle Ave.
Date of report: 1/12/1995
Height: 5 ‘ 7 “, Weight: 127 lbs
Hair: Blond, Eyes: Brown
Detective: Det. Grabski 216 623-5218
Case number: 1995-002778
(from)

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2013/05/nearly_100_missing_person_case.html

**

Kinkel – Where Ariel Castro’s Mom Lived
Last Updated by cricketdiane 2 minutes ago

Clean was key to the Castros, she said. The inside of the house on Kinkel was always immaculate, with everything in place, even after Lillian moved to her new house on nearby Hyde Avenue. The outside is just as kept, even now. Several lounge chairs, a couple of birdfeeders, paver bricks, and a beige metal shed stand in the spacious back yard under a spreading maple tree. A shrubbery-shrouded Cyclone fence rings the property.
(from)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/09/the-calamitous-castros-what-we-know-about-ariel-castro-s-brothers-mother.html

**

The other chart of missing persons I was using but it doesn’t go past 2010 nor before 2006 -

http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/clnd_images/Police/MissingPersons.pdf

**

Anyway – there was a specialist on CNN today who had served as the model for Silence of the Lambs investigator based on his real experiences – he said that this man didn’t just up and do this at such a late stage in life – aside from beating his wife, there were probably things he did in sadistic, controlling, kidnapping, sexual assault kinds of things within his comfort zone areas. I mapped from a couple different sources of lists and from a news article. I’m not sure where all his band members played around the city, but it seems likely that some of the dates of significance would have something to offer if I could see how to map them too.

Anyway – here is the one

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=208353048844404935873.0004dc6a01def5518b07b&msa=0&ll=41.471512,-81.715493&spn=0.025885,0.060768&iwloc=0004dc6a074dc50f8577a

Cleveland, Ohio Missing Persons Map and Ariel Castro Kidnappings

**

By the way, on the map – hot pink would be women, except that the three women just found who were taken from Lorain Ave are marked with a green marker along that street where they were taken. The blue are males but there are a number of young males that have disappeared in the same area – and several of both sexes from a youth shelter where they could have been picked up after walking away from the place. It is marked with a push tack and a marker with a list of four missing people from 2010.

Yellow markers are for Ariel and his mother’s house although there are certainly other locations significant to him – like around where his ex-wife lived with her new family, the bus route and wherever he was having to go pay all those tickets which surely would have pissed him the hell off -

Here is a list of Castro’s personal driving infractions, according to city records:

* July 13, 1995: Parking near a curb/handicapped parking; pleaded guilty, assessed $55 total fine and court costs.

* September 13, 2000: Running a stop sign and displaying the wrong license plate; pleaded no contest to the stop sign. He was assessed fines and court costs of $245 and found not guilty on the license plate allegation. He was assessed two points on his driving record for the stop sign.

* January 29, 2001: Failure to obey a traffic device; found guilty, paid $95 and accrued two more points on his record.

* February 23, 2004: Suspension action taken by the state on points. Castro immediately appealed and in March was granted temporary privileges for three months, from March 11 to June 21. He paid a fine of $66.

* July 11, 2005: Cited for excess noise and emissions from his car and operating a vehicle with improper windshield glass. He was found not guilty on the emissions charge and guilty on the glass. He paid $285.

* June 20, 2008: Cited for lack of proper license and improper glass. Both charges were dismissed.

On Tuesday, police released a video that shows Castro being stopped on June 12, 2008

During his tenure as a driver, Castro was suspended three times: for making an illegal U-turn with a bus filled with kids, for using a school bus to run personal errands, and for leaving a student on a bus.

In the last case, in 2004, Castro allegedly told a lone male passenger, a student, to “lay down, bitch” while Castro went into a Wendy’s to eat, according to a Cleveland Police Department report.

(etc) – there’s more -

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/08/how-could-alleged-kidnapper-ariel-castro-be-allowed-to-drive-a-school-bus.html

**

Somewhere I had the date of his divorce being final – but his wife had brought charges in 1993 and then left with the children to a women’s shelter in 1996, I think it was -

But, it looks like every time his band leader said something to him – he could have acted like a complete shit and hurt someone somewhere – and he likely started practicing on people long before these three girls were taken that escaped this week.

**

I would almost bet there is someone that went missing in 2001 – one year before the first of the three girls disappeared, Michelle Knight – and although he took younger women at that time, he may not have started with younger ones but rather could have acted more opportunistically -

Hmmm.

- cricketdiane

**

No Title because Words Cannot Describe This Well – Ohio Crimes of Police Failures, Political Incompetence and Ariel Castro type abusive men

The worst of this case is what it says about America – what is most likely ahead for almost every one of our girls, women and daughters – that they will be raped and abused, police won’t protect them in the first place nor believe them in the second place, that they are most likely to have war zones that assault or murder them that occur in their own living rooms, bedrooms, hallways, bathrooms and kitchens – and that any crime in America against a woman is not considered crime at all. When a man assaults another man (or even a dog), he is charged with that assault. If he assaults a woman, beats her nearly to death, causes permanent horrific injury to her – it is not called assault – it is considered a matter of opinion by police or something she asked for or deserved. They are wrong.
- cricketdiane

Beyond that, our weak, lost young and middle aged men will continue to be abusive to women throughout the rest of our lifetimes in America because nothing is changing in their estimation of what it means to hit a woman, to rape, to imprison, to denigrate or to treat her in any shitty way they see fit. Their fellow men agree with it, their political decision-makers support their rights to do it and at the same time, those same authorities and decision-makers refuse to consider the rights of women to live free of this abuse as anything other than contemptible and a joke.

It is a shame that it is still this way but more shameful still, that in every state across the country – the numbers have indicated a far worse situation rather than a safer one that is getting any better – and that despite the fact that most of these assaults fail to be reported at all. But even when they are – the common response from the community, from leaders, from police and other authorities, from politicians and other men is that women are a bunch screaming about something without reason, needlessly and without cause. There is no value given to what women are saying about any of it – so it will continue to be this way. All our daughters will likely be raped. Many of them will be subjected to horrific domestic violence, abuse at the hand of male friends and far too likely, even murdered by those same men they should have been able to trust not to hurt them. It is obscene that men in our communities treat women’s experiences when victimized at the hands of another as if that is some fault of the one victimized. They wouldn’t look at it that way if it had happened to them.

People are already demanding to know why the three women kidnapped and abused by Castro didn’t just leave. Well, maybe the person saying that should try being hung from the ceiling by a chain while being beat with whatever is handy and then see if they can free themselves from those chains and head out the door with the five locks on it and the perpetrator ever standing just outside.

