The shocking revelation is one of a number of stories to have emerged from neighbors who say they reported unusual goings-on at Castro's Seymour Avenue, Cleveland home to local police who either didn't respond or didn't enter the house when they did show up.
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight all disappeared about a decade ago, when they were in their teens or early 20s. They were rescued Monday after Berry kicked out the bottom portion of a locked screen door and used a neighbor's telephone to call 911.
Israel Lugo, who lives two houses down from Castro, said he heard pounding on some of the doors of the house, which had plastic bags on the windows, in November 2011.
In that instance police responded, but officers only knocked on the front door and left when no one answered.
'They walked to the side of the house and then left,' he told USAToday.
Another neighbor, Nina Samoylicz, who lives three doors down, also reported seeing a naked woman in his backyard two years ago, but police didn't take her seriously when she reported the incident.
'We thought it was funny at first, and then we thought that was weird so we called the cops.' she told CNN. 'They thought we was playing, joking, they didn't believe us.'
Soon after Castro covered his garden in tarps so no-one could see in.
Cleveland police officials said on Tuesday that the department has no records of a call for service to that home.
Neighbor Nina Samoylicz has revealed that one
night two years ago, she and some friends saw a naked woman in Ariel
Castro's backyard
A third call came from some women who lived in a nearby apartment building.
The women, who haven't been identified told Lugo they called police because they saw three young girls crawling on all fours naked with dog leashes around their necks. Three men were controlling them in the backyard.
The women told Lugo they waited two hours but police didn't respond to their calls.
Lugo said he had seen Ariel Casto last Sunday at a nearby park with the girl who now officials think is Berry's daughter.
When Lugo asked Castro whose daughter she was, Castro said that she was his girlfriend's daughter.
Elsie Cintron, Nina Samoylicz's mom also said she once saw a little girl looking out of the house's attic window.
Officers also visited the home on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio in 2004 as part of a child services' investigation.
Police knocked on the door of the home where the three missing girls, Amanda Berry, 26, and Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, were held captive for a decade - but left when no one answered.
Police had been alerted to the man living at the home, Ariel Castro, now a suspect in the abduction, after he inadvertently left a boy at a bus depot while working as a school bus driver. No criminal charges were brought and no follow-up inquiries made.
The three woman escaped the home on Monday night, where it is believed they had been chained for ten years.
Questions will now be asked as to how police and federal investigators failed to find the girls who remained undetected at the home just three miles from the block where they all went missing.
Ariel Castro has lived in the house since 1992. His two brothers - Pedro, 54, and O'Neal, 50, - do not live at the home but were arrested in connection with the three abductions.
Ariel's son said it is conceivable his father may have targeted his youngest kidnapping victim because she was a close friend of his daughter.
'If it's true that he took her captive and forced her into having sex with him and having his child and keeping her hidden and keeping them from sunlight, he really took those girls' lives,' he said.
Chilling photographs from 2001 show a grinning Castro, who is accused of holding three women captive for a decade, standing in front of a locked door - behind which unimaginable horrors may have been unfolding in the basement.
By that point, one of his alleged victims, Michele Knight, had already been missing for a year.
'He doesn't deserve to have his own life anymore. He deserves to be behind bars for the rest of her life. I'm just thankful they're alive,' said Anthony.
'The house was always locked,' remembered Anthony, who appeared visibly tired but reacted with poise throughout the interview. 'There were places we could never go. There were locks on the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage.'
Among his infrequent contact with his father, who separated from his mother in the 1990s, one recent conversation particularly stands out in Anthony's mind.
ve also emerged. Pedro Castro told a TV crew last July that a police forensic excavation being conducted in the neighborhood for Berry's body was 'a waste of time'.
Friends, former schoolmates and
neighbors told MailOnline that Ariel Castro’s eldest brother Pedro was a
‘bad influence’ who had gone from a straight-A student to a hopeless
alcoholic who still lived with his mother at the age of 54.
They also revealed that his brother Onil, 50, also drank too much and that he never acknowledged his neighbors and ‘never smiled’.
