Ariel Castro's Family Enabled Sexual Predator
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Okay, most folk would agree that Ariel Castro, the man who kidnapped, raped and tortured three women in his basement for ten years is a sexual predator and psychopath. But what about the rest of the Castro family? Of course people can do diabolical things for which their families are the last to know. But psychopaths and sexual predators distance themselves from their families so that they feel free to perpetrate their crimes without the bothersome meddling and questions of relatives. In contrast, Ariel Castro's mother and two brothers lived down the street from him in Cleveland. The family got together on a regular basis. They didn't ask questions about the padlocked rooms and off-limits basement because they didn't want to know the answers.
The son, Anthony, clearly spent time in his father's house. A
snapshot has surfaced showing him with his father, standing in front of the basement door, where the three women were being held captive. This son subsequently launched a career as a reporter by writing a news story about one of the missing women.
The twenty-two year old daughter, Arlene Castro, went on "Good Morning America," tearfully asking for forgiveness from her "best friend," Gina DeJesus. Arlene was the last person to see DeJesus before the 14 year old girl disappeared. In 2005, Castro's daughter even appeared on America's Most Wanted stumped for answers or even leads as to her friend's disappearance. Even though the father had savagely beat her mother, pushed her down a flight of stairs, broken her nose, dislocated her shoulder, and possibly caused the brain injury that killed the woman, it never even occurred to the daughter that Daddy might be hiding something in his padlock-riddled house.
Denial is not a prosecutable offense. Thus family members are not legally culpable for this ghastly crime. But every single one of them bears some responsibility for this nightmare. Presenting the face of a relatively normal family to the world outweighed any sense of real decency.
If society wants to take this type of crime seriously, it will first have to grapple with the pathology of those who enable sexual predators. In the case of the Castro family, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they lured victims into the monster's lair in order to keep him sufficiently satiated, hidden and quiet. In this way he would not do anything in public that might dishonor the family's name.
Okay, most folk would agree that Ariel Castro, the man who kidnapped, raped and tortured three women in his basement for ten years is a sexual predator and psychopath. But what about the rest of the Castro family? Of course people can do diabolical things for which their families are the last to know. But psychopaths and sexual predators distance themselves from their families so that they feel free to perpetrate their crimes without the bothersome meddling and questions of relatives. In contrast, Ariel Castro's mother and two brothers lived down the street from him in Cleveland. The family got together on a regular basis. They didn't ask questions about the padlocked rooms and off-limits basement because they didn't want to know the answers.
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| Ariel Castro and son in front of basement door |
The twenty-two year old daughter, Arlene Castro, went on "Good Morning America," tearfully asking for forgiveness from her "best friend," Gina DeJesus. Arlene was the last person to see DeJesus before the 14 year old girl disappeared. In 2005, Castro's daughter even appeared on America's Most Wanted stumped for answers or even leads as to her friend's disappearance. Even though the father had savagely beat her mother, pushed her down a flight of stairs, broken her nose, dislocated her shoulder, and possibly caused the brain injury that killed the woman, it never even occurred to the daughter that Daddy might be hiding something in his padlock-riddled house.
Denial is not a prosecutable offense. Thus family members are not legally culpable for this ghastly crime. But every single one of them bears some responsibility for this nightmare. Presenting the face of a relatively normal family to the world outweighed any sense of real decency.
If society wants to take this type of crime seriously, it will first have to grapple with the pathology of those who enable sexual predators. In the case of the Castro family, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they lured victims into the monster's lair in order to keep him sufficiently satiated, hidden and quiet. In this way he would not do anything in public that might dishonor the family's name.
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