Ariel Castro found dead in prison cell!

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Ariel Castro found dead in prison cell!

Ariel Castro, sentenced to life in prison for the kidnapping, rape and beatings of three Cleveland women he held captive for years in his house, was found hanged in his prison cell Tuesday night, a state corrections official said.

The former school bus driver, who was under protective custody and isolated from other inmates at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, was found dead at about 9:20 p.m. when prison staff were making their rounds, Rehabilitation and Correction Department spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said.

After prison medical personnel tried to resuscitate him, Castro, 53, was transferred to an area hospital and pronounced dead about 90 minutes later, she said.

Castro was sentenced on Aug. 1 to life plus 1,000 years in prison without the possibility of parole for abducting his three victims and keeping them imprisoned in the dungeon-like confines of his house, where they were starved, beaten and sexually assaulted for about a decade.

He was taken into custody just after the three women he held captive - Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32 - were freed from the house May 6 with assistance from neighbors who heard Berry's cries for help and came to her aid. The three women disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004.

Rescued along with them was Berry's 6-year-old daughter, fathered by Castro and born during her mother's captivity.

Capping one of the most sensational U.S. crime stories in recent memory, Americans were elated by news that the three women had been found alive and freed but were stunned by the circumstances of their ordeal.

Castro pleaded guilty in July to a total of 937 offenses, including kidnapping, rape, felonious assault and a charge of aggravated murder under a fetal homicide law for the forcible miscarriage of one of his three victims.

His plea deal with prosecutors spared Castro a possible death penalty for murder.

Suicide note found during arrest. Castro had been incarcerated since Aug. 5 at the Correctional Reception Center, a prison processing facility outside Columbus, the state capital, about 150 miles southeast of Cleveland.

He was to remain there while undergoing a series of mental and physical evaluations before being transferred to a more permanent lockup, prison officials said.

"A thorough review of this incident is under way and more information can be provided as it becomes available pending the status of the investigation," Smith added.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty acknowledged after Castro's sentencing that a suicide note and confession written by Castro was found by authorities at his residence when they searched his home following his arrest in May.

But McGinty dismissed the letter as an attempt of Castro, whom he described as a "narcissist", to feel sorry for himself and to place blame on his victims.

The house where the three women were held, bound with chains and ropes for periods of time, has since been torn down along with two homes on adjacent lots.

A longtime bus driver for Cleveland public schools until he was fired in 2012 after a series of disciplinary actions against him, Castro had kidnapped each of his victims by luring them into his car with offers of a ride.

The three vanished without a trace between 2002 and 2004 - two of them as teenagers - and were rescued on May 6, 11 years after the first of them disappeared.

At his sentencing, Castro apologized for his actions but also sought to blame his behavior on a sexual obsession and his own history of being abused as a child, declaring: "I am not a monster."

Confronting Castro in court during that proceeding, Knight told him: "I spent 11 years of hell. Now your hell is just beginning."

Another Young Gay Commits Suicide R.I.P Joseph Jefferson

NYC Gay Youth Activist Joseph Jefferson Commits Suicide (Hat Tip Rod 2.0)

There is very unfortunate news today as yet another young gay man has taken his own life. Twenty-six-year-old Joseph Jefferson of Brooklyn, New York reportedly committed suicide on Saturday by hanging, friends and associates of the former gay youth activist and HIV peer educator

Joseph Jefferson's Facebook page is now locked but over the weekend his last status message read: "I could not bear the burden of living as a gay man of color in a world grown cold and hateful towards those of us who live and love differently than the so-called 'social mainstream'. "

By most accounts, Jefferson was a true LGBT youth pioneer. The 2002 graduate of New York City's Harvey Milk High School later worked on HIV prevention and outreach for Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD) and the now-shuttered People of Color in Crisis (POCC), New York City's leading HIV/AIDS groups for Black gay men. More recently, Joseph Jefferson was an assistant to Laurence Pinckney and James Saunders, New York City's popular Black LGBT event promoters, reports Nathan James. Jefferson was also active in New York City's colorful ballroom community.

"Joseph was truly a sweetheart," one friend who knew him well "Extremely bright and impassioned about social justice causes... It's such a loss." The friend, who requests anonymity, adds that Joseph Jefferson seemed in good spirits and "showed no indications of being unusually depressed."

"As an advocate for LGBT youth, Mr. Jefferson surely made a positive impact on those he met and counseled. But this same nurturing and enrichment he offered to others, was absent in his own life to such a degree, that he felt the only way to deal with the pain of his existence was to end it," wrote author and activist Nathan James on Facebook.

Joseph Jefferson becomes only the latest young LGBT person to commit suicide in recent weeks. Jefferson also becomes the third Black LGBT youth to commit suicide in three weeks.

At only 26-years-old, Joseph Jefferson was only beginning his journey in life and seemingly had so much to offer the community and other Black gay youth. Will this ever end? Will there ever be hope for young people such as Joseph Jefferson, Aiyisha Hassan, Raymond Chase and Tyler Clementi?

UPDATE: There will be a tribute tonight to Joseph Jefferson at  the "I Love My Boo"  forum at GMHC on West 24th Street in Manhattan.

THIS IS REALLY BECOMING TOO MUCH TO DEAL WITH! WE MUST MAKE IT BETTER!