Nestor Roman, 58, who went to school with Pedro, said that he went off the rails in his teens and never got back to normal.
He said: ‘Pedro was a straight-A student until he started drinking. He used to help me with my homework, but I was the one who finished my diploma and not him in the end.
‘He guzzled a pint of rum in two shots. He also liked wine and Mad Dog 20/20. He and Onil have been boozing it up for years. That’s all they do.
‘Pedro used to be a biker and he was really into his bikes, but now he just drinks. If any of them was going to be a bad influence it would be him. He was into craziness.'
Pedro lived with Lillian Rodriguez,
71, the mother to all three boys, in a detached white slatted house in a
poor area of Cleveland.
She declined to comment as she returned to the house wearing a light pink blouse and grey trousers.
Neighbors said that even on Sunday as Miss Berry was banging on the door of the home where she was allegedly in prison, the three brothers were relaxing in the sun on their mother's porch.
Earlier in the day, Ariel had been seen in a park with the six-year-old daughter of Amanda Berry who was born whilst she was allegedly in his captivity.
Ailsa Laboy, 37, a mother-of-three, said: ‘I remember on Sunday that Pedro and Onil were out there in front of the house acting really casual. It was about 5.30pm.
‘Ariel came out to speak to them at one point then went back into the house’.
They also revealed that his brother Onil, 50, also drank too much and that he never acknowledged his neighbors and ‘never smiled’.
Nestor Roman, 58, who went to school with Pedro, said that he went off the rails in his teens and never got back to normal.
He said: ‘Pedro was a straight-A student until he started drinking. He used to help me with my homework, but I was the one who finished my diploma and not him in the end.
‘He guzzled a pint of rum in two shots. He also liked wine and Mad Dog 20/20. He and Onil have been boozing it up for years. That’s all they do.
‘Pedro used to be a biker and he was really into his bikes, but now he just drinks. If any of them was going to be a bad influence it would be him. He was into craziness.'
House of horror: Aerial views of a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio
where the three women were held captive for 10 years
She declined to comment as she returned to the house wearing a light pink blouse and grey trousers.
Neighbors said that even on Sunday as Miss Berry was banging on the door of the home where she was allegedly in prison, the three brothers were relaxing in the sun on their mother's porch.
Earlier in the day, Ariel had been seen in a park with the six-year-old daughter of Amanda Berry who was born whilst she was allegedly in his captivity.
Ailsa Laboy, 37, a mother-of-three, said: ‘I remember on Sunday that Pedro and Onil were out there in front of the house acting really casual. It was about 5.30pm.
‘Ariel came out to speak to them at one point then went back into the house’.
Piecing case together: Members of the FBI
evidence response team carry out the front screen door from a house
where three women were held, in Cleveland
Cleveland
Mayor Frank Jackson told a news conference on Tuesday that police also
responded to the west side home in 2000 following a disturbance in the
street.
Authorities said that public records show no complaints or building violations at the Seymour Avenue home. There is also no record of any emergency service or fire department calls.
On Tuesday, Cleveland Police said: 'Every single lead was followed up on no matter how small. We dug up yards, canvassed neighborhoods. [The] real hero is Amanda Berry.'
Until now the search for the missing women had been fruitless, a series of false leads and bitter disappointment for the desperate families.
Last July, an empty lot on the west side of Cleveland was excavated for the body of Amanda Berry by forensic crews working on a tip from a convict.
The small lot on West 30th Street and Wade Avenue - which is two blocks from the Seymour Avenue home where the women were held - turned up nothing.
At the time, a local resident named Pedro Castro told Fox 8 that the search was 'a waste of money'.
Michelle Knight, who was 20 years old when she went missing in August 2002, was last seen at a cousin's house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue.
Three years later, in April 2003, Amanda Berry, disappeared after leaving her job at a Burger King - at West 110th Street and Lorain. It was the day before her 17th birthday.
And a year later, Gina DeJesus, then 14 years old, was last seen leaving her middle school at West 105th Street and Lorain.
