Ariel Castro (1960–2013) was an American criminal who kidnapped three young women—Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus—between 2002 and 2004 in Cleveland, Ohio, holding them captive in his Seymour Avenue home for roughly a decade. He was sentenced in 2013 to life plus 1,000 years without parole before dying by suicide one month into his sentence.