Ariel Castro’s defense lawyer explained Tuesday that the three women who were kidnapped and held captive in the Cleveland man’s house for nearly a decade were intentionally given the opportunity to leave.

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“He didn’t have the courage to go to the police department and surrender, and the only way this was going to happen is if he was negligent and allowed them to leave the house and be able to find a way out while he was gone a few hours,” attorney Craig Weintraub told WKYC.

Tuesday made one year since Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Berry’s 6-year-old daughter escaped from the house of 53-year-old Castro.

It was also the day Weintraub announced Castro allegedly confessed to him.

Castro — who committed suicide shortly after entering prison on 937 counts of rape and kidnapping — admitted to purposely leaving the doors of his house unlocked in the months leading up to the womens’ escape, reported AP.

Castro was said to have felt the end was near and inevitable.

He also told his defense lawyer he believed one of the girls that had been born as a result of raping his victims needed to receive proper schooling outside the house.

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