And, politicians including Speaker Boehner and his Republican cronies responsible to the people of Ohio – show by their actions that “so what if 83,000 women have been raped or sexually assaulted in America today and 2,000 children have gone missing today across America – that isn’t a real problem. The real problem is what somebody said or didn’t say about Benghazi despite the fact that we didn’t budget anything for its security.” That’s probably the only thing that the men who vote for them and pay donations to them care about – not this other stuff anyway.

Obviously neither local politicians, state politicians nor national politicians need women, girls, children, elderly, disabled or poor people voting for them regardless. And also obviously, police in our communities don’t care about the needs of those populations either unless they can use them to make some money off of – which is why any woman, disabled person, girl or elderly person is more likely to get arrested for a misdemeanor (like, because their married name doesn’t match their maiden name on their drivers’ license, for instance) than for any felony rapist or murderer of women to go to jail. And since Republicans have made our cities, towns, counties, boroughs, provinces and states into money making prison and jail systems – it will continue to be more likely to spend jail time for parking tickets, misdemeanors before they are even proven, stupid inane stuff and for being homeless or handicapped or disabled or for being a victim of domestic violence – rather than anything else. We ought to just take all our daughters somewhere else – maybe Australia, or Canada, or Greenland, or Iceland – or many other nations that aren’t like this one, excluding the thirty that are worse.

- cricketdiane

**

http://www.kwch.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-missing-ohio-suspectbre9470ug-20130508,0,3660841.story

My note -

In this photo, because news reporters believe that his head bowed means “remorse” – failed to notice his left hand clutched so tightly in a fist and tightly gripped by his outside hand that the veins are poking out on both – he is obviously furious – angry at those girls in all likelihood for getting him in all this trouble – he’s probably saying, “those goddamned bitches” under his breath over and over and over -

Many of the photos actually have that clenched fist as he is shown in the court proceedings. He has no remorse -

**

Of the Cleveland, Ohio Police -

So far, in a series of public meetings, activists, victims and their families have echoed the complaints of generations past that the city, and specifically the police, embrace a culture that discourages reporting the missing and dismisses too many who say they have been attacked.

“The Police Department is full of excuses and has been for years,” said Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty, an outspoken critic of many department policies. “They have excuses for everything. Enough with the circular firing squad, the smoke and mirrors . . . something has to be done to restore public confidence in the system.”

This time, the call for change is more urgent than ever: the bodies of 11 women undetected by police while they stacked up at the home of sex offender and serial killing suspect, Anthony Sowell.

Six of them went missing after police and city prosecutors discounted the 2008 report of a woman who said she had survived Sowell’s attack. Authorities believed Sowell’s version of events, overlooking his sex offender designation. And the victim’s story was labeled “not credible.”

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/03/history_shows_sexual_assault_c.html

**

My Note -

When today or yesterday, the Cleveland Police said the DNA taken from Ariel Castro was being matched with their database – they neglected to mention that their rape evidence has not been being processed since 1993 and Cleveland’s has only been being processed at the rate of 25 per month for a short time to process any of it – They have no way to know if any of it matches sexual crimes that occurred in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 – etc. -

on February 17, 2013 at 6:00 AM, updated February 17, 2013 at 2:34 PM

Rape kits that have been in storage for years are being tested by a state crime lab, and may offer DNA evidence which could help solve hundreds of sexual assault cases. Lonnie Timmons III /The Plain Dealer

Police agencies across Ohio have sent more than 2,300 previously untested rape kits to a state crime lab — evidence which has the potential to help solve hundreds of sexual assault cases, some decades old.Nearly half of the kits have come from Cleveland police.

Statewide, when all currently submitted kits are tested, police departments could be faced with some 850 potential cases resulting from the DNA matches. Cleveland could have about 390, according to the analysis.

And once all of Cleveland’s more than 3,000 kits in storage have been tested, police could find themselves looking at more than 1,100 DNA matches and potential cases, according to the analysis.

Some of the older cases could run up against a justice system time clock based on a 20-year statute of limitations for prosecuting rape cases.

The untested evidence was been on DeWine’s radar since at least 2003 when as a U.S. Senator he helped secure federal money to help departments catch up with testing the kits.

At that time he estimated there were 3,000 kits going back to 1993 to be tested.

“The longer this evidence sits around unanalyzed, the longer sex offenders remain free – and free to potentially harm more victims,” DeWine said at the time.

DeWine said that victims were enduring rapes and then intensive examinations to gather evidence — only to have it sit on shelves.

Since McGrath made the decision to test all kits, Cleveland has been consistently sending to the state lab sexual assault evidence in cases going back to 1993 in batches of 25.

McGrath said the state lab’s previous restrictions prevented some of the older kits from being sent unless the case was likely to be prosecuted.

As of Wednesday, the city had submitted 1,073 kits – nearly half of the 2,336 submitted by 54 agencies statewide. Cleveland is having current kits tested at the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/02/dna_evidence_in_untested_rape.html

**

**

McGinty and other members of the Crime Analysis Unit receive missing persons information from each Police District, and compile it by district, date missing, age, name, address, and case number.

Since the beginning of 2006, there are still 155 people from Cleveland whose whereabouts are still unaccounted for, out of a list of 11,436 originally reported missing.

Sgt. McGinty expects most of the 155 to be located.

“For the most part, it’s just temporary missing people leaving the house, they don’t want to come home at night,” he explained. “They’re rounded up later when the go to school, or come home, and we report them back off the missing list.”

The Crime Analysis Unit reports that far fewer than one percent of all persons reported missing in the City of Cleveland remain missing for more than a year.

Three people remain missing from 2006, along with four each from 2007 and 2008. There are still 48 people reported missing in 2009 who are still unaccounted for.

Of the 847 people reported missing in 2010, 96 remain unaccounted for. Most were recently added to the list.

Police hope that when the public looks at the list and recognizes a name, and realizes the person is no longer missing, that they will call Cleveland Police.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=135566

**

Cleveland Ohio Missing Persons List from Police Dept by District and Year – the three girls just found are not on it and the dates of missing only go through 2010 – are they clearing them off the list after a certain period of time or assumption that they are dead? or what?
Only goes from 01-01-2006 to 08-30-2010

http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/clnd_images/Police/MissingPersons.pdf

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=135566

**

My Note -

Today on CNN the anchor mentioned that police estimate 2,000 children PER DAY go missing across the US. – 05-10-13 -

This is how police have been handling these situations in Ohio – when it is a crime against a woman rather than an assault on a dog, a man or against a car or garbage dumpster -

Sowell, 50, faces nearly 100 charges related to the murder, rape and assault of at least 15 women. He has pleaded not guilty.

One woman, who said Sowell assaulted her in 2008, was deemed not credible by city prosecutors.

The initial police report, made after the bleeding woman flagged down a patrol car is an unbiased account, with a thorough documentation of the woman’s account. But the detective’s follow-up report seems steeped in doubt and disbelief.

