So. Ariel Castro apparently choked himself out in prison.
I have tried to imagine my thoughts on that if I were one of his victims. I think the natural reaction after being freed from the suffering those girls experienced would be to want your captor to know the same feeling. Then again, to delight in that brings you do his level, does it not? Does eye for an eye ever really work? Personally, I'm not one bent on revenge. I think everyone gets what they put out there sooner or later whether we witness them get it or not.
The prosecutor had some interesting words on the situation:
"These degenerate molesters are cowards," Timothy J. McGinty said. "... This man couldn't take, for even a month, a small portion of what he had dished out for more than a decade."
I think that's thought-provoking. Or could he have been murdered? He was under protection. Doesn't that mean there's a camera viewing his cell at all times? Is there no footage of what happened? Either way, meh. Doesn't change much.
If I were one of those girls after learning of his sentence, sure, I'd be happy knowing death wasn't coming for him quickly, that he'd have to sit in a cell without being able to feed many of his compulsions, until he grew old and eventually died. Every inmate in there would know his face and we all know that prisoners don't exactly take kindly to men who commit sexual crimes against women or children. If he were ever released into the general population, I'm sure he'd get a bit of the punishment he inflicted on others.
But on the other hand, he'd also be entitled to some basic rights and privileges that his victims were not. Regular meals, TV, education, exercise, visitors, friendships, use of the Internet, etc. And most of all, protection. Even though it failed him, (or killed him if you think he was murdered) he was treated as special and he was monitored and kept separate from other inmates.
The one thing that sticks out to me about Ariel Castro is his personal statements in the courtroom. He truly didn't see himself as a monster. He's either an incredible actor, or a very sick sociopath to the nth degree. He placed blame on his victims, his upbringing, his ex-wife for her own death due to injuries she sustained by his hands, law enforcement for not finding his victims earlier, pretty much everyone besides himself. It was both disgusting and fascinating all at the same time.
So, the way I would reconcile all of this in my head if I were one of his victims is this: Ariel Castro was weaker than all three of us. He lasted only a month, in a protected cell, with plumbing and food and family visits knowing he could get a free education. Hell, he could even walk outside and feel the sun on his face. Probably once a day. But we lasted over a decade being starved, raped, beaten, traumatized and isolated, not knowing if we'd survive the next hour. We're free to live our lives as we choose and he's dead. He was so self-righteous in his courtroom speech, yet he was actually so broken, he didn't even possess the will to live. I can't imagine a worse punishment than being so mentally and emotionally damaged within your own self that you lose, one of if not the strongest human forces in existence. I'd shrug my shoulders and be relieved I wouldn't have to sit through future Dateline episodes watching him on CNN, talking about how we had "harmony". All the harmony I know exists in the thousands of tiny, white cotton fibers sewn together and wound around his neck to end his time on earth. And I seriously doubt they do interviews from hell.
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