Ariel Castro and his two brothers, Onil and Pedro, are in a Cleveland jail after the gruesome discovery that he had been harboring three young Cleveland women he kidnapped while they were still in their teens over the past decade in his home where they were being held as sex slaves. It turns out that his daughter, Emily Castro, is serving time in an Indiana prison for trying to kill her infant child back in 2007 in Fort Wayne when she was 19 years old.
The Star's Dianna Penner has a story today identifying Emily as the daughter of Ariel Castro, the man in whose home the three women were discovered being held against their will on Monday. Castro was convicted in an Allen County court of attempted murder of her infant daughter and sentenced to 30 years, five years of which was suspended. Castro appealed, arguing that the trial court had abused its discretion in determining that she was competent to stand trial and that she was sane at the time she attempted to murder her daughter.
According to the appellate court decision affirming her conviction, Castro had started a relationship with Deangelo Gonzalez in 2005 which produced her daughter. Castro's relationship with Gonzalez was very strained, and she had been prescribed medication for mental illness in the past, including manic depression. After Gonzalez moved out of their home for the third time in April, 2007, Castro used a knife to cut her infant daughter's throat four times before turning it on herself. Castro's mother, Grimilda Figeroa, was discovered running from the house by a passerby carrying the baby in her arms as blood poured from her throat. Figeroa told police Castro had stabbed the baby with a knife. Castro was transported to a hospital where she was treated for non-life threatening injuries after she had slit her wrists with the same knife she used to stab her baby and tried unsuccessfully to drown herself in a nearby creek.
At a bench trial, the trial court judge determined that Castro was competent to stand trial. The court found her guilty but mentally ill of attempted murder after first conducting a competency hearing at which the court concluded she was mentally fit to stand trial. In sentencing her, the trial court considered as mitigating factors the fact that she had no prior criminal history and a history of mental illness. The trial court judge found as aggravating factors the age of her victim, the position of trust she held with her baby and Castro's refusal to continue treatment for her mental illness. The court applied the advisory sentence for the crime she committed. "That to do less would depreciate the seriousness and severity of this crime," the trial court held. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's decision. Any source
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