Ariel Castro Kills Himself, His Lawyer Has The Gall To Blame Prison Officials

Ariel Castro spent years secretly torturing three women at his home in Cleveland, Ohio, but when it came time to face his punishment, he couldn’t even last a few months. The fifty-three-year-old kidnapper, rapist and monster was found hanging in his cell last night, according to The Los Angeles Times. Prison officials cut him down immediately and rushed him to the hospital, but he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.

Not surprisingly, his death has generated a mixed reaction from the general public. There are many who think he took the coward’s way out by ending his own life, and there are others who think having one less sociopath in the world is a good thing. It’s pretty easy to understand both of those viewpoints; however, it’s a lot harder to understand the bullshit outrage Castro’s attorney showed this morning on Today when he went off about how this is all the prison’s fault.

Here’s a portion of attorney Craig Weintraub’s actual quote that he somehow said with a straight face…

“We're going to get to the bottom of it. There's no way we're going to let this go. This is a human being, we are in a civilized society and we expect that the person would be protected when they’re institutionalized, and so there is an obligation on the part of the prisons and I would doubt that the prison officials would dispute that. They have an obligation to ensure there wasn’t a suicide or anything else and we pray there wasn’t anything else.”

Let me break this down for you, Craig. Prisons can’t hire a guard to stand watch outside every person’s door for twenty-four hours a day. That would cause an insane amount of money, and beyond that, the prisoners themselves would complain about not having even a single moment of privacy. Consequently, prisoners are accounted for every thirty minutes. So, if your client decided to end his life by hanging himself in that thirty minute window, then that’s the rub. Deal with it. Your client’s three victims are each owed a decade of their life back, but none of them can get that.

Back in May, three kidnapping victims long thought deceased were rescued from the home of Ariel Castro after one was able to break out of her room and alert a heroic neighbor. At first, the entire city was euphoric about the women’s discoveries, but the collective mood quickly went south when details of what happened during their captivity went public. Castro was found guilty and sentenced to more than 1,000 years in jail back on August 1. His home was later demolished, and an outpouring of support for the girls unlike anything seen in years flooded in from all directions.

Pop Blend’s sincerest thoughts go out to Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. I know they probably would have liked to see this bastard suffer for a little while longer, but hopefully, they’ll take comfort in knowing his life has now officially ended in disgrace.

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.