Cleveland, Ohio: The house of Ariel Castro, where three women were held captive and raped over a decade, will be demolished on Wednesday.
The house will be demolished as part of a deal that had spared Castro of a possible death sentence. He was sentenced last week to life term, plus 1,000 years in prison. Castro was pleaded guilty on 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping.
Gus Frangos, president of Cuyahoga Land Bank, who is supervising the demolition, said that the goal is to break the house into pieces and get the property filled in, graded and seeded in a single day.
Castro’s friends and family removed personal items from the home on Monday, including musical instruments and photographs. Police said that the items removed by Castro’s family were mostly personal belongings that were left over after investigators collected evidence.
Prosecutors say Ariel Castro cried when he signed over the house deed and mentioned his “many happy memories” there with the women.
The women escaped on May 6 when one of them broke part of a door and yelled for help.
The three women who were held captive and raped at the mentioned house were Michelle Knight, abducted in 2002; Georgina DeJesus, abducted in 2004; and Amanda Berry; abducted in 2003.