In an ironic twist of events, the son of the Cleveland man that allegedly kidnapped three girls wrote an article about one of the girls for a local newspaper and even interviewed her mother.
Ariel Anthony Castro, 31, the son of alleged abductor Ariel Castro, was a journalism student in 2004 at Bowling Green University. He wrote a story about the disappearance of 14-year-old Gina DeJesus for a class assignment and then had the article published in a local paper, according to USA Today and local NBC affiliate WKYC.
The younger Castro wrote the story seven weeks after DeJesus went missing. It was published in the Plain Press, community weekly newspaper in Cleveland.
"People are watching out for each other’s kids. It’s a shame that a tragedy had to happen for me to really know my neighbors. Bless their hearts, they’ve been great."
DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight were freed Monday night after Berry broke free from a Cleveland home and called 911. Police said the trio had been held in captivity for nearly a decade by Ariel Castro, 52.
Berry escaped from the home with the help of a neighbor.
“People are watching out for each other’s kids,” DeJesus’s mother, Nancy Ruiz, told the younger Castro in his 2004 article. “It’s a shame that a tragedy had to happen for me to really know my neighbors. Bless their hearts, they’ve been great.”
The article included quotes from other members of the community as well as information on the number of sex offenders living in the area where DeJesus went missing.
“There is no enforcing the laws because they still live right next to the schools and bus stops,” Ruiz told the younger Castro.
Plain Press editor Chuck Hoven confirmed to Fox News Latino that the younger Castro wrote the article in 2004 for the publication.
“He was a young kid from Cleveland, he wanted something for his portfolio,” Hoven said. “He did a nice job.”
Hoven said Castro reached out to him and asked to cover the story that had affected the neighborhood.
The younger Castro told the Cleveland Plain Dealer he was stunned about recent developments and could not believe the kidnappings he wrote about hit so close to home.
"That I wrote about this nearly 10 years ago -- to find out that it is now so close to my family -- it's unspeakable," Castro said.
A Yahoo! Contributor page describes Castro as “a freelance journalist based in Columbus, Ohio. He has seven years of experience as a daily newspaper editor and is a 2004 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund honoree.”
Although he is listed as a contributor there since 2011, he has no visibly published work on the site.
The customer service representative at The Arlington (Ohio) Bank, with duties including directing the bank's social media accounts.
"I can express nothing but shame for our family that it involved any one of us," Castro told the Plain Dealer. "It's just a nightmare. I just feel unspeakably horrible for this."
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