Ariel Castro, the man who was convicted of imprisoning three women in his Cleveland home for a decade last month, was found dead in his cell after hanging himself on Tuesday night, according to USA Today.
Castro had been sentenced to life in prison plus 1,000 years after pleading guilty to over 900 counts against him; the guilty plea was made in part to avoid the death penalty in the likely even that he had been found guilty after a trial.
Castro was kept in protective custody at the Ohio Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, and was found in his cell at 9:20 p.m. Despite efforts by prison medical staff to revive him Castro was pronounced dead at 10:52 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Times.
"He was housed in protective custody which means he was in a cell by himself and rounds are required every 30 minutes at staggered intervals," JoEllen Smith, a spokesperson with the Ohio Corrections Department, told CNN. "A thorough review of this incident is under way."
Juan Alicea, Castro's brother-in-law, told CNN that the family learned about Castro's death via the media. Maria Castro-Montes, a family member who told CNN that they had cut off all contact with Castro, cried and thought of the victims when she heard the news.
"It was just shock and part of it was even relief in hopes that now this will just end all of it and that his name will not be out in the spotlight for years and years to come," Castro-Montes told CNN. "I just hope the victims can move past this now."
Craig Weintraub, one of Castro's defense attorneys, appeared on the "Today" show and said that the prison officials should have done more to make sure that his client didn't hurt himself, according to the New York Daily News.
"I understand that the public in general is probably going to say, 'Well, good riddance.' But this is a human being," Weintraub said. "We are in a civilized society and we expect that the person will be protected when they're institutionalized. And so there is an obligation on the part of prisons... to ensure that there won't be a suicide or anything else, and we pray that there wasn't anything else."