The city did not to prosecute that case. And in the year that followed, six of the women found in Sowell’s home disappeared.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/07/words_used_in_sexual_assault_p.html

**

One report states that, under the threat of a large silver revolver, a woman “engaged” in sex with her rapist and then was forced to “perform” oral sex.

When another woman told police she was raped in the parking lot of a beverage store, on the ground beside the attacker’s van, the responding officer noted that “unexplainably the couple ended up … in a lighted parking lot in plain view of the bp station.”

And the report concludes that due to increased break-ins in the area, extra zone cars were patrolling at the time in question and “observed no red van, rape, or the victim walking.”

In another case, an officer explained that a reported gang rape would be labeled “alleged” because the victim changed details of her story multiple times — a common symptom of disorientation after experiencing trauma, experts say.

“It was at this time after asking vict #1 for clarification she began to cry w/no tears,” the officer wrote. “Due to vict #1′s conflicting statements & several versions, report titled to read alleged.”

For example, officers in Cleveland often sanitize the description of sexual attacks.

In one case, the mentally-impaired victim told police that she tried to fight off an attacker, a friend’s boyfriend. She even sent a text message to another friend pleading for help. But the part of the report in which the officer describes the rape overlooks the element of force, stating only that the attacker “…began having intercourse.”

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/07/words_used_in_sexual_assault_p.html

**

My note -

The day before yesterday during one of the reports on CNN or BBC America news during the press coverage of one kidnapped girls returning home for the first time in ten years, the reporter noted that the police in Cleveland just don’t get it as to why there is such interest in this case by press from around the world.

This man’s second cousin was married to the perpetrator at one time and he visited him each Christmas with his family as well – lives in West Palm Beach for the last 15 years -

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A West Palm Beach man says he was friends with Ariel Castro, the Ohio man now charged with keeping three women captive inside his run down home for a decade.

Richard said, “You put the puzzle together, and you see what actually created this monster.”Investigators say the women were apparently bound with ropes and chains, and that they were subjected to prolonged sexual and psychological abuse.Richard says his second cousin was married to Castro at one time.Richard says that relationship was abusive, but Richard still maintained a friendship with Castro.

He says Castro was a bus driver who loved hot rods and loved to play music.”He played in a band, especially jazz and salsa,” said Richard.
http://cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/former-friend-ariel-castro-speaks-out-7194.shtml?wap=0

**

Tito DeJesus (no relation to one of the women being held, who has the same surname) walked through that door. “He kept his musical instruments in the living room,” DeJesus said of the owner, Castro. “He was a bass player.”

As a fellow musician, DeJesus went inside the house three times to see Castro. He described a few simple pieces of furniture, a sofa and a chair or two. He notes that Castro kept his bass, amplifier and speaker out in the living room, where he could easily pick them up and play, and that that room led directly into the dining room, and from there, a closed door led to the kitchen in back. The house was reasonably tidy when DeJesus stopped by and “quiet … like it was empty.”

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/us/ohio-haunted-house-cleveland/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

**

Public defender Kathleen DeMetz, addressing Judge Lauren Moore, noted that Castro had no previous felony convictions.

But family members of Castro’s late spouse described him as a brutal and sadistic man who kept her locked inside their home in between vicious beatings.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/8-million-bail-cleveland-kidnap-suspect-article-1.1339100

**

The alleged Cleveland kidnapper’s brothers are friendly drunks with no apparent jobs or girlfriends. They lived with their Jehovah’s Witness mom. And now they’re pariahs.

Four hours later, police charged Ariel Castro with kidnapping and rape in connection with the case, while Onil and Pedro were not charged. They would be held overnight on outstanding misdemeanor warrants—both for unrelated open container cases—and will likely go free after those issues are resolved.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba described Ariel Castro as “the big bully…. This guy, he ran the show … He acted alone. These guys [the brothers] didn’t have anything to do with it. We had enough probable cause to bring them into custody. We found no facts to link them to the crime.

“There is nothing that leads us to believe they were involved or they had any knowledge of this, and that comes from statements of our victims, and their statements and their brother’s [Ariel’s] statements. Ariel kept everybody at a distance.”

City records show Pedro has had ten cases filed against him since 1994. Onil has had four. None were felonies.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/09/the-calamitous-castros-what-we-know-about-ariel-castro-s-brothers-mother.html

**

One of Castro’s daughters has a sobering criminal record of her own: Emily Castro is serving 25 years in prison for attempting to murder her infant daughter.

Court records indicate Emily moved to Fort Wayne, Ind., with her boyfriend, Deangelo Gonzalez, where she had a baby girl.

Emily Castro suffered from manic depression diagnosed when she was 13, the court record says. On April 4, 2007, a day after her boyfriend moved out, Castro, then 19, allegedly slashed the 11-month-old’s throat four times, cut her own neck and wrists and then attempted to drown herself in a nearby creek.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/07/castro-brothers-missing-women/2142993/

**

Records show Ariel was arrested for domestic violence in 1993, but that a grand jury declined to indict him.

In 2005, a woman who had three children with Ariel Castro accused him of severely beating her and repeatedly threatening to kill her and her children, according to court records obtained by WKYC-TV.

Grimilda Figueroa, the mother of Castro’s children, alleged that he had broken her nose twice, broken her ribs, knocked out a tooth, caused a blood clot on her brain that caused an inoperable tumor, and dislocated her shoulder twice.

Castro also threatened to kill Figueroa and her two daughters, the file noted. The case was later dropped because Figueroa’s attorney did not appear for a hearing, records show.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/07/castro-brothers-missing-women/2142993/

**

The three women disappeared from the same Cleveland street — Lorain Avenue — and were held just three miles away.

Knight was the first reported missing, in August 2002. She was 21. A police report on her disappearance described her as having “mental abnormalities,” but her mother told “Today” that Knight only suffered from asthma.

Knight’s disappearance was followed by that of Berry, who was last seen at the end of her shift at a Burger King in April 2003. She was 16. DeJesus was reported missing a year later, in April 2004, at 14.

According to court documents, Ariel Castro’s former common-law wife accused him of repeatedly abusing her, including breaking her nose twice, breaking two ribs, dislocating her shoulder twice and knocking out a tooth.

Grimilda Figueroa, who died in 2012, also accused Castro of causing a blood clot on her brain, according to the 2005 documents. A judge granted a protection order, but lifted it three months later after repeated court delays and hearings Castro did not attend, according to the documents.

Figueroa’s father, Ishmael Figueroa, said Ariel Castro was abusive toward his late daughter. He said he and his wife once shared a house with Castro and Grimilda, and Castro would not let family members upstairs to the second floor where the couple lived. When they moved to the Seymour Avenue house, Castro would not let family members inside, Figueroa said.