All three were found safe on Monday night after Berry bolted from a home on Seymour Avenue, about three miles from where they were last seen.
She told police that she and the other girls were being held prisoner by Ariel Castro, 52, who has been arrested along with his two brothers on suspicion of kidnapping.
The exact circumstances of the abductions is currently unclear, and it is not known whether or not the kidnapper deliberately targeted the block where all three victims were taken.
The story of Amanda and Gina's
disappearance has been well known in the area for the past decade, as
their relatives have continually held vigils and kept the story alive in
the press.
Michelle's case was less high profile - she was 18 at the time of her disappearance on Aug. 23, 2002 and was last seen at a cousin's house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue.
Michelle was not officially registered as missing on the Ohio Police Missing Persons website.
Her grandmother, Deborah Knight, told the Plain Dealer that some family members had concluded, based in part on suggestions by police and social workers at the time, that she had run away after he son was removed from her custody.
But mother Barbara Knight told Cleveland.com that long after police stopped searching, she kept the hunt up for her daughter handing out fliers on Cleveland's West Side.
She told them that several years ago she believes she saw her daughter walking with an older man at a shopping plaza on West 117th Street.
She said that she shouted out her daughter's name but the woman, who was being pulled along by her companion, did not turn around.
Ms Knight, told the newspaper she never believed her daughter would have vanished without a trace on her own and that she kept searching long after police gave up looking for her.
'I'm praying that if it is her, she will come back with me, so I can help her recover from what she has been through,' the mother was quoted as saying.
'So much has happened in these 10 years. She has a younger sister she still has not met.'
Three years later Amanda Berry disappeared on April 21, 2003, a day before her 17th birthday.
Amanda vanished shortly after she called her sister to say that she was getting a ride home from her job at Burger King.
Amanda's mother, Louwana Miller, who had been hospitalized for months with pancreatitis and other ailments, died in March 2006 aged 44.
She had spent the previous three years looking for her daughter, whose disappearance took a toll as her health steadily deteriorated, family and friends said.
Councilwoman Dona Brady said she had spent many hours with Miller, who never gave up hope that her daughter was alive.
'She literally died of a broken heart,' Ms Brady said.
In April 2004, Miller turned to a psychic on Montel Williams’ nationally syndicated television show.
The psychic, Sylvia Browne said She’s not alive, honey.'
'Your daughter’s not the kind who wouldn’t call.'
Browne said she envisioned Amanda’s jacket in a Dumpster with 'DNA on it.'
Miller went back to the West Side home where she had been keeping Amanda’s things in careful order and cleaned up.
She gave away her daughter’s
computer and took down her pictures. 'I’m not even buying my baby a
Christmas present this year,' she told local newspaper Cleveland.
In 2009, Wisconsin investigators believed there were striking similarities between Amanda and the body found by deer hunters.
But test results comparing Amanda's DNA and that of the body came back negative.
In January, a prison inmate was sentenced to four and a half years after admitting he provided a false burial tip in the disappearance of Berry.
A judge in Cleveland sentenced Robert Wolford on his guilty plea to obstruction of justice, making a false report and making a false alarm.
Last summer, Wolford tipped authorities to look for Berry's remains in a Cleveland lot. He was taken to the location, which was dug up with backhoes.
Two men arrested for questioning in the disappearance of in 2004 were released from the city jail in 2006 after officers didn't find her body during a search of the men's house.
One of the men was transferred to the Cuyahoga County Jail on unrelated charges, while the other was allowed to go free, police said.
A year after Georgina DeJesus, then 14, disappeared on her way home from Wilbur Wright Middle School on Parkhurst Drive.
Known as Gina, the seventh-grader in special education classes, was last seen near a payphone in Cleveland in mid-afternoon on 2 April 2004 with a classmate.
The pair had called the friend's mother asking for a sleepover at the Gina's house, but when the girl's mother said no the pair parted ways.
'I gave her the $1.25 to catch the bus because it was cold outside,' said her mother, Nancy Ruiz.
But she has 'the tendency to walk home and use the money for' after-school snacks, she explained.
