One of three women held
in an Ohio home for about a decade has told their captor he will "face
hell for eternity", as he was jailed for life.
Michelle Knight, 32, wept as she delivered her victim impact statement before Ariel Castro. The 53-year-old former school bus driver, who was imprisoned for life without parole, plus 1,000 years, told the court he was not a monster.
The court heard he kept his victims chained up and repeatedly raped them.
The captives, Ms Knight, 32, Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, 23, were rescued in May after one of them escaped from the Cleveland home.
n her statement on Thursday, Ms Knight told how Castro went to church every Sunday, before coming home to "torture" the women.
"My name is Michelle Knight and I would like to tell you what 11 years was like for me"
"From this moment on, I will not let you define me, or affect who I am. I will live on, you will die a little every day."
She was the only victim to speak at the hearing.
Castro then made a rambling statement to the court in which he blamed his sex addiction, his former wife and the FBI for not properly investigating the kidnappings.
"I believe I am addicted to porn to the point that it really makes me impulsive and I just don't realise what I'm doing is wrong," he said.
The former bandsman continued: "To be a musician and to be a monster like you're trying to say that I am - I don't think I can handle that - I'm a happy person inside."
He told the court that he had been "driven by sex", adding: "I'm not a violent predator… I'm not a monster, I'm a normal person.
"I'm just sick. I have an addiction, just like an alcoholic has an addiction."
He said he never planned to abduct the women, but acted on the spur of the moment when he kidnapped his first victim.
While claiming that most of the sex with his victims had been "consensual", Castro turned to their families and to Ms Knight to say he was "truly sorry".
"I just hope they find it in their hearts to forgive me," he added.
The hearing earlier heard testimony from policewoman Barbara Johnson, one of the officers who found the women.
She said that as she and another officer searched the darkened house, she shone a flashlight on herself so the women could see they were really police.
Ariel Castro: "I'm not a monster, I'm a normal person, I am just sick, I have an addiction"
"And she just kept repeating, 'you saved us, you saved us,'" the policewoman told the court.
But Ms DeJesus was initially too afraid to leave her room, she added.
One investigator said there had been large amounts of manacles in the house, which had been used to restrain the women.
One woman was forced to wear a motorcycle helmet while chained in the basement. After she tried to escape, she was almost garrotted with a vacuum cord.
The victims were also chained to a bedroom heater or inside a van.
An FBI agent told the hearing the house's bedroom windows had been boarded shut from the inside, and locks were placed on the outside of the doors.
Special Agent Andrew Burke testified that Castro would sometimes give his victims money after raping them. Then he would require them to pay him back if they wanted items from a store.
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