But Maria Castro Montes, a cousin of the suspects, told CNN Wednesday if other family members had any inkling or suspicion of wrongdoing, they would have spoken up.

http://www.kcentv.com/story/22198653/suspect-charged-with

**

Ariel Castro, accused of kidnapping three Cleveland women, was a school bus driver with a long, long list of traffic infractions. Steve Miller digs up the suspect’s rap sheet.

Despite a driving record that included numerous points for moving violations and a move by the state to suspend his license, Ariel Castro drove a school bus for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District for over 20 years, before being fired in November 2012.

Records show Castro had numerous encounters with local police while driving, from illegal parking in July 1995 to failing to obey a traffic device in January 2001.

Ariel Castro was hired by the Cleveland school district in February 1991, according to records released by the district Tuesday. He was fired November 6, 2012, after leaving his bus unattended at a local school and walking home.

Castro allegedly told a lone male passenger, a student, to “lie down, bitch.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/08/how-could-alleged-kidnapper-ariel-castro-be-allowed-to-drive-a-school-bus.html

**

Ariel owned a motorcycle and cars, including a Jeep Cherokee and a red Toyota pickup. He had at one time filled in on bass in a local band, Grupo Fuego. He didn’t drink nearly as prolifically as his two siblings did.

He had girlfriends, and as far as others knew, took care of a beautiful little girl named Jocelyn. Later, of course, it would be found that the girl was birthed in captivity by Amanda Berry, one of the three women Castro is accused of kidnapping.

“He brought her over to see his mother and to play,” says Dolores Essenburg, who owns a home on Kinkel Street, where Pedro and Onil lived with their mother, Lillian Rodriguez, for years. “I saw her a number of times over there, and she was beautiful.”

No one ever saw Onil and Pedro with female companions, though several people believed that Onil was married at one time. A search of marriage records in Cuyahoga County finds none.

Instead, it was Rodriguez, friends and neighbors say, who held the most sway in the family. A Jehovah’s Witness, she was widowed by her husband Nona Castro in 2004. She owns the house on Kinkel as well as another property a few blocks away. On Kinkel Street, Rodriguez and her two most wayward sons were sometimes joined by the two sons of Onil, although neighbors are unclear as to exactly who lived in the three-bedroom house and when.

Onil kept the place up. But it’s still unclear how the two brothers made a living. Abdul Karim said that just last week Pedro Castro came by her home looking for work he could do that would earn him a quick $20. “He wanted to clean my yard,” she said.

“They were always drinking,” said Essenbur of Pedro and Onil. “Anything. Liquor, beer. They drank a lot.” But, she recalled, “they are polite beyond belief. They would help anyone, they are always around and willing to work.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/09/the-calamitous-castros-what-we-know-about-ariel-castro-s-brothers-mother.html

**

CLEVELAND — Police Chief Michael McGrath said Wednesday that three young women held in captivity for almost a decade in a middle-class neighborhood were bound during their ordeal, apparently by chains and ropes found inside the frame house on Seymour Avenue.

He also told NBC’s Today that the victims had been “bound and there were chains and ropes in the hall.” He said the women were “very rarely” allowed outside, usually for brief walks in the backyard.

But he denied reports by some neighbors suggesting that local authorities may have missed not only warnings about the alleged captor, but also several chances to rescue the victims.

Some neighbors claimed police were called several times over the years to the house on Seymour Avenue because of unusual behavior, such as a naked women being led on a leash in the yard. McGrath insisted to NBC that a thorough check of police records showed that officers were summoned only twice, and for incidents unrelated to the abduction of the three women.

Elsie Cintron, who lives three houses away from Castro, said her daughter saw a naked woman crawling on her hands and knees in Castro’s backyard several years ago. Cintron said she called police, “but they didn’t take it seriously,” Cintron said.

Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said that in November 2011, his sister, Annita, heard pounding on an upper-floor window at Castro’s house. When Annita Lugo looked up, she saw a woman and a baby at a window half-blocked by a wooden plank. Lugo called police. He said officers knocked on the front door, but no one answered.

“They walked to the side of the house and then left,” Lugo said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/07/amanda-berry-missing-cleveland-brothers/2143227/

**

Castro also was questioned about 14-year-old Ashley Summers, who disappeared near his house in 2007. But Tomba said there was no new information linking that case to Castro.

While prosecutors announced charges against Castro, federal agents searched a vacant house near where the women had been held. Officials would not say why they were there.

A 2005 domestic-violence filing in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court accused Castro 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 three or four times in a year.

The filing for a protective order by Grimilda Figueroa also said that Castro frequently abducted her daughters and kept them from her. Figueroa died a year ago. [but that order was never given].

Most everyone in the neighborhood knew Ariel Castro.

Neighbors say he played bass guitar in salsa and merengue bands and gave neighborhood children rides on his motorcycle.

Tito DeJesus, an uncle of Gina DeJesus, played in bands with Castro over the last 20 years. He recalled visiting Castro’s house but never noticing anything out of the ordinary.

Juan Perez, who lives two doors down from the house, said Castro was always happy and respectful. “He gained trust with the kids and with the parents. You can only do that if you’re nice,” Perez said.

Castro also worked until recently as a school bus driver.

He was friends with the father of Gina DeJesus, one of the missing women, and helped search for her after she disappeared, said Khalid Samad, a friend of the family.

“When we went out to look for Gina, he helped pass out fliers,” said Samad, a community activist who was at the hospital with DeJesus and her family on Monday night. “You know, he was friends with the family.”

Antony Quiros said he was at the vigil about a year ago and saw Castro comforting Gina DeJesus’ mother.

In 1993, Castro was arrested two days after Christmas on a domestic-violence charge and spent three days in jail before he was released on bond. The case was presented to a grand jury, but no indictment was returned, according to court documents, which don’t detail the allegations. It’s unclear who brought the charge against Castro, who was living at the home from which the women escaped Monday.

Four years ago, in another poverty-stricken part of town, police were heavily criticized following the discovery of 11 women’s bodies in the home and backyard of Anthony Sowell, who was later convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

The families of Sowell’s victims accused police of failing to properly investigate the disappearances because most of the women were addicted to drugs and poor. For months, the stench of death hung over the house, but it was blamed on a sausage factory next door.

Following public outrage over the killings, a panel formed by the mayor recommended an overhaul of the city’s handling of missing-person and sex crime investigations.

http://www.10news.com/news/ohio-suspect-ariel-castro-charged-with-kidnap-rape-no-charges-filed-against-brothers-05082013

**

One childhood friend said a music session with Castro, who was born in Puerto Rico, suddenly turned bizarre.

