In an honest and open essay, the son of the infamous Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro is speaking out about the struggles he faced after his father's heinous crimes against three young women were revealed to the world.
"I'm still shell-shocked from the way these past several months unfolded," Ariel Anthony Castro wrote in an essay published Saturday in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
He went on to detail the horror that overwhelmed him after learning about his father's crimes all while in the glare of the media.
"Instantly, my father became one of the most hated men alive," wrote the younger Castro. "In no time, reporters from around the world demanded to know who this man was and what kind of background he came from. Just like that, my father went from captured to convicted to imprisoned to dead."
Ariel Castro, a 52-year-old former school bus driver, was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 1,000 years with no chance of parole for kidnapping, beating and raping Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight 10 years ago. Castro kidnapped the women between 2002 and 2004 and fathered a 6-year-old child with Berry. He also beat and starved Knight when she became pregnant, forcing her to miscarry five times. The women were freed on May 6 after a neighbor helped rescue them from Castro's home.
However, after serving only one month of his life sentence, Castro committed suicide in his jail cell, reports Cleveland.com.
Back in May, Anthony says his home was ransacked, a profanity was scrawled on the door and one documentary used his picture, lifted from his Facebook page, above the house where his father kept the women.
"They thought I was him and he was me," the younger Castro wrote. "That, however, was exactly what I wanted to scream from the rooftops. I am not my father, and I can't explain his actions or be held accountable for something I never knew he was doing."
"I was horrified and disgusted and angered when I got the news of the unthinkable crimes my father committed," he said.
"I still am. He deserved to pay for his actions, everyday of those 1,000 years he could possibly serve. My anger with him kept me from visiting him in prison, even when he was moved to a facility just 20 minutes away from my doorstep."
Anthony Castro describes being followed by the press.
"I had reporters, in revoltingly poor taste, seeking me out for a knee-jerk reaction, wanting to know the whereabouts of my father's remains, waiting for me outside the Franklin County coroner's office," he wrote.
Still, the son of the Cleveland kidnapper says that he does not hate his father.
"I learned long ago that it's not worth the effort to actively hate someone who will always be in your life."