updated 10:07 PM EDT, Fri May 10, 2013
(CNN) -- DNA tests confirm that Ariel Castro is the
father of a 6-year-old girl born to one of the three women he is accused
of keeping in captivity for more than a decade, the Ohio attorney
general's office said Friday.
Castro's mother: My son is sick
Ohio victims detail life in captivity
Castro's DNA did not
match that from any other open Ohio cases, according to Dan Tierney, a
spokesman for the attorney general's office. National results are
pending through the FBI, he said.
Amanda Berry's 6-year-old
daughter was among those rescued Monday when Berry escaped from the
home where police say she had been held since Castro allegedly lured her
into his car on April 21, 2003.
Also freed: Michelle Knight, who disappeared in 2002, and Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, who vanished in 2004.
Castro's mother: My son is sick
Ohio victims detail life in captivity
The man accused of
abducting them spent Friday in a 9-by-9-foot northern Ohio jail cell
with a bed, sink, toilet, steel door and window, through which he is
watched around-the-clock, said Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office
spokesman John O'Brien. Castro is on suicide prevention -- which is
standard procedure for high-profile inmates -- according to O'Brien.
A day earlier, a judge ordered he be held Thursday on $8 million bond on kidnapping and rape charges.
Cuyahoga County
Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said he would seek additional charges against
Castro for "each and every act of sexual violence, each day of
kidnapping, all his attempted murders and each act of aggravated
murder."
The attempted and aggravated murders refer to instances in which Castro allegedly forced miscarriages, according to McGinty.
According to an initial
incident report obtained by CNN, Knight told investigators that she
became pregnant at least five times while in captivity, and each time
Castro would repeatedly starve and punch her in the stomach to induce a
miscarriage.
Prosecutors are assessing whether to pursue the death penalty, if Castro is convicted.
Meanwhile, questions
continue to surround Knight, whose disappearance generated far less
publicity and attention than did those of Berry and DeJesus.
Cleveland police removed
Knight's name from an FBI database of missing people in November 2003
-- 15 months after her family reported her missing -- police said. They
did so after "failing to locate a parent, guardian or other reporting
person to confirm that Ms. Knight was still missing."
Police said, though, that her missing person's case remained open and was checked on as recently as November 2012.
Even as of Friday night,
Knight hadn't spoken yet with her mother, Barbara, a family
spokesperson said. In fact, Knight's family then had no idea where she
was and had asked police for information on her whereabouts.
Her grandmother, Deborah
Knight, went to the house where DeJesus is staying on Friday, said
she'd heard Knight might be there and "besides, Gina's parents here have
been waiting to meet us."
Without delving into
specifics, a source close to the investigation told CNN that Knight "is
in a safe place and very comfortable."
Cleveland police have
been subject to intense criticism from some quarters over their handling
of missing persons cases, but city officials have said they did
everything they could to find the missing women.
In Friday's statement, city officials said police checked on Knight's case in November.
Knight has been
discharged from Cleveland's MetroHealth Medical Center, hospital
spokeswoman Tina Shaerban-Arundel said Friday hours after the hospital
said in a Facebook posting that she was in "good spirits" and "extremely
grateful" for the flowers, gifts and the support of the Cleveland
Courage Fund. The latter is a vehicle for raising that helps nonprofit
organizations provide services to the three women.
Berry and DeJesus were released days ago and are now staying with relatives.
According to the initial
report, the women told investigators that they were chained in the
basement of the home, but later moved upstairs to rooms on the second
floor. They were allowed out of the home only twice, and then just
briefly, according to the document.
Castro would frequently
test the women by pretending to leave and then discipline any of them if
they had moved, according to a law enforcement source.
Storm Pusztay, who lives
behind the house, told CNN's Piers Morgan on Friday that he spotted
Castro a few times outside with the girl he believes was Berry's
daughter.
Speakers often blasted
loud music from the front of the house, Pusztay recalled, while dogs
walked on the property. The neighbor added that Castro's yard was
further obscured by tarps he put up, and trees.
"It's so upsetting, because he was so close," said Pusztay, who had three daughters living with him.
Castro has confessed to
some of the allegations aginst him, a law enforcement source closely
involved with the investigation told CNN on Thursday.
Authorities have also
been reviewing a lengthy document described by a law enforcement source
as "more of a diary" in which the source said Castro cites being abused
by family members as justification for his actions.
On Friday, they boarded
up his Seymour Avenue home to preserve the crime scene, said Cleveland's
deputy police chief Ed Tomba. Authorities plan to later erect a fence
around the home.
The ordeal has rattled
neighbors like Juan Perez, who had viewed Castro as a "very social,
happy-go-lucky ... good guy" but now think just the opposite.
"We feel lied to and
we're ashamed because we couldn't help earlier," an emotional Perez told
CNN on Friday. "... I just can't put it all together still."
CNN's Greg Botelho, Pamela Brown, Susan Candiotti and Kristen Kiraly contributed to this report.