Pictured are child serial rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro (in Black) and convicted serial killer and Cleveland strangler Anthony Sowell (in orange jail jumpsuit) By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Kathy Wray Coleman is a former biology teacher and a 20-year investigative Black journalist who trained for some 15 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. Reach Coleman by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Demolition crews on tomorrow morning will tear down the home on Seymour Avenue on Cleveland's west side where convicted rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro (pictured) held Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight captive for about a decade until they escaped earlier this year. Castro turned the home over to the Cuyahoga County Land Bank as part of a plea deal that got him a sentence last week of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Maureen Harper, communications director for the city of Cleveland, said the demolition will begin in the early morning.
"The demolition will likely begin at 7:00 am and will continue throughout the day," Harper told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper.
Seymour Avenue has been blocked off since this evening, though swarms of media from across the nation, and internationally, are canvassing the area in anticipation of tomorrow's event, one that could bring a degree of closure to the unprecedented ordeal, particularly to Felix DeJesus, Gina DeJesus' father, who said he would be on hand to watch Castro's house come tumbling down.
Gina DeJesus was 14-years- old when Castro abducted her, Berry was just under 17, and Knight was 21. Police found 99 feet of chain at the Castro home following the escape.
Tomorrow marks the second time the home of a serial rapist has been torn down in Cleveland since 2011 when demolition crews tore down the Imperial Avenue home of convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell (pictured).
A former marine who spent four years in prison for rape before he committed the celebrated serial murders, Sowell, 53, sits on death row as his death sentence and aggravated murder and other criminal convictions are on appeal before the Ohio Supreme Court. He strangled and murdered 11 Black women at his home on the city's majority Black east side and raped several others there.
