Kidnap ordeal revealed in court

Prosecutors detailed Ariel Castro’s assaults and witnesses described the prison he built in his ramshackle home in Cleveland, Ohio. Castro turned his house into a prison by creating a makeshift alarm system and chaining his prisoners inside bolted bedrooms.

A detective said he talked with Castro a few days after the women escaped and that Castro said: “I knew what I did was wrong.”

A police officer who helped rescue the women said one was reluctant to come out of her room even when she saw the officers. They were scared even after they were taken out of the house and quickly began sharing details about the horrors they went through.

The women were thin, pale and scared.

The women escaped after Amanda Berry kicked out the door panel on May 6 and Castro was arrested within hours. The women disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.

Some horrific details had already emerged, including tales of being chained to poles in the basement and raped. Castro starved and beat one victim each time she was pregnant, forcing her to miscarry five times.