Ariel Castro deemed mentally fit to stand trial, denied access to 6-year-old daughter, Castro's home an oasis of calm on chaotic block, police records show, Convicted killer guilty of ritualistic murder of Welsh pensioner told he will die in prison

Ariel Castro deemed mentally fit to stand trial, denied access to 6-year-old daughter

Ariel Castro, the man accused of kidnapping three teens and holding them captive in his home for about a decade, attends a competency hearing in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and asks Judge Michael Russo visitation permission to see his 6-year-old daughter with alleged victim Amanda Berry

By Sophia Rosenbaum, NBC News

The Cleveland man who allegedly kidnapped and held captive three women in his basement for more than a decade has been deemed mentally fit to stand trial.

A judge said during a hearing Wednesday morning that an examination found that 52-year-old Ariel Castro is mentally able to understand the charges and assist attorneys in his defense.

Castro has pleaded not guilty to a 329 count indictment that includes multiple kidnapping and rape charges. He's being held on an $8 million bond.  

Authorities accuse him of kidnapping the women between 2002 and 2004 when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old. A trial is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 5....

The most Castro spoke was when he asked the judge to allow him to see the 6-year-old girl he fathered with one of his alleged victims while she was held captive at his home. Castro asked about visitation rights twice to prosecution objections that the request went against an order of no contact....
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/03/19267380-ariel-castro-deemed-mentally-fit-to-stand-trial-denied-access-to-6-year-old-daughter 


Ariel Castro's home an oasis of calm on chaotic block, police records show 25 Jun 2013 By Bill Dedman and Matthew DeLuca
Staff Writers, NBC News

During the more than a decade that Ariel Castro allegedly held kidnapped teenagers and young women captive in his home at 2207 Seymour Ave., police officers were within shouting distance of the house more than a thousand times, according to Cleveland Police Department records analyzed by NBC News.

From the time the first kidnap victim vanished in August 2002 until the three women and a 6-year-old girl emerged from the Castro house on May 6, 2013, police responded to calls on that block 1,099 times — or about once every three and a half days....

The records — police dispatch logs and a few follow-up reports – offer a clue to a central mystery of the case: How could the women have gone undiscovered for so long? Castro’s whitewashed home – despite its plywood-covered windows and padlocked front door — was one of the quietest on a chaotic block, one of the houses making the fewest reports to police....
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/18958755-ariel-castros-home-an-oasis-of-calm-on-chaotic-block-police-records-show 




Convicted killer guilty of ritualistic murder of Welsh pensioner told he will die in prison 2 Jul 2013 By WalesOnline

Judges to consider appeal of Kenneth Mark Shirley, who was jailed for raping a woman after being released from prison for 1987 murder of Mary Wainwright

A convicted murderer who was told he will probably die in prison after he was convicted of a horrific knifepoint sex attack while out on licence is appealing against the convictions.

Kenneth Mark Shirley, 43, was back living in the community, working stacking shelves in Sainsbury's, when he is alleged to have attacked a woman in her own home in Bristol in December 2005.

Last September, Shirley, originally jailed for a murder in Cardiff in 1987, was caged for life after he was found guilty at Bristol Crown Court of wounding and numerous counts of rape and sexual assault....

Shirley was caged for life for the ritualistic murder of 67-year-old Mary Wainwright in Cardiff in 1987 and convicted again of a violent and prolonged sex attack on a Bristol woman in 2009.

The intervening 2005 incident did not come to light until the victim, also from the Bristol area, went to police after he was sentenced in 2009 and told of her alleged ordeal at his hands.

After a meeting in a pub, she said he turned up at her home in a white van, burst in wearing a mask and subjected her to a prolonged and horrific sexual ordeal, stabbing her several times.

Shirley did not give live evidence at his trial, but denied the attack. The jury were left having to decide whether there had been any attack at all and whether the alleged victim correctly identified Shirley.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/convicted-killer-guilty-ritualistic-murder-4808591