“Ariel was in my garage probably five or six years ago. We were recording a song, an idea we had – a little hard rock with some Latin,” said Joe Popow, 45, a father of six who said he has known the Castro brothers since childhood.

“And – you’re going to laugh – he said he was in the CIA. And I don’t know if he was joking or not, but it’s the way he said it, how serious he said it. I didn’t know what he was capable of. That just put me on defense, and I just started stepping away,” Popow said.

When family and friends of missing Cleveland woman Gina DeJesus held a vigil last month to mark nine years since her disappearance, one of those attending was Castro, a longtime neighbor said.

“He came to a vigil and acted as if nothing was wrong,” said Anthony Quiros, 24, who lived next door to Castro’s house growing up.

For years, Castro’s neighbors on Seymour Avenue saw him as a friendly but private person, an accomplished musician who played bass in Latin bands such as Borin Plena and Grupo Fuego. He liked motor-bikes and showed up at neighborhood barbecues in a vacant lot on Seymour Avenue. He was a self-taught mechanic who loved to talk about cars.

http://www.kwch.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-missing-ohio-suspectbre9470ug-20130508,0,3660841.story

**

Speaking to MailOnline, one of Castro’s sons, Anthony, depicted his father as a violent, controlling man who nearly beat his mother to death in 1993 while she was recovering from brain surgery.

‘Having that relationship with my dad all these years when we lived in a house where there was domestic violence and I was beaten as well… we never were really close because of that,’ he said.

In 1996, Castro was accused of pulling a fence post from a neighbor’s property amid a dispute and the neighbor’s six-year-old daughter later fell in the hole and hurt herself.

Castro, who said in court documents he had called police repeatedly about the neighbor, was ordered to pay $241 in damages.

Local police sources revealed that Ariel Castro would use a sick game to ‘train’ the three girls not to run away by pretending to leave the house, only to beat them if they tried to run free.

This is said to be just one of the manipulative tactics he used to keep the three young women in his house for up to ten years, in addition to frequent beatings and chains hanging from the ceiling.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321935/Ariel-Castro-kept-WIFE-chained-basement-later-locked-victims-whipped-dog-chains.html

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House of horrors: In a photograph taken in 2001, suspect Ariel Castro stands with a former girlfriend in front of a padlocked door, which led to the basement where he allegedly kept the girls

‘I believe he murdered my sister,’ he said. ‘He abused her for years. She had multiple instances of serious head trauma and it created a brain tumor in her head.’

Of the treatment, Jose added: ‘My sister was in hell living with him. She was trapped there and there was nothing we could do. She was afraid of him.’

Police records show that Castro was arrested for domestic violence in 1993, but that a grand jury declined to indict him.

But in 1996, she escaped to a woman’s shelter with the couple’s children, Angie, Emily, Anthony and Rosie. In January 1997, she was awarded full custody of the children.

Speaking to the New York Post, Colon recounted the treatment Figueroa, who passed away last year, allegedly suffered at the hands of her former husband.

‘He kept her tied up in the basement,’ he said. ‘He used to whip her with dog chains. She wasn’t allowed to go out… He pretty much kept her locked up in there.’

He added that Castro would push her down the stairs and kick her in an attempt to abort her babies. Even after she underwent brain surgery, Castro would hit her in the head, Colon said.

Court records from 2005 claim that Figueroa suffered two broken noses, shattered ribs, a blood clot on the brain, a knocked-out tooth and two dislocated shoulders at the hands of her former husband.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321935/Ariel-Castro-kept-WIFE-chained-basement-later-locked-victims-whipped-dog-chains.html

**

The man who allegedly kept three girls captive for a decade was so controlling with his first wife that he told her what to eat, who she could be friends with and when she could leave the house.

Ariel Castro was ‘obsessive’ about ordering around Grimilda Figueroa to the point where he once demanded that she get into a cardboard box and only come out when he said so.

He told her to wear skirts below the knee and vowed to kill her if she ever left him – so  she stayed by his side despite the abuse.

Grimilda died last year due to injuries which her family claim were caused by Ariel.

‘He can control her even more. He was obsessed about control, he was always obsessive about having control.

Elida recounted one instance that was particularly harrowing.

She said: ‘After she had Anthony he pushed her in a box, I don’t know why. He pushed the flaps and told her: ‘You stay in there until I tell you to get out.’

‘When I went downstairs to tell my family he told Grimilda to get out.

‘She got pregnant with (her second child of five) Angie and everything was OK but he was still controlling towards her.’

Elida said that her sister stayed with Ariel ‘because he said he would kill her if she left.’

She said: ‘It was for the kids. She would not leave for all those kids.

‘When we used to visit her she would say she can’t leave the porch or Ariel will kill her.

‘She tried to leave. She feared him. If he tried to leave he would take the kids away or kill her.’

(this article includes a news photo of a band Ariel Castro played in during 1998)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322248/Ariel-Castro-Cleveland-kidnapper-told-wife-eat-wear-skirts-ordered-cardboard-box.html?ICO=most_read_module

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Steubenville rape case highlighted need for sexual assault prevention, but programs are not funded

on April 03, 2013 at 6:01 AM, updated April 03, 2013 at 9:05 AM

In the past, the state has gotten about $1.2 million of about $40 million allocated nationwide for anti-sexual violence education each year in the United States.

This year, that amount was reduced by about 20 percent, according to the Ohio Department of Health, which doles out the money in the form of grants. Unlike states surrounding Ohio, there is no dedicated state, county or municipal money for the prevention programs.

Recent efforts by lawmakers to get funding for rape crisis programs and by the Ohio Attorney General’s office to add services to rural and under-served areas of the state, could bolster the amount of hotlines, victim advocacy and support needed in the aftermath of a rape.

But nobody has figured out yet how to pay for prevention programs.

The rape crisis center gets around $60,000 in federal funds passed through the state to put on sexual violence prevention programs in Cuyahoga County, officials said. But even that money is being whittled away because of budget cuts.

They center used to get about $100,000 from the Ohio Children’s Trust fund, locally managed by the Cuyahoga County Family and Children First Council, but the money was redirected a few years ago.

The rest of crisis center’s prevention money comes from small family foundation grants and individual donations of $25 or $50.

Also curtailed will be the Men of Strength Clubs, which aim to help teen boys learn healthy ideas about masculinity and relationships and understand realities about consensual sex. The center will not start any new clubs next year without new funding.

The Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Center was also forced to cut back its the teen dating violence prevention programs it had built up in the past five years because it can’t afford to pay for the staff, CEO Linda Johanek said.

When sexual assault survivors at the college started to come forward and the administration’s response was less-than-supportive, Pallotta said she stepped up to put together panels that will discuss sexual assault on college campuses.

She and others also want to eliminate outdated pamphlets distributed at the colleges health center, which put the onus on stopping sexual assaults on women — by advising them how not to dress or act.

