Ariel Castro News: Authorities Believe He Died Accidentally From 'Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation'

Although it was originally believed that convicted rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro committed suicide in his jail cell after serving one month of his life sentence, authorities now believe that he died accidentally from "auto-erotic asphyxiation."

An investigation found that the infamous Cleveland kidnapper may have died by accident last month. The probe also found that two prison guards didn't perform required rounds at the facility and falsified records, reports Yahoo! News.

The 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 for 10 years. 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.

Castro, who was held at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, was found hanged with a bed sheet in his cell Sept. 3. In his cell there was a Bible open to John Chapters 2 and 3, in addition to "pictures of his family out and arranged in a poster-board fashion," states a report released Thursday by the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, reports CNN.

"He was hanging from a hinge in the window of his cell by a sheet wrapped around his neck. His pants and underwear were pulled down to his ankles. The relevance of this finding is unclear. These facts, however, were relayed to the Ohio State Highway Patrol for consideration of the possibility of auto-erotic asphyxiation," the report said.

Auto-erotic asphyxiation involves depriving the brain of oxygen by controlled strangulation in order to intensify a sexual experience.

The department said "there appears to be no known, substantiated motivation for the self-inflicted death."

Officials "reviewed several sources of information in an attempt to determine the motivation" for the suicide since "Castro left no suicide note and had previously shown no suicidal ideations in multiple levels of assessment."