Cleveland Kidnapper Gets Life Plus 1,000 Years
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: "OUTFRONT" next, you'll want to brace yourself for this one. Ariel Castro explains why he is not to blame for kidnapping and raping three women. One of the women responds. His excuses, sickening. Then, NSA leaker Edward Snowden has left the airport in Moscow. Where has gone could be a major problem for the United States of America. And Anthony Weiner explains a big mystery, solved tonight. Where did the name Carlos Danger come from? Let's go "OUTFRONT." Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, Ariel Castro and Michelle Knight speak. Life behind bars plus 1,000 years with no chance of parole, that is what Castro, the Cleveland kidnapper, was sentenced to today. He abducted Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina Dejesus and held them captive for more than a decade, subjecting them to constant physical and emotional torture. Knight was the only one today who chose to confront her abductor face- to-face, and she didn't hold back.</s>MICHELLE KNIGHT, KIDNAPPING SURVIVOR: Ariel Castro, I remember all the times that you came home talking about what everybody else did wrong and act like you wasn't doing the same thing. You said, at least I didn't kill you. You took 11 years of my life away, and I have got it back. I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all that you put me through, but you'll be in hell through eternity. I cried every night. I was so alone. The days never got shorter, days turned into night, night turned into days, years turned into eternity. Eternity will be so much easier. You don't deserve that. You deserve spending life in prison. I could forgive you, but I will never forget.</s>BURNETT: Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts of kidnapping, rape and aggravated murder, but didn't stop him from denying he was monster.</s>ARIEL CASTRO, CONVICTED KIDNAPPER: (Inaudible) totally wrong, like I said, I am not a violent person. (Inaudible) -- totally wrong.</s>BURNETT: OUTFRONT tonight, Martin Savidge, he was in the courtroom and he has with me along with Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Jeff Gardere. Martin, let me start with you. You were in the courtroom. You just heard Ariel Castro. You had to hear it again because you heard it today. Most of the sex was consensual that the women had asked him for sex many times. What was the reaction when he said that?</s>MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I could give you my personal reaction, but first, I'll tell you that the courtroom is pretty much packed with law enforcement, very small courtroom. A lot of them, long time law enforcement, some came out of retirement to be there for this day because they've been searching for these girls for so long. Revulsion, you could hear just comments of disgusts. You could hear, well, if you could jaws drop, that would be that sound. I mean, it was just -- they were -- many are used to hearing statements where you have a criminal that will make a self serving comment. But the accusations he was making, they're just playing sick depravity of his words, thunderstruck a lot of people and there's a big -- heard a lot in their lives.</s>BURNETT: Jeff, Ariel Castro then admitted after saying that, try to say, OK, well, I know what I did was wrong, try to say there was -- try to apologize, but then he said there was harming in the house, harming, and I just want to play that clip of him and get your reaction. Here's Ariel Castro again.</s>CASTRO: There's a lot of harming going on in that home. (Inaudible) --</s>BURNETT: The YouTube he's referring to, of course, is when she was at rap concert by the rapper Nelly and she was dancing. Prosecutors said Castro broke out in tears when he had to sign over the property deed a few days ago saying it was wrong to tear it down because he had so many, quote/unquote, "happy memories" in that home. What does that say about this man's brain?</s>JEFFREY GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: So in essence it tells us how does someone continue to do things that are so monstrous to other human beings? It's the denial. It's being delusional, but certainly, mark my words here, not delusional to the point of being legally insane. He knew the difference between right and wrong, but this is the mind of a psychopath and extreme personality disorder who now blames everyone else, blames society, and even says that what was happening was consensual. That is the delusion that keeps someone like that alive because if he were to face what he actually did, I think he'd probably kill himself.</s>BURNETT: Martin, the state introduced new evidence today. I mean, we heard things we didn't know before, about how he abducted these women, specifically the stories, and there were a lot of pictures of the chains that he used to restrain them, of a gun. They even brought in a model of a house, exactly where they lived, showing where the women were forced to use the bathroom. What new did you learn today, Martin?</s>SAVIDGE: Well, I mean, I guess what's interesting is, of course, this is a sentencing hearing so it should have been a rather perfunctory event, but it became a kind of mini trial. The reason the prosecution wanted to do this was to get on the record how bad Ariel Castro was and just the fact that he had pled guilty and that he's got life and 1,000 years, no. They wanted to make sure he would never get out and they wanted to make sure that history new the recording of his depravity. So that's why you saw these images of the rooms, and they weren't just rooms. They were cells. They had chains in them and these were horrible chains, not that there's any good chain. But to look at them, they weighed over 90 pounds added up, stretched over 90 feet. You saw that this was beyond just someone being held captive. It was torture. It was depravity and it was someone being diminished as a human being to just a sex object, which is another justification he gave. He said that he had a sexual addiction.</s>BURNETT: And, of course, he has given that excuse, that he was himself abuses and that he had an addiction to porn. Amanda Berry and Gina Dejesus put out a statement. But Michelle Knight who struggled to speak before, she showed up in court. You saw here there. I mean, it makes your eyes tear up. Her nose is running, she is saying what she believes. Why do you think she and only she chose to come today?</s>GARDERE: They were all tortured, but perhaps she was tortured more than the others if you can use some sort of hierarchy of that. Of course, they were all destroyed by this, but she was the one was beaten over and over again.</s>BURNETT: She said he had beaten her to --</s>GARDERE: Exactly the miss -- abortions, miscarriages and so on. So he was the one and who came out in the video if you remember and made the most poignant statements. She had decided she is going to recreate her life and not let that monstrous pain that she has endured change her life for the worse, but actually change it for the better. She has a new mission in life and when she says that I can forgive you. It's not about forgiving him for him. It's for her to be able to move on and she was finally able to look him in the eye and say, I'm not afraid of you now. This is what you deserve. Now you suffer in hell for what we've gone through.</s>BURNETT: It's just a courageous moment, just to watch her there. Thanks so much to both of you, Dr. Gardere and of course, our Martin Savidge who has been reporting on this. Still to come, the State Department announces that it is closing U.S. embassies in the Middle East and reason is they say there's a lot of terror chatter. Terrorist chatter has made officials incredibly nervous. The last time that chatter was so busy with Benghazi. Plus the latest from the Edward Snowden investigation, Russia slaps America in the face today. And then the latest in the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, why there might be a few more Carlos Dangers out there. And a heart warming image, what this Marine did for a 9-year-old boy.