Students like Pallotta may help to reshape the college’s protocol when it comes to sexual assault and to spread awareness about how to support sexual assault victims.

Another Youth 360 participant 16-year-old Kevante Wheatley said he recently corrected some friends who had the wrong information about Ohio’s age of consent for sex, which is 16.

Wheatley, who attends Walsh Jesuit High School has learned how to intervene in a situation like the one that happened in Steubenville with out putting himself in danger. “As we say, don’t be a bystander, be an upstander.”

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/04/sexual_assault_prevention_bein.html

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Ohio man who sexually assaulted baby seeks mercy – Yahoo! News

news.yahoo.com/ohio-man-sexually-assaulted-baby-seeks-mercy-06374…

Apr 2, 2013 – News: COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Condemned killer Steven Smith’s argument for Smith acknowledges he intended to sexually assault his girlfriend’s Daughter of Cleveland abduction suspect slashed her baby’s throat

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on May 07, 2013 at 3:43 PM, updated May 09, 2013 at 8:23 AM

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Northeast Ohio Missing Persons Database published by the Cleveland Police Department included 96 names as of midday Tuesday. Three of them had been reported missing more than 10 years ago, but fresh reports come in frequently. Some of these are resolved quickly, though police don’t always get a follow-up report.

Seventy-six of the people on the list have been missing for more than a month.

The missing people range in age from 6 to 85 and were last reported seen in areas scattered across Cleveland. Nearly half of them, 46, were minors at the time they were reported missing.

Fifty-one are male and 45 are female.

The map below displays the approximate address where they were last reported seen. Click the map for more details.


Report a map error

Source: City of Cleveland, Web development: Peter Zicari

See the Cleveland Police Department’s website for the latest information. Click the headings of the table below to change how the table is sorted. Click a second time to reverse the sort.

Name Age Reported missing Where
Aaron, Correa 38 12/14/2012 3058 W. 32nd St.
Adames, Angelique 17 10/3/2012 4241 W. 22nd St.
Adams, Detra 18 2/15/2013 2221 E. 46th St.
Allen, Herbert 85 12/13/2006 1354 Clearaire Road
Ankam, Ashok 33 2/18/2008 1127 Euclid Ave.
Baker, JoAnn 63 4/17/2013 1705 Denison Ave.
banks, Kathy 44 11/7/2012 903 E. 123rd St.
Bereford, Carla 43 5/28/2008 2700 Division Ave.
Berry, Damon 18 9/24/2012 2604 Cedar Ave.
Bowman, Jazsmyne 17 4/1/2013 2537 E. 40th St.
Brown-Tyler, Demetrius 16 7/3/2012 9010 Kenmore Ave.
Bryant, Salishya 6 10/17/2012 3805 W. 39th St.
Burchett, Jerry 50 5/3/2013 Ambleside Apartments 210
Burriss, Justin 15 10/23/2012 5101 Guy Ave.
Butler, Mario 18 3/11/2013 10016 Elwell Ave.
Carter, Keith 65 1/7/2013 1527 E. 82nd St.
Carter, Raji 18 11/13/2012 7912 Vineyard Ave.
Cochran, Jessica 17 10/3/2012 4241 W. 22nd St.
Coffie, Dolaire 18 9/3/1995 3144 Fulton Road
Cotton, Sandra 61 9/14/2012 7123 Union Ave.
Crankfield, Clinton 66 4/21/2013 17303 Deforest Ave.
Dolovacky, Joseph 53 4/2/2013 3675 E. 140th St.
Edmonson Jr., Christopher 20 1/24/2013 2563 E. 81St. St.
Eggleton, Jermaine 18 1/11/2013 10513 Prince Ave.
Foster, Camrym 19 11/13/2012 2100 Lakeside Ave.
Foster, Dennis 57 10/20/2010 4944 E. 141st St.
Foster-Henry, Rasheba 15 2/10/2013 4058 E. 123rd St.
Greathouse, Tanetta 17 10/27/2012 2098 W. 73rd St., #10
Green, Riaunna 16 3/26/2013 1422 E. 175th St.
Gurka, Tabitha 17 5/2/2013 18082 Groveland Ave.
Hagler, Tamara 14 4/2/2013 13208 Lambert Ave.
Harris, Jasmine 13 5/5/2013 1052 E. 67th St..
Harris, Shawdale 42 2/5/2013 4906 E. 76th St.
Hayes, Marqueal 17 1/18/2013 1086 E. 98th St.
Heitz, Timothy 17 4/29/2013 3775 W. 137th St.
Holland, Lennon 45 9/7/2012 2162 E. 69th St..
Hullum, Marie 59 10/14/2012 1707 Brainard Ave.
Hurt, Melissa 36 5/2/2013 3157 W. 54th St.
Jacobs, Diamond 17 3/15/2013 3495 W. 127th St.
Jefferson, Allante 18 6/7/2012 4903 Case Court
Johnson, Anthony 28 2/1/2013 2100 Lakeside Ave.
Johnson, Chassidy 19 4/27/2012 3152 E. 49th St.
Johnson, Christina 37 4/29/2013 1214 E. 74th St.
Johnson, Tashyrah 16 3/14/2013 1481 E. 115th St.
Johnson, Zachary 28 3/16/2013 8315 Detroit Ave.
Jones, Dajane 17 12/27/2012 11738 Matherson Ave.
Jones, Demario 16 1/22/2013 16302 Eldemere Ave.
Jones, Miranda 16 11/16/2012 15908 Pythias Ave.
Jones, Rodney 27 2/27/2013 2100 Lakeside Ave.
Kerg, Katelyn 17 4/6/2013 8318 Rosewood Ave.
Klar, Oliver 46 4/15/2006 18122 St. Clair Ave.
Kleckner, Christina 26 10/2/2011 3612 W. 48th St.
Korzun, James 46 9/6/2011 8001 Madison Ave., #1
Kraker, Harold 64 5/5/2013 971 E. 141 St. St.
Ladd, Janee 14 4/19/2013 11301 Revere Ave.
Lewis, Kenneth 19 10/14/2010 2710 Daisy Ave.
Little, Janayle 15 1/13/2013 3864 Lee heights Blvd.
Lopez, Greyshlianne 16 3/18/2013 3518 W. 25th St.
Martin, Anjanee 16 2/24/2013 1196 Addison Ave.
Mathenay, Harold 63 9/9/2011 1334 Ansel Ave.
McCoy, Jerronda 15 2/27/2013 7109 Canton Ave.
Miller, Carlton 54 5/1/2013 11412 Temblet Ave.
Morman, Otis 56 5/2/2013 3393 E. 147th St.
Morris, Noel 54 10/9/2002 1962 W. 32nd St., Apt. 3
Oliver, Nancy 16 11/7/2012 6405 Francis Ave.
Parham, Dwjuam 18 12/24/2012 5605 Detroit Ave.
Peebles, Richard 45 9/6/2011 3735 W. 33rd St.
Peraza, Diana 15 5/2/2013 12801 Matherson Ave.
Perkins, Jonni 50 5/31/2001 850 Starkweather, Apt 1
Perry, Clyde 26 4/27/2013 3481 Fulton Road
Phillip, Perry 59 4/29/2013 1707 Brainard Ave.
Phillips, Delontae 18 8/2/2012 11217 Prime Rose Ave.
Poole, Nijitra 15 2/24/2013 4124 E. 127th St.
Ramos, Cassandra 17 1/29/2013 W. 33rd at Denison Ave.
RiverA II, Marc 18 3/11/2013 10016 Elwell Ave.
Rosemond, Alicia 18 7/8/2011 11225 Mt. Overlook Ave.
Ross III, Leon 15 4/30/2013 579 E. 108th St..
Sarter, Kejuan 30 12/18/2006 10520 Columbia Ave.
Shelton, Cory 35 5/3/2013 1466 W. 81st St.
Smith, Jonnie 48 4/8/2013 11701 St. Clair Ave.
Smith, Tony 30 3/7/2013 12625 Emery Road
Stewart-Safos, Vanessa 19 10/2/2012 1701 Payne Ave.
Summers, Ashley 17 7/13/2007 2114 W. 96th St.
Thorpe Jr., William 28 4/29/2013 2724 Woodhill Road
Torres, Jonathan 24 4/6/2013 3325 W. 52nd St..
Tripp, Minerva 43 9/9/2012 5402 Tillman Ave.
Walker, Gloria 53 5/27/2007 2966 E. 65th St.
Waters, Jacqueline 19 7/8/2011 11225 Mt. Overlook Ave.
Watkins, Mateo 17 1/29/2013 8903 Macomb Ave.
Whitehead, Delecta 20 1/29/2013 4216 Valley Road
Williams, Kaylynn 17 3/24/2013 11129 Glenboro Ave.
Williams, Odell 18 4/7/2013 18920 Nottingham Road
Williams, Odell 18 4/5/2013 18920 Nottingham Road
Wilson, Tamara 16 3/26/2013 10005 Elwell Ave.
Winkfield, Angela 18 11/19/2012 4216 Valley Road
Wooden, Nicarius 17 3/15/2012 6150 Morton Ave.

