Ariel Castro Committed Suicide

Just saw the news. Kinda feel disappointed that he didn't live long enough to suffer the consequence of prison. Anyone glad he's dead or would you rather know he's spending his entire misrable life going through same prison routine like the movie groundhog day?

Source

The world is likely better off without him in it. Life in prison was a chance for him to still live despite his horrendous crimes, but if he ended his life, then it's over. Years of suffering were never going to undo the damage he caused. Our desire for vengeance might make it feel like a bit of a let down, as though we need more pain to reinforce our own joy, but this is simply a sad story of a twisted man who damaged many lives. And now his life is over.

There's nothing more to it. His deplorable life has ended even as people still heal from the wounds he left behind. His legacy is mere calluses and scars.

It is what it is; there's nothing nice about revenge-lust, even for the worst people.

Good.

I'm usually against the death penalty, unless it's for an open and shut case that is absolutely horrific--as this was--but even if I didn't want my tax dollars going towards keeping this monster alive for the next 40 or so years, I didn't want to hear this.

He should not have been the one to decide to end his own life. That choice should have been made for him, and it's a choice that should have been enforced.

I don't seem to be able to muster the same level of happiness for events like these that some other people do. When a man keeps three women captive for several years and then commits suicide, I see nothing good there. If we're really so much better than these people, we shouldn't get off on the death of other human beings, no matter what the circumstances were.

Couldn't agree with this more.

This, I agree with this completely. I don't know how people can celebrate the death of another human being. It honestly sickens me to think that there's people that get off on stuff like this. There really is nothing good about that.

I remember when husband and I saw Obama go on TV to let the country know that bin Laden was killed, our neighbors on either side, and upstairs were all celebrating pretty loudly. I couldn't believe it, yeah an evil man was dead, but that's still no reason to not show respect for a fellow human.

I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

I concur, your neutralness.

A human being judged and sentenced to serve a spell in prison should be kept alive in prison to carry out their sentence.

The coward's path but dead is dead.

A horrible end to an awful tale.

He imprisoned three women for a decade. And he can't cope with being put in jail for 5 weeks. Coward.

He did to himself what the sentencing should've been.

It is good that tax payer money wont be wasted on sustaining this guy in prison for 40 years. I don't celebrate his death, but it gets my nod of approval, and then we move on with our lives.

Rest In Pieces

The guy deserved to die, let him roast in hell where he belongs.

I'm not joking when I say I got sick reading that article. I mean fuck... Jesus Christ man...

As for the suicide, there's no winning in this situation. Those 10 years already happened and no matter what the punishment is, it's not gonna change that fact.

I'm still a little bit light headed. I need some fresh air.

My reaction to the title was a combination of "Who?" and "Aw, shit." Then I saw the comments, and all that remained was "Aw, shit."

Escaping punishment. There is only this life, and we didn't get the chance to see that he was publicly punished. What he did to those girls he did for something like a decade, and he only faced a reaction to what he did for a few short months. Just reaction, not even his punishment.

People celebrating his death are gross.

I'm not shedding any tears for him, but it's a shame he won't live to either suffer for his crimes or rehabilitate.

@collywolly said:

Yes.

Well, it's understandably difficult to be sad for him. I'd have preferred he rot in prison for as long as his natural life would have allowed, but I suppose he wasn't keen on testing himself against a millennium-long sentence.

@gamer_152: Agreed.

I always feel terrible crimes like this highlight how flawed the notion of "justice" is. We cannot undo what happened to these people, and Castro's incarceration or death certainly won't do that. (not to mean we shouldn't ensure he can't perform the same crimes again)

Ultimately, I feel sad both because of what was taken from these victims and because Castro decided to walk a path that led to him committing these monstrous acts instead of an alternate path.

Well the average death row inmate costs the taxpayers more than the average lifer, so...

Was going to Little Mermaid joke but doesn't seem appropriate.

What would drive a person to do what this man did?

Couldn't handle prison. Kind of ridiculous since he imprisoned those poor girls. What a sad and disgusting person he was.

The man got out of being served justice. One last cowardly act from a horrible man.

