Three kidnapping survivors abducted by Ariel Castro speak out
Three kidnapping survivors abducted by Ariel Castro between 2002 and 2004 open up about their harrowing NINE years in captivity at his Ohio home where they were chained, raped, and given a bucket to use as a bathroom
- Amanda Berry, 33, Gina DeJesus, 29, and Michelle Knight, 38, are opening up about their nine years held captive by Ariel Castro
- The women were abducted between 2002 to 2004 and were subjected to years of abuse where they were chained, raped, and kept in squalid conditions
- The women are speaking out in an interview with ABC’s 2020 to air Friday
- They were finally able to escape on May 6, 2013 when Berry managed to leave the home and called 911 from a neighbor’s phone
- ‘He was always there watching every move, it was like he knew everything, every move that we did,’ DeJesus said in the interview
- On August 1, 2013 Castro was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 937 counts of kidnapping and rape
- He killed himself in prison a month later
Three women who were kidnapped in Cleveland and locked up for over nine years are speaking out on their harrowing captivity, seven years after their miraculous escape.
For years kidnapper Ariel Castro held three women – Amanda Berry, 33, Gina DeJesus, 29, and Michelle Knight, 38, – captive in his home after abducting them between 2002 and 2004.
After years of abuse where they were chained, starved, tortured, and raped they were finally able to escape on May 6, 2013 when Berry managed to leave the home and called 911 from a neighbor’s phone.
‘He was always there watching every move, it was like he knew everything, every move that we did,’ DeJesus said in a sit-down interview with ABC’s 2020 that will air Friday.
‘When I was telling [first responders] my name, they looked like they’d seen a ghost or something. Like their face completely dropped,’ DeJesus said on the moment police realized they finally found the three women who had been missing for years.
Amanda Berry, 33, Gina DeJesus, 29, (above) and Michelle Knight, 38, are opening up about their nine years held captive by abductor Ariel Castro in a new 2020 episode
The women were abducted between 2002 to 2004 and were subjected to years of abuse where they were chained, raped, and kept in squalid conditions. Michelle Knight, who was abducted first on August 23, 2002 when she was 21, pictured above
‘I was so scared that I was going to die. I didn’t think that I was going to ever make it home,’ Amanda Berry, who was abducted on April 21, 2003, just one day before her 17th birthday, said
Castro first kidnapped Michelle Knight on August 23, 2002 when she was 21 as she was leaving a cousin’s house.
Amanda Berry was kidnapped on April 21, 2003, just one day before her 17th birthday as she was walking home from work.
Casto, who worked as an elementary school bus driver, approached her in his vehicle and asked if she needed a ride home.
Berry, who knew Castro as the father of Arlene, her classmate and friend from middle school, agreed.
He ended up inviting her to him home to hang out with his daughter. Once she got in, she wouldn’t leave for years.
‘He took me to the next bedroom, and it was just really dark in there, and he didn’t turn on the lights, and there was a little, like, a little room off of the bigger bedroom, kind of a big closet,’ Berry said. ‘And he took me in there, and he told me to pull down my pants. And from there I knew, like, this was not going to be good.’
Castro chained her to a pole and left her in a dark room with a television on.
In the end on August 1, 2013 Castro was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 937 counts of kidnapping and rape. On September 3, 2013, he was found dead in his prison cell after committed suicide. He knew Amanda and Gina because they were friends with his daughter Arlene
Survivors: Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight (from left to right) pictured in this February 2014 image after their escape
Amanda Berry reunited with her sister Beth Serrano and daughter in Cleveland, America after their escape
‘I just started screaming and crying… “Somebody please help me,” you know. And nobody, nobody came. I was so scared that I was going to die. I didn’t think that I was going to ever make it home,’ Berry said.
A week after Berry went missing Castro called her family to taunt them using her cell phone.
‘He called and said, “I have Mandy,”which, nobody called her Mandy but [people] who knew her,’ her sister Beth Serrano said. ‘She wants to be with me.’
The FBI were able to narrow down the phone’s location to a thirty to forty block area and despite exhaustive search measures, were unable to find Berry.
Castro grabbed Gina DeJesus in a similar fashion on April 2, 2004 when she was 14 as she was walking home. She was good friends with Castro’s daughter Arlene.
Once she entered his home, she became unnerved by Castro’s behavior.
