Cleveland Kidnapper Ariel Castro 'Calm and Cooperative' in His New Prison Home

Castro is in solitary until a decision is made on his permanent prison.

ByABC News
August 3, 2013, 10:32 PM

Aug. 3, 2013— -- Kidnapper Ariel Castro has been "calm and cooperative" since being moved to his temporary prison home where he will stay until Ohio officials determine where he will spend the rest of his life, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said today.

Castro was moved to Lorain Correctional Institution at 6:25 p.m. on Friday where he'll be in solitary confinement, Department of Corrections Spokeswoman JoEllen Smith told ABC News.

Lorain is a "reception prison" where Castro will be evaluated before being moved to his still undetermined permanent prison, she said. He may be at Lorain for weeks.

Castro accepted a plea deal on July 27 that sends him to prison for life plus "not less than 1,000 years" with no chance of parole for abducting three women and keeping them as sex slaves for over a decade.

At his sentencing hearing this week, he shocked a Cleveland court by saying he is "not a monster," "lived a normal life" and that the sex he had with the three women he held captive for more than a decade was "consensual."

Castro's statement came after one of his victims, the petite Michelle Knight, confronted him for the "hell" she endured in his house for 11 years.

Castro showed no reaction to the remarks by Knight. Instead, he gave a rambling speech in which he depicted himself as a person who had "everything going" for himself but was plagued by an addiction to porn.

Castro, 53, also denied that he ever raped Knight or his two other victims, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, during the years they were incarcerated in his house.

"Most of the sex that went on in the house, and probably all of it, was consensual," Castro said.

"These people are trying to paint me as a monster. I'm not a monster. I'm sick. My sexual problem, it's so bad on my mind," Castro said.

"God as my witness, I never beat these women like they're trying to say that I did. I never tortured them," he said.

He insisted "there was a lot of harmony" in his house among himself and his captives.

Castro had such an emotional attachment to the home that prosecutors said he broke down in tears when he had to sign over the property deed last week, saying it was wrong to tear it down because he had so many happy memories there.

When Castro finished, Judge Michael Russo thanked Knight for her "remarkable restraint" during the statement.

"You're welcome," she replied, prompting light laughter.

Castro's statement came after Knight bravely delivered a victim's impact statement telling the man who tormented her for more than a decade that "I will live on, but you will die a little every day."

PHOTOS: Inside Ariel Castro's House of Horrors

Knight scoffed at Castro for "going to church every Sunday and coming home to torture us."

Berry and DeJesus did not appear in court but had statements read in court for them.

As one woman finished her statement she turned to Castro and said in Spanish, "May God have mercy on your soul."

Castro, manacled at the hands and feet, stared emotionless ahead during the statements.

During the hearing, detectives told how he captured the three women and subjected them to a decade of torture, which one woman wrote in a diary was like being held as a "prisoner of war."

Prosecutors used a detailed scale model of his house and slides to take the court through his house of horrors of hidden rooms, chains, motorcycle helmets for his victims and a gun he would use to threaten them.