--- title: Ariel Castro's Cousin Reacts to His Death | TIME description: Ariel Castro's cousin, Maria Castro Montes, talked to CNN about her reaction to the news of his suicide canonical: https://time.com/video/JO0tIypl/ og:title: Ariel Castro's Cousin Reacts to His Death og:description: Ariel Castro's cousin, Maria Castro Montes, talked to CNN about her reaction to the news of his suicide og:url: https://time.com/video/JO0tIypl/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JO0tIypl/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ariel Castro's Cousin Reacts to His Death twitter:description: Ariel Castro's cousin, Maria Castro Montes, talked to CNN about her reaction to the news of his suicide twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JO0tIypl/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Ariel Castro's Cousin Reacts to His Death > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Ariel Castro's Cousin Reacts to His Death [Watch (HLS stream): Ariel Castro's Cousin Reacts to His Death](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JO0tIypl.m3u8) (2:11)  _Published 2013-09-04. Ariel Castro's cousin, Maria Castro Montes, talked to CNN about her reaction to the news of his suicide_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:42 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Ariel Castro's Neighbor Sentenced To 445 Years In Prison](/video/Rj3N9Ybe/) ### Ariel Castro's Neighbor Sentenced To 445 Years In Prison [Ariel Castro Found Dead](/video/xiS8TRSJ/) ### Ariel Castro Found Dead [Ariel Castro Appologizes in Court: "I'm not a monster"](/video/tOjzhR89/) ### Ariel Castro Appologizes in Court: "I'm not a monster" --- ## Transcript I found out through a text message from my younger brother at about 12: 19 this morning. So, obviously I was sleeping. I got a text and when I looked at it it was just my brother saying, did you hear that Ariel killed himself. And I immediately, you know, sat up in the bed, and turned on the TV to search for the news to see what had happened. And then, you know, we, we saw a local reporter out in front of what used to be the house, reporting on the incident. I know these girls wanted him to live out his sentence. I'm glad he didn't get the death penalty because I didn't want them to have to testify, and relive all of their horrible memories and thoughts. And everything they've gone through. But, you know, maybe this is for the best. Maybe this is the only way that he will be out of the spotlight, because I, I think he was just always gonna be in the spotlight. It seemed like every day some new news report was coming out. And I don't think they were ever gonna find peace if he was still alive and in prison. One of my initial thoughts was, did he really do this to them, to himself or could possibly someone else have gotten to him. You know, obviously it is a jail. There's a lot of criminals behind those bars. And even some of those criminals and some of the horrible things they may have done obviously, probably were not as bad as some of the things he did. And you know people always have an eye out for someone that has done something as horrible as these things that he's done. So I, I really have to wonder, but you know I guess at this point it doesn't really matter. But, you know, they say that suicide is a, is a cowardly thing. And obviously he took the cowards way out, but I still really find it hard to believe that after everything he did, that he somehow mustered up the, the strength or the so- called courage to take his own life. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Ariel Castro's Cousin Reacts to His Death","description":"Ariel Castro's cousin, Maria Castro Montes, talked to CNN about her reaction to the news of his suicide","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JO0tIypl/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2013-09-04T14:25:50.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JO0tIypl.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/JO0tIypl/","duration":"PT2M11S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/JO0tIypl/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```