(CNN) -- Two Ohio correctional officers have been placed on leave as investigators look into the suicide of Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction told CNN. 
 
 Caleb Ackley and Ryan Murphy, both hired in 2007, were on duty in the prison unit where Castro was housed the night he hanged himself. 
 
 Castro, 52, was found hanged with a bedsheet September 3, coroner Dr. Jan Gorniak said. He was being held at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient. 
 
 Prison medical staff tried to revive him. 
 
 Castro pleaded guilty last month to 937 counts, including the kidnapping of Michelle Knight, Georgina DeJesus and Amanda Berry. He was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years. 
 
 Ariel Castro house demolished 
 
 CNN's Kevin Conlon contributed to this report. ||||| Ohio prison officials on Tuesday placed two guards on leave during investigations into the suicide of Cleveland kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro. 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2013 file photo, Ariel Castro bows his head in the courtroom during his sentencing sentencing in Cleveland. Castro, 53, now serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and rape,... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this July 26, 2013 Ariel Castro sits in a Cleveland courtroom where he pleaded guilty to 937 counts of rape and kidnapping for holding three women captive in his home for a decade. Castro,... (Associated Press) 
 
 The two guards were on duty in the unit of the prison south of Columbus where Castro hanged himself, said JoEllen Smith, Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman. 
 
 The guards are on paid administrative leave until internal investigations by the department and a criminal investigation by the state highway patrol are completed, Smith said. 
 
 Guards Caleb Ackley, 26, and Ryan Murphy, 27, both joined the agency in 2007 and neither has ever been disciplined, Smith said. 
 
 Castro, 53, hanged himself with a bedsheet earlier last week, a few weeks into a life sentence after pleading guilty and admitting to imprisoning three women in his home for a decade during which he repeatedly beat and raped them. He was on protective custody, a status requiring checks every 30 minutes, but was not on suicide watch. 
 
 Prisons director Gary Mohr has ordered reviews due by month's end into how the suicide happened, and whether Castro had received proper medical and mental health care. 
 
 Tim Shafer, an operations director for the union representing prison guards, said the two guards are being made scapegoats for Castro's suicide. Shafer said preliminary reports all say the guards did their jobs correctly that day. 
 
 Castro was at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient awaiting assignment to a permanent prison. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
– The two guards who were on duty when Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro killed himself earlier this month have been placed on paid leave while administrative and criminal investigations are under way. Both men joined the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in 2007 and neither has ever been disciplined, a department spokeswoman tells CNN. A spokesman for the guards' union tells the AP that preliminary reports show that the guards performed their duties correctly that day. He says the men are being made scapegoats for the death of the 53-year-old, who hanged himself with a sheet just a month into his life-plus-1,000-years sentence.