Source: City of Cleveland, Web development: Peter Zicari

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2013/05/nearly_100_missing_person_case.html

**

In 1993 and 2005, Castro was accused of domestic violence from his one-time wife. The former charges were reduced to mere disorderly conduct, while the latter incident offered grisly imagery of a fractured marriage still capable of wreaking havoc. Castro broke his ex-wife’s nose and ribs, dislocated her shoulders, knocked out one of her teeth and battered her so hard that a blood clot formed on her brain, according to filings in court. In an interview with investigators after the fact, Castro denied ever being abusive toward her.

That filing effectively killed Castro’s chances at even partial custody of his children. Nevertheless, as sources familiar with the man report, his penchant for manipulation pulled Emily and Arlene back into his gravitational pull at times.

Several years after the gross sexual imposition conviction of Colon blew over, Emily Castro gave birth to a girl. It’s unclear who the father was – though speculation points to either a former boyfriend who now lives in Cleveland or, according to the private investigator, something much more untoward, evil, and incestuous.

Emily was living in Fort Wayne, Ind., where she attempted to murder her 11-month-old daughter by slashing her throat four times in 2007. She was later convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“It is certainly a mystery as to how this happened or why this happened,” Allen Superior Court Judge John Surbeck told The Journal Gazette at the time.

It is indeed a mystery that may yet hold more clues as to who Ariel Castro has been all these years. Any answers that lay within may illuminate a gap in local law enforcement’s own investigations.

***

The Regional Fusion Center and the Cleveland Police Department currently maintain a list of 96 missing persons in the area. Some of them have been missing since the mid-2000s. One was last seen in 1995.

Each person carries with them a story, a life.

Women like Ashley Summers and Christina Adkins have garnered attention in the region, thanks to widespread reporting and an insistent base of family and friends that maintains the vigil.

Summers was last seen at her West 96th Street home, near Madison Avenue, in July 2007. The FBI has not come close to solving the mystery of Summers’ whereabouts, though various reports indicate the possibility that she has been held against her will and that foul play has not been an immediate suspicion in her case. The FBI had tied the investigation into Summers’ disappearance into those of Berry and DeJesus as recently as 2009, though the department never explained why.

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2013/05/07/the-long-history-of-ariel-castro-cleveland-kidnapper-and-monster

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My Note -

Where are the rest of them?

- cricketdiane

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Cleveland: Men camp out for awareness of violence against women

http://www.wkyc.com/…/Cleveland-Men-camp-out-for-awareness-of-violence-…
Apr 5, 2013 – CLEVELAND — Last month, a near-east Cleveland neighborhood saw three violent crimes against women, including two murders. On March

CLEVELAND — Last month, a near-east Cleveland neighborhood saw three violent crimes against women, including two murders.

On March 20, Raven Freeman was attacked on East 116th Street while waiting for a bus. Police are questioning two men in her case.

On March 24, Jazmine Trotter was found murdered on East 93rd Street. Officers have charged a man in her killing.

Days later, Christine Malone was found dead in a field on Bessemer Avenue. Police are still searching for her killer.

As the detective work presses on, people who live in this neighborhood are rallying.

A group gathered to call attention to the violence, passing out fliers and knocking on doors, providing women in the area knowledge on how to protect themselves against future predators.

Friday evening, a group of men camped out all night on the corner, to show support.  They also made themselves available for anyone who wanted to stop by and offer information on the crimes.

WKYC-TV

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/293392/3/Cleveland-Men-camp-out-for-awareness-of-violence-against-women

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Cleveland: Leaders address violence against women outbreak

Police and community leaders are asking for the public’s help after a string of violent crimes against women.

http://www.wkyc.com/video/2289703505001/1/Cleveland-Leaders-address-violence-against-women-outbreak

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From a blog post I found this – (and no wonder police don’t find it popular to pursue crimes against women – it is a joke to the NRA and those nifty catalogs of online goodies police can buy – like this) -

When I first saw the photo of a freed Amanda Berry with her sister and daughter, and tried to imagine the women’s unimaginable captivity, I couldn’t get another set of images out of my mind–that of “The Ex,” a target mannequin that squirts blood when you shoot her. “The Ex” (variously called “The Ex-Girlfriend” and “Alexa”) is a large-breasted white woman, her clothes party ripped off, blood dripping from her mouth down her cleavage, and she was sold with other “bleeding zombie targets” at the NRA convention in Houston last weekend. A target mannequin that looks like Obama painted green (one happy customer calls him “Barry” in a video that has  been removed) also made the news. Buzzfeed reported that the NRA asked the vendor, Zombie Industries, to remove it from display, but it continued to be sold, a reminder of the racism that fuels the pro-gun paranoia. But the NRA didn’t object to displaying “The Ex,” and she still appears on the company’s website, where one commenter writes, “This Zombie Bitch is awesome, reminds me of a girl I knew in High School.”