‘He was, like, fixing his eyebrows and, like, trimming his mustache and, like, cutting his nose hairs,’ DeJesus said.
‘He’s like, starts like, to, like, touch me and stuff, and then I’m like, “What are you doing? You could go to jail.” He just switches up like, “Well, OK, we’re going to, you’re going to go home now.” He said, “But you can’t go through the same door you came in.”‘
The women were able to finally escape on May 6, 2013 when the women were left alone in the home and for the first time in 10 years, Berry found her bedroom door unlocked. Castro’s Cleveland home where they were kept captive pictured above
FBI forensic personnel remove evidence from Castro’s house after the women escaped
House of horrors: Photos from inside Castro’s home shows the squalid conditions the women lived in where windows were boarded up and they slept on bare, yellowed mattresses
The women were forced to live in squalid, filthy conditions where they were chained in their rooms, their bedrooms locked, barely fed and given buckets to use as a bathroom. ‘The mattress was old and nasty, and it was just disgusting. And we had the bucket to use the bathroom, and that smelled horrible,’ Berry said
Berry’s room which she shared with her daughter Jocelyn pictured above
DeJesus tried to fight him off and screamed for help when he brought her to the basement and chained her up. Her cries were drowned out by radios playing in his basement and living room.
‘He, would take my hair and like, put it in his mouth. … I don’t know why he did it but it was gross,’ she said.
DeJesus said the first time Castro raped her was on May 7, 2004 but did not want to deliberate on the sexual abuse.
Berry became pregnant by Castro when she was 20 and gave birth to her daughter Jocelyn on Christmas in 2006.
‘I was terrified. How? I mean, I barely eat and I’m chained to a wall, and I have a bucket for a bathroom,’ Berry said.
She said life in captivity changed for her with the birth of her daughter. She noted Castro even became kinder and took off her chains after her daughter started to notice them. She told Jocelyn the chains were bracelets, as per Castro’s orders.
‘This is his kid, you know. How do I feel about that? And she resembled him a lot, and I would look at her, and I just felt, like, she’s mine. She’s mine,’ Berry said.
‘It was fun because I can get away from the situation. When I was playing with Jocelyn, Jocelyn made me forget everything.’
The women were forced to live in squalid, filthy conditions where they were chained in their rooms, their bedrooms locked, barely fed and given buckets to use as a bathroom.
‘The mattress was old and nasty, and it was just disgusting. And we had the bucket to use the bathroom, and that smelled horrible,’ Berry said.
The women were fed once a day and were given measly chips or crackers or other snacks as meals. They were also only allowed to shower once a week.
‘I mean, he tried to act nice, but he’s like, “Well, maybe you need to go take a shower,” and I had to take a shower with him,’ Berry recalled.
The women underwent years of sexual abuse and rape in their captivity.
Berry said she had to ‘numb’ herself to cope with the egregious abuse.
‘You, like, put your mind somewhere else so that you’re not there. You know, you’re not in that room with him,’ Berry said.
On September 3, 2013, committed suicide in his prison cell. Pictured above in 2013 at his sentencing
She’s try to record how many times he raped her each day in her diary by using a code.
‘I would always write these numbers at the top of the pages, because I felt like, you know, one day maybe authorities will get to read it. And he’ll be punished for what he did,’ Berry said.
The women were able to finally escape on May 6, 2013 when the women were left alone in the home and for the first time in 10 years, Berry found her bedroom door unlocked.
‘Jocelyn goes downstairs, and then she runs back up, and she says, ‘I don’t find Daddy. Daddy’s nowhere around,’ Berry said.
‘My heart immediately started pounding. I’m like, “Should I chance it? If I’m going to do it, I need to do it now,”‘ she added.
Berry and her daughter made a break for it and ran out the front door, even though it was wired with an alarm. Beyond it the storm door was padlocked shut and Berry squeezed an arm out when a neighbor say her struggling and kicked the door open.
Once out Berry called for Jocelyn to crawl through the door and the two found a neighbor and used their phone to call 911.
Police swarmed the home and the women were finally rescued.
DeJesus recalled being hesitant to leave her room in disbelief.
‘I thought maybe they were people in costumes ’cause I was shocked,’ she said.
In the end on August 1, 2013 Castro was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 937 counts of kidnapping and rape.
On September 3, 2013, he was found dead in his prison cell after committed suicide.
The Cleveland Kidnappings special will air on ABC’s 2020 on Friday.
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