(Reuters)
EXTREME MAKEOVER: Onil Castro (left) and Pedro Castro (right), the brothers of kidnapping suspect Ariel Castro, appear freshly shaven and finely clad in shirts, slacks and ties in a CNN interview (top)— a far cry from their first disheveled appearance in a Cleveland courtroom last week (bottom) in the days after their arrests. (
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CLEVELAND — For at least a year, Ariel Castro brazenly showed off the daughter he allegedly had with one of his kidnap victims, taking her to a neighborhood park and local fast-food restaurants.
“I seen Ariel with a little girl at McDonald’s, and I asked him, ‘Who’s that?’ ” his brother Pedro Castro told CNN. “And he said, ‘This is a girlfriend’s of mine.’ ”
Pedro made the revelation in a CNN interview, for which he and his other brother, Onil, appeared clean shaven and in slacks and ties — in stark contrast to their haggard court and mug-shot appearances shortly after their arrests.
Neighbor Moses Cintron, 64, says he, too, would see the girl out in public, spotting her in Cleveland’s Roberto Clemente Park as recently as May 4, the day before Ariel Castro’s house of horrors was exposed. The 6-year-old girl, Jocelyn, is believed to be Castro’s with kidnap victim Amanda Berry.
“I’ve been seeing Castro with that little girl since last year at least twice a week and a lot this past summer,” Cintron told The Post. “She got friendly with my dogs. She used to come and pet them.”
“They pulled up in his red pickup truck, and he helped her out because it was so high.”
Cintron noticed “she looked slightly slender and malnourished, like she wasn’t fed healthy food.”
A neighbor, Israel Lugo, 39, said he was stunned after the three captive women escaped.
“Sunday [the day before the rescue] was the first time I really saw [Jocelyn’s] face, so the next day, when she came out of the house and her mother was screaming, it brought tears to my eyes, and my stomach just dropped,” he said.
Onil Castro said he suspected Ariel wanted to be caught after a decade of hiding the women — Berry, now 27, Michelle Knight, 32, and Gina DeJesus, 23.
Onil said he was riding in Ariel’s car May 6, the day of the rescue, when Ariel suddenly turned into a McDonald’s parking lot and was stopped by a cop.
“Maybe he wanted to get caught. Maybe time was up. Maybe he was inside too much,” Onil told CNN.
Onil and Pedro, both of whom say they are innocent, have been cleared in the case. Ariel is being held in lieu of $8 million bail.
Meanwhile, Cleveland police released a firsthand account yesterday from officer Anthony Espada, who was the first cop to enter Castro’s house of horrors just after Berry’s escape, and was the one to free the other two victims.
“As we were going up the steps, it was so quiet, like peaceful,” Espada said. “Then you hear this scuffling . . . I’m looking that way just waiting to see what’s going to happen, and it was Michelle.
“She came charging at me. She jumped onto me . . . She’s like, ‘You saved us! You saved us!’ And I’m holding on to her so tight.”
Within seconds of finding Knight, DeJesus came out of the same room, Espada said.
“Very overwhelming. I mean it took everything to hold myself together,” Espada said. “I have Michelle in my arms . . . And then you got Gina coming out. It was like one bombshell after another.”