"Castro's is the second high-profile suicide at an Ohio prison within the span of a month. On Aug. 4, death row inmate Billy Slagle was found hanged in his cell just days before his scheduled execution. He was condemned to death for fatally stabbing a neighbor in Cleveland."


http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/04/20315504-cleveland-kidnapper-and-rapist-ariel-castro-found-hanged-in-prison-cell-official-says?lite

CONSPIRACY!

I do not celebrate nor mourn the death of this man.

For those who wish that he suffered more, or think that justice is equal to punitive suffering, grow up. The justice system is there not to flatter your sadism, or create such childish notions of suffering equivalence. The purpose of the justice system is to hold society to a publicly agreed standard of behaviour; those that can't abide by it are removed from society. The punishment is not supposed to be that the inmate is subjected to the horrors of the modern prison system (that we laugh about, because prison rape is apparently hysterical), the punishment is the denial of the comfort and freedom of society. He has been removed from society, and then removed himself completely from the earth. The public trust is that people who can't follow society's law will not enjoy society's benefits, and that has been achieved here. He did not go free by killing himself, he's merely ceased to exist.

Never heard of him.

First off, did I miss it, or does the article not say how he did it?

I'm not happy about it or celebrating his death, but I don't really care he's gone or have pity after what he did.

I assume there are people who are "happy" but what if most of us simply are relieved justice is carried out?

None of us were in anyway involved with the Castro thing, so there is no reason for us to feel joy in his death, it is not revenge for us. But we hear this story and we hear that the man gets to live despite his horrible crimes. In all the fiction we read/watch/play, the villain usually gets what he deserves for the crimes (death). Our expectation that the bad guy gets punished is met and we feel better. And before you say "he goes to jail, that is justice", yes but while jail is a punishment, it is not perceived as enough.

Just a theory though.

@super2j:

It's less about justice being served and more about people wanting to sate their own emotions over cases such as these. Justice is merely the mask they use to hide this truth.

Yep, shame on you for not mourning the death of an absolutely sick fuck. He did an evil unforgivable thing and took the coward's way out. I would've much preferred if he were placed in front of the three women he raped for a decade, and they could all take turns beating the living shit out of him.

Just like the end of DeathProof...

The world is better off without monsters like that in it. I don't take any joy in his death, but I'm glad that we're not going to be paying to keep him alive.

Good. One less psychopath to feed.

That's the way most criminals are. They can rape, brutally torture, and kill people for decades, and take joy in it, but when they end up in jail, they're suddenly afraid and end up killing themselves after a week so as not to face justice. That's all it is. They're all fucking cowards.

Has everyone forgotten that at some point this guy was just a normal person? He shouldn't be absolved of his crimes or sins but this whole thing is a tragedy. Both the situation he put those women in and the fact that he made bad choices and wasted his life. A lot of times I always wonder when things like this happen that if dealt a different set of cards how someone's life would have turned out.

@leinad44 said:

Well put, couldn't have said it better myself

A human life is not separate from the things it's used for. A bad person will get no respect from me in death, simply because they were once alive.

Exactly this.

I'm just glad he's dead, though I would have preferred an execution. Normally I don't support the death penalty, but this fucking animal.... What a disgusting waste of oxygen.

@gamer_152 said:

Do you find happiness if he was kept in a small cell for the rest of his life? It's either one or the other you would prefer. It's his and his fault only to have that fate, and what he did was horrible, so it's a sort of closure for people that were keeping track of this whole mess.

@super2j said:

I think it's very important we make a distinction between the fictional worlds and the real world. We cannot and should not model the real world the same way we model fictional ones. When you kill someone fictional there are no ethical complications (well, outside of your fiction possibly carrying a larger message or having an affect on the people who read it), the same is obviously not true in the real world. I don't believe "It made us happier" or "It met out expectations" is an excuse for killing someone.

If people are happy that justice has been done that's something different, but I think a lot of the time people are perceiving justice as simply seeing someone doing something bad and something equally bad being done back to them. I think that's an appeal to the "Two wrongs make a right" fallacy. Punishment is important to deter people from committing crimes and prisons keep dangerous people separate from the rest of society, but I don't believe the legal system should be there to institute a kind of "Eye for an eye" mentality. We must also remember that in committing suicide Castro managed to escape the punishment that he was legally assigned, and I think you have to answer difficult questions when you start celebrating people subverting the legal system.