In death, as in life, Ariel Castro remains an unsettling mystery.
There were more questions than answers yesterday as prison officials scrambled to explain how Castro, the Cleveland man sentenced to life in prison for holding three women captive for nearly a decade, was able to use a bedsheet to hang himself in his prison cell at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, about 20 miles south of Columbus.
It was the seventh suicide in an Ohio prison this year and the 35th since 2008.Ohio prisons Director Gary Mohr appointed a “review team” yesterday to look into Castro’s suicide. Mohr said Ed Banks, managing director of organizational development for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, will lead a team drawn from the agency’s legal, medical, mental-health, security and operational divisions to compile a report by the end of the month.
The agency will “thoroughly review all pertinent medical- and mental-health-care records concerning inmate Castro and information surrounding the incident,” Mohr said in a statement. “ These professionals will determine whether applicable policies and procedures concerning the delivery of medical and mental-health care were followed for inmate Castro.”
Castro was found hanging in his cell at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday. Prison medical staff performed CPR before Castro was taken to Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 10:52 p.m.
Details came out slowly yesterday, beginning with Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak’s conclusion after performing an autopsy that she found marks “consistent with hanging” by prison bedsheet. She said she was not aware of a suicide note being found. A final autopsy report will not be completed for six to eight weeks, she said.
Castro, 53, was in protective custody in a cell by himself, but he was not on suicide watch. Corrections officers were supposed