Ohio kidnapper Ariel Castro commits suicide in jail

Ariel Castro, the man who held three women captive in his Ohio home for nearly a decade, has committed suicide at a state prison.

Ohio prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith says 53-year-old Castro was found hanging in his cell around 9.20pm local time on Tuesday at the Correctional Reception Centre in Orient.

Prison medical staff performed CPR before Castro was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The three women disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old. They escaped on May 6, when one of the women broke part of a door and yelled to neighbours for help. Castro was arrested that evening.

He was sentenced on August 1 to life in prison plus 1,000 years after his guilty plea to 937 counts including kidnapping and rape.