ABC News: Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro will appear in court today where he is expected to be sentenced to life in prison, plus 1,000 years, as prosecutors released new details from his captives’ dairies that include “being held like a prisoner of war” on only one meal a day. A sentencing memorandum, released Wednesday, outlines dramatic details of how Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, were restrained by chains attached to their ankles with access only to plastic toilets in the bedrooms that were rarely emptied. Castro fed the women one meal a day and used the “cold of the basement” and the “heat of the attic” as punishment techniques, according to the memo.
Castro, 53, pleaded guilty Friday to 937 counts, including kidnapping, rape, assault and aggravated murder that will send him to prison for life with no chance of parole for abducting the three women and keeping them as sex slaves for more than a decade in his Cleveland home. The prosecution released the memo in an attempt to persuade the judge to give Castro the sentence that the former bus driver has agreed to accept.
The plea deal spared Castro the death penalty because he was accused of the aggravated murder of a fetus after forcibly causing an abortion in one of his victims that he is accused of impregnating. The deal will also spare the three women from having to testify at a trial. Knight is expected to appear at the sentencing to read an impact statement, a source with knowledge of the situation told ABC News.
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