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Castro was the scion of a large family that had migrated after World War II from Yauco, a part of Puerto Rico famous for its coffee, to Cleveland, then an industrial power house by Lake Erie.
His father, Nona Castro, who died in 2004, ran a used car lot, while his uncle Julio "Cesi" Castro, 78, remains a pillar of the city's Hispanic community with the Caribe Grocery corner store he still runs.
On Seymour Avenue, Castro by and large had a good reputation.
Julio Castro, however, said his nephew isolated himself from his extended family after his father's death in 2004 -- the year DeJesus went missing, a year after Berry disappeared, and two years after Knight was last seen.
For 22 years, Castro drove school buses, but not without a number of incidents that ultimately led to his firing in November 2012 from a job that paid $18.91 a hour, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper reported.
In 2004, he left a special-education pupil alone in a parked bus while he grabbed a burger. In 2009 he was suspended for an illegal U-turn. In 2012 he improperly used a bus to go shopping, earning a second suspension.
The final straw came last year when he walked away from his vehicle at an elementary school two blocks from his home for a couple of hours "to rest," according to school board records.
After hours, Castro played bass guitar -- on his Facebook page he recently posted an image of a custom-made six-string bass -- with a popular local Latino band, Grupo Kanon, on and off for 15 years, the Plain Dealer reported.
"He could do the job, but he became increasingly defensive and unreliable in recent years," said band leader Ivan Ruiz, who knew Castro for about 20 years. "It was like he couldn't leave the house."
"He was a senile kind of person. A crazy kind of person. He was weird... He was always late for gigs and rehearsals. He always had to leave at the moment. I fired him last year."
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...-suspect-us-kidnapping-jekyll-and-hyde-figure
His father, Nona Castro, who died in 2004, ran a used car lot, while his uncle Julio "Cesi" Castro, 78, remains a pillar of the city's Hispanic community with the Caribe Grocery corner store he still runs.
On Seymour Avenue, Castro by and large had a good reputation.
Julio Castro, however, said his nephew isolated himself from his extended family after his father's death in 2004 -- the year DeJesus went missing, a year after Berry disappeared, and two years after Knight was last seen.
For 22 years, Castro drove school buses, but not without a number of incidents that ultimately led to his firing in November 2012 from a job that paid $18.91 a hour, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper reported.
In 2004, he left a special-education pupil alone in a parked bus while he grabbed a burger. In 2009 he was suspended for an illegal U-turn. In 2012 he improperly used a bus to go shopping, earning a second suspension.
The final straw came last year when he walked away from his vehicle at an elementary school two blocks from his home for a couple of hours "to rest," according to school board records.
After hours, Castro played bass guitar -- on his Facebook page he recently posted an image of a custom-made six-string bass -- with a popular local Latino band, Grupo Kanon, on and off for 15 years, the Plain Dealer reported.
"He could do the job, but he became increasingly defensive and unreliable in recent years," said band leader Ivan Ruiz, who knew Castro for about 20 years. "It was like he couldn't leave the house."
"He was a senile kind of person. A crazy kind of person. He was weird... He was always late for gigs and rehearsals. He always had to leave at the moment. I fired him last year."
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...-suspect-us-kidnapping-jekyll-and-hyde-figure
