Many of us have been using the Street View feature on Google Maps for some time, mostly to just be nosey and see what we can find around the globe. One user recently spotted that a house in Cleveland, Ohio had been blocked out entirely by the developers behind the program, however.
Google made the decision to blur out 2208 Seymour Avenue, as it was home to the abuser Ariel Castro. There, he kept three women - Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight - regularly assaulting them and keeping them under lock and key for almost a decade.
Tapes and chains were found in the house when police eventually investigated. They discovered that each of the women were kept in their own rooms, not even allowed to use the communal bathroom and instead were forced to use a bucket.
Castro offered the women a drive home, but abducted them and brought them back to his homemade prison, subjecting them to abuse until their eventual escape in 2013.
Left unattended in the home, one of the three ladies - Amanda - would call for help and was spotted by a neighbour, who came to their rescue.
Castro was sentenced to 1,000 years in prison for his crimes, plus life, after he pleaded guilty to the 937 counts of kidnapping and rape. A month later, he would be found dead in his prison cell, having committed suicide.
Despite the harrowing details of what went on inside the house, it is an ordinary looking home with four bedrooms, a bathroom, basement, attic and garage. Exactly why Google has decided to block it out of view isn’t definite, but we imagine that anybody living in there right now wouldn’t want to be subject to snooping.
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Tagged in True Crime