A bloodhound tracked her scent a block from the corner of West 105th Street and Lorain Avenue, where she was last seen, to West 104th Street, then the trail went cold.
Gina’s cousin Sylvia Colon told local press in 2004 that her father, Felix, was 'beyond desperate' to bring her home.
Ruiz’s yard and house in the 3700 block of West 71st Street become a shrine for Gina.
She lit candles on her porch on a nightly basis and prayed for the safe return of her daughter.
Two men arrested for questioning
in the disappearance of DeJesus in 2004 were released from the city
jail in 2006 after officers didn't find her body during a search of the
men's house.
One of the men was transferred to the Cuyahoga County Jail on unrelated charges, while the other was allowed to go free, police said.
In September 2006, police acting on a tip tore up the concrete floor of the garage and used a cadaver dog to search unsuccessfully for DeJesus' body.
Investigators confiscated 19 pieces of evidence during their search but declined to comment on the significance of the items then.
Last year, Ginas' mother Nancy Ruiz raised concerns that her daughter might have been the victim of human trafficking.
'I always said it from the beginning; she was sold to the highest bidder,' she said.
Just two months ago there was a vigil to mark the ninth anniversary of her disappearance.
DAILYMAIL
Authorities said that public records show no complaints or building violations at the Seymour Avenue home. There is also no record of any emergency service or fire department calls.
On Tuesday, Cleveland Police said: 'Every single lead was followed up on no matter how small. We dug up yards, canvassed neighborhoods. [The] real hero is Amanda Berry.'
Until now the search for the missing women had been fruitless, a series of false leads and bitter disappointment for the desperate families.
Last July, an empty lot on the west side of Cleveland was excavated for the body of Amanda Berry by forensic crews working on a tip from a convict.
The small lot on West 30th Street and Wade Avenue - which is two blocks from the Seymour Avenue home where the women were held - turned up nothing.
At the time, a local resident named Pedro Castro told Fox 8 that the search was 'a waste of money'.
Michelle Knight, who was 20 years old when she went missing in August 2002, was last seen at a cousin's house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue.
Three years later, in April 2003, Amanda Berry, disappeared after leaving her job at a Burger King - at West 110th Street and Lorain. It was the day before her 17th birthday.
And a year later, Gina DeJesus, then 14 years old, was last seen leaving her middle school at West 105th Street and Lorain.
All three were found safe on Monday night after Berry bolted from a home on Seymour Avenue, about three miles from where they were last seen.
She told police that she and the other girls were being held prisoner by Ariel Castro, 52, who has been arrested along with his two brothers on suspicion of kidnapping.
The exact circumstances of the abductions is currently unclear, and it is not known whether or not the kidnapper deliberately targeted the block where all three victims were taken.
A neighbor of accused kidnapper Ariel Castro has
revealed that she saw a naked woman in his backyard two years ago and
reported the incident to police
2002 - Michelle Knight - disappeared near her cousin's house
Combing: Cleveland police and FBI agents search a
yard. There were apparently signs that dirt had recently been moved in
the backyard of the house
Michelle's case was less high profile - she was 18 at the time of her disappearance on Aug. 23, 2002 and was last seen at a cousin's house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue.
Michelle was not officially registered as missing on the Ohio Police Missing Persons website.
Her grandmother, Deborah Knight, told the Plain Dealer that some family members had concluded, based in part on suggestions by police and social workers at the time, that she had run away after he son was removed from her custody.
But mother Barbara Knight told Cleveland.com that long after police stopped searching, she kept the hunt up for her daughter handing out fliers on Cleveland's West Side.
She told them that several years ago she believes she saw her daughter walking with an older man at a shopping plaza on West 117th Street.
She said that she shouted out her daughter's name but the woman, who was being pulled along by her companion, did not turn around.
Ms Knight, told the newspaper she never believed her daughter would have vanished without a trace on her own and that she kept searching long after police gave up looking for her.
'I'm praying that if it is her, she will come back with me, so I can help her recover from what she has been through,' the mother was quoted as saying.
