In another strange layer to the case of three missing women found being held captive in a house in Cleveland around 10 years after they disappeared, a son of one of the kidnapping suspects reportedly wrote an article for a local paper about one of the victims, Gina DeJesus, shortly after she went missing.
NBC local affiliate WKYC uncovered the article, which was published in the Plain Press in 2004. The byline for the story is "Ariel Castro," the same name as one of the three suspects arrested in connection with the case. But the article was authored by the suspect's son, who goes by Anthony. He was a journalism student at Bowling Green State University at the time and told WKYC that he is "stunned" by what has happened.
The Plain Press article, the full text of which can be read here, reveals that Anthony Castro interviewed DeJesus's mother, Nancy Ruiz, who told Castro at the time how her daughter's disappearance had changed the neighborhood.
“People are watching out for each other’s kids. It’s a shame that a tragedy had to happen for me to really know my neighbors. Bless their hearts, they’ve been great,” Ruiz is quoted in Castro's Plain Press article.
As the Associated Press previously reported, the three women all went missing from the Cleveland area in a span of two years. On Monday, one of the victims, Amanda Berry, started screaming and trying to force her way out of the house where the women were being held.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer released audio from Barry's panicked 911 call, during which she can be heard identifying herself to the dispatcher and telling him that she had been all over the news.
"I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm, I'm here, I'm free now," Barry told the dispatcher.
A neighbor, Charles Ramsey, has been hailed as a hero for hearing Barry' screams and helping to break the door down. When police went inside, they also found DeJesus, along with another woman, Michelle Knight.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has since republished an article from the time of DeJesus's disappearance, noting that the then-14-year-old was reportedly walking home from school on the afternoon of April 2, 2004, when she vanished.
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