All three of these unfortunate women were kidnapped by one Ariel Castro, a Puerto Rican who had settled in Cleveland with a long history of violence and negligence behind him.
The first unfortunate victim was 21-year-old Michelle Knight, who on the day of her abduction – 23rd of August 2002 – was scheduled to appear in court to fight for custody of her son.
She never showed up and was assumed to have run away in anger at losing custody. Even after she was reported missing, very few resources were spared for poor Michelle Knight, partly because she was an adult.
Amanda Berry was snatched by Ariel on the night of April 21st, 2003, a day before her 17th birthday. She was thought to have run away until a strange number called her mother’s phone and told her, “I have Amanda. She’s fine and will be coming home in a couple of days”.
Ariel reportedly approached Amanda by offering her a ride home after her night shift at Burger King. And that was the last anyone ever heard of her for around 10 years.
Finally, 14-year-old Georgina ‘Gina’ DeJesus was last seen on April 2nd, 2004. Arguably, the circumstances surrounding her kidnapping were the worst, seeing as she was the youngest of the three abducted. What makes it so terrible is that she personally knew Ariel Castro and was good friends with his daughter, Arlene.
Ariel Castro kept all three girls in his Cleveland home, which, according to an interview conducted with Ariel’s son Anthony, was always secured with heavy padlocks.
“There were places you could never go. There were locks in the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage.”
Castro’s vile actions continued. He would tie up the girls, repeatedly rape them and otherwise physically assault them. He would also give them one meal a day and allow them to shower twice a week at the most.
Chained and petrified, these women had no choice but to bend to this monster’s will and dream of one day escaping and seeing him face justice.
It only got worse. Knight was raped and impregnated many times, but was forced to miscarry each pregnancy when Castro beat her with dumbbells, slam her against the wall, or punch her.
In fact, after Castro’s arrest, Knight required facial reconstructive surgery and lost hearing in one ear due to the damage she sustained at the hands of Castro.
Berry, on the other hand, was impregnated and gave birth to her captor’s daughter. She, assisted by Knight, whom he threatened to kill if the baby were to die, was forced to have the baby at the house, inside an inflatable baby pool. DeJesus was repeatedly raped but was never impregnated.
Jump to May 6th, 2013 – the fateful day that Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus will remember forever – Berry realized that when Castro left the house that day, he had forgotten to lock one of the doors from the inside. However, the outside door was still locked.
She did not attempt to escape through the outside door as she thought Ariel was testing her, something he had done before.
Instead, she screamed for help and managed to make contact with the next-door neighbor, a man by the name of Angel Cordero. Cordero could not speak English and decided to bring the situation to the attention of another neighbor, Charles Ramsey.
Together, Ramsey and Cordero managed to kick a hole in the locked door, big enough for Berry and her child to crawl through. Berry then ran into the neighbor’s house and phoned 911.
Police responded and raided Castro’s house and freed the other two victims, apprehending Castro. No less than 977 charges were filed against Ariel Castro, including rape, abduction, assault, attempted murder and intentional induction of miscarriage.
He plead guilty to all but 40 of them. That earned him a lifetime inside a jail cell with no possibility of parole.
However, it all came to an end when Castro committed suicide inside his prison cell. He was found hanging from a bedsheet on September 3rd, 2013, just one month into his life sentence.
Moreover, as per Castro’s plea bargain, his house, where he kept the girls for all those years, would be demolished. Michelle Knight was present at the demolition and was giving out yellow balloons, which she said represented missing children.