'So much has happened in these 10 years. She has a younger sister she still has not met.'
2003 - Amanda Berry - vanished after finishing work at Burger King
Search: Amanda Berry disappeared on April 21, 2003, a day before her 17th birthday
Amanda vanished shortly after she called her sister to say that she was getting a ride home from her job at Burger King.
Amanda's mother, Louwana Miller, who had been hospitalized for months with pancreatitis and other ailments, died in March 2006 aged 44.
She had spent the previous three years looking for her daughter, whose disappearance took a toll as her health steadily deteriorated, family and friends said.
Councilwoman Dona Brady said she had spent many hours with Miller, who never gave up hope that her daughter was alive.
'She literally died of a broken heart,' Ms Brady said.
In April 2004, Miller turned to a psychic on Montel Williams’ nationally syndicated television show.
The psychic, Sylvia Browne said She’s not alive, honey.'
'Your daughter’s not the kind who wouldn’t call.'
Browne said she envisioned Amanda’s jacket in a Dumpster with 'DNA on it.'
Miller went back to the West Side home where she had been keeping Amanda’s things in careful order and cleaned up.
This is the Burger King at West 110th Street and
Lorain Avenue where Amanda Berry was last seen in April 2003. The other
two girls were also last seen on the same block
In 2009, Wisconsin investigators believed there were striking similarities between Amanda and the body found by deer hunters.
But test results comparing Amanda's DNA and that of the body came back negative.
In January, a prison inmate was sentenced to four and a half years after admitting he provided a false burial tip in the disappearance of Berry.
A judge in Cleveland sentenced Robert Wolford on his guilty plea to obstruction of justice, making a false report and making a false alarm.
Last summer, Wolford tipped authorities to look for Berry's remains in a Cleveland lot. He was taken to the location, which was dug up with backhoes.
Two men arrested for questioning in the disappearance of in 2004 were released from the city jail in 2006 after officers didn't find her body during a search of the men's house.
One of the men was transferred to the Cuyahoga County Jail on unrelated charges, while the other was allowed to go free, police said.
2004 - Gina Dejesus - last seen on way home from school with friend
Missing: Gina DeJesus, aged 14, went missing on
April 2, 2004, on her way home from Wilbur Wright Middle School on
Parkhurst Drive
Known as Gina, the seventh-grader in special education classes, was last seen near a payphone in Cleveland in mid-afternoon on 2 April 2004 with a classmate.
The pair had called the friend's mother asking for a sleepover at the Gina's house, but when the girl's mother said no the pair parted ways.
'I gave her the $1.25 to catch the bus because it was cold outside,' said her mother, Nancy Ruiz.
But she has 'the tendency to walk home and use the money for' after-school snacks, she explained.
A bloodhound tracked her scent a block from the corner of West 105th Street and Lorain Avenue, where she was last seen, to West 104th Street, then the trail went cold.
Gina’s cousin Sylvia Colon told local press in 2004 that her father, Felix, was 'beyond desperate' to bring her home.
Ruiz’s yard and house in the 3700 block of West 71st Street become a shrine for Gina.
She lit candles on her porch on a nightly basis and prayed for the safe return of her daughter.
Distraught: Felix DeJesus, holding a banner
showing his daughter's photograph, standing by a memorial in his living
room in Cleveland (file photo)
Victim: Last year, Gina's mother Nancy Ruiz raised concerns that her daughter might have been the victim of human trafficking
One of the men was transferred to the Cuyahoga County Jail on unrelated charges, while the other was allowed to go free, police said.
In September 2006, police acting on a tip tore up the concrete floor of the garage and used a cadaver dog to search unsuccessfully for DeJesus' body.
Investigators confiscated 19 pieces of evidence during their search but declined to comment on the significance of the items then.
Last year, Ginas' mother Nancy Ruiz raised concerns that her daughter might have been the victim of human trafficking.
'I always said it from the beginning; she was sold to the highest bidder,' she said.
Just two months ago there was a vigil to mark the ninth anniversary of her disappearance.
DAILYMAIL
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