Here is “The Ex”:

And here she is after getting shot up:

Up until yesterday Amazon was also selling the $89.99 product. (“Great for a bachelor party!” read the only five-star review. “This was a very original, cool way to kick off a bachelor party for a firearm enthusiast, such as myself.”)

Noting that “‘The Ex’ shooting target turns violence against women into a joke and promotes the idea that men should want to kill their ex-wives or ex-girlfriends,” the activist group Ultra Violet petitioned Amazon to stop selling it. In less than 24 hours, 63,000 people signed and “The Ex” was gone.

A similar, if real-life, ex target was Grimilda Figueroa, the former wife of kidnap suspect Ariel Castro. Castro was accused of beating Figueroa, breaking her nose twice, knocking out a tooth, dislocating her shoulders and threatening to kill her and their children, according to a filing in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court. The filing also said that Castro “frequently abducts [his] daughters and keeps them from mother/petitioner/legal custodian.”

Figueroa’s brother, Jose Figueroa, told RadarOnline that in 1996, Grimilda and her children with Castro fled from him to a battered women’s shelter. “If she stayed with Ariel, he would have killed her,” Jose said. “She had gone to the hospital and called the police many times but they never did anything.” (Grimilda remarried and moved out long before Castro allegedly kidnapped the three women; she died of cancer last year.)

If Jose Figueroa’s account is accurate, his sister may have saved her life and her children’s, as so many abused women do, by finding refuge in a women’s shelter. But, as learned this week, men who abuse women will be able to corner them even more easily: the sequester is cutting some $20 million of funding for women’s shelters and protection programs over the next year.

Like all sequester cuts that don’t involve airplane delays, the cuts to shelters are not making the national news, but they are locally. From KSL.com in Utah:

Julee Smith, the director of Your Community Connection in Ogden, said she works with people every day who are running from violent situations. She said many abuse victims need a place to stay, and due to the lack of funding, she has had to start turning them away,

“We literally had a lady call, she had four children and begged to get in our shelter,” Smith said. “She said, ‘I have 45 minutes to get out.’ And we said ‘We’re sorry, we don’t have any room.’ And then the police call and say that she has been abused again.”

Tim Murphy of Mother Jones cites other shelters and domestic violence programs that are being reduced or completely eliminated in Louisiana, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Oregon, and other states. “The projections are bleak,” he writes.

Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) office estimates that 70,120 fewer domestic violence victims will have access to recovery programs and shelters; 35,900 fewer people will get help obtaining non-shelter services such as restraining orders and sexual assault treatment. Cuts to programs related to the Victims Against Crime Act will hurt another 310,574 people.

This increased danger to women has been made possible by the same pols, mostly Republicans, who are too scared of the NRA to pass an expansion background checks, checks that would block sales of guns to anyone convicted of domestic violence, among other crimes.

And you know that big-shock Pentagon report released Tuesday that estimates 26,000 sexual assaults took place in the armed forces in 2012, a 37 percent increase over 2010? The report that also said that fewer than 10 percent of the sex-assault cases end with a conviction at court-martial, while 62 percent of victims who dare to report an assault are rewarded with retaliation?

http://www.thenation.com/blog/174267/cleveland-horror-and-week-violence-against-women#

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Local Statistics – Cleveland Ohio included – latest statistics come from 2009, not later -

Please note: These statistics were collected by law enforcement agencies throughout the country. Please be cautioned against drawing conclusions by making direct comparisons between cities. Comparisons lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading observation affecting communities and their residents.

Ohio:

  • 1 out of 7 women, or nearly 635,000 women in Ohio, has been a survivor of forcible rape sometime in her lifetime.1
  • Rape is the most underreported crime.
  • Ohio is in a region of the nation that has a higher-than-average rape prevalence.1
  • 30% of rape victims experienced major depression at some time in their lives, (about 90,000 victims in Ohio) and 10% of women never victimized by violent crime.1
  • Women between the ages of 20-44 had the highest levels of risk for having ever been raped (over 15 percent), whereas women ages 65 and older had the lowest levels of risk (less than 5 percent).1
  • Out of Ohio’s population of 11,485,910, there were a total of 4,419 reported forcible rape cases in 2008.6 (This includes only females over 12 years old.)

Cuyahoga County:

  • Of the 565,000 women living in Cuyahoga County, over 80,000 have been raped.1
  • In 2007, there were 516 reported rapes, accounting for 39 percent of all reported crimes in Cuyahoga County.2
  • Approximately 600 sexual assault cases were seen at reporting hospitals in Cuyahoga County.3
  • An estimated 11 percent of the population of Cuyahoga County (or 149,274 people) have been raped some time in their lives and are in need of healing services. 4
  • Additionally, 1,600 sexual assault referrals were received by the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services in 2008. 8

Cleveland:

  • 1,366 sexual assault and child endangerment cases were reported to Cleveland Police.3
  • Cleveland Rape Crisis Center receives about 3,000 calls per year on its 24-hour crisis hotline.5
  • Out of Cleveland’s population of 433,452, there were 423 reported cases of forcible rape in 2008.6 (This includes only females over 12 years old.)
  • Even though the Ohio rate of rape decreased in 2008, the rate of rapes in Cleveland increased by 14.8 percent. 7
  • 60 percent of sexual assaults are unreported. This indicates that the number of rapes that occurred in Cleveland in 2008 was possibly as high as 3,165. 8

Resources

  1. One in Seven. Rape in Ohio – A Report to the State. National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center. Kenneth J. Ruggiero, Dean G. Kilpatrick. May 2003. http://www.ppao.org/files/Resources/1in7study.pdf\
  2. Cuyahoga Crime Statistics Ohio. 2007. http://www.criminal.com/statistics/ohio/cuyahoga.htm
  3. Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Response Team. 2009.
  4. United Way of Greater Cleveland. Core Services Report. 2007.
  5. Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. http://www.clevelandrapecrisis.org/education/statistics.asp
  6. Crime in the United States. 2008. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_08.html
  7. Special Commission on Missing Persons & Sex Crime Investigations. City of Cleveland Ohio, Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, VOYRS. 2010.

http://www.clevelandrapecrisis.org/resources/statistics/local-statistics-about-sexual-assault

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