Held Hostage

Happy True Crime Thursday!

For this weeks case I want to talk about 3 women who went through the same ordeal and all had the same outcome. 

Let's take a trip to Cleveland, Ohio. 

Here we meet Michelle Knight, born April 23, 1981. Michelle had a rough childhood, she was sexually abused by a family member for years. When she was 17 she got pregnant, and although terrified to have a baby decided to keep him. On August 23, 2002 she was scheduled to meet with a social worker to prep her for a custody hearing coming up, but she never made it. No one heard from her. When she was reported missing authorities believed that she had run away and they pushed her case to the side. Truly her disappearance was not taken seriously enough and did not get the attention that it should have. 

Next we meet Amanda Berry, born April 22, 1986. On the day before her 17th birthday she disappeared. She was last heard from around 8pm. she had called her sister to let her know that she was getting a ride home from her job at Burger King. Again, police considered her to be a run away. That was until a week after she went missing, her mother received a phone call from Amanda's phone. It was an unknown male on the other end "I have Mandy." "She wants to be with me." That was the last they heard. 

Lastly is Gina DeJesus, born February 13, 1990. She went missing on April 2, 2004 at the age of 14. She was last seen making a call at a payphone around 3pm that day on her way home from school. Surprisingly an AMBER Alert wasn't issued, this made Gina's father furious. "The AMBER Alert should work for any missing child...whether it's an abduction or a runaway, a child needs to be found. We need to change this law." About a year after her disappearance the FBI did release a composite sketch and description of a male suspect. He was described as "Latino, 25 to 35 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches, 165-185 pounds, with green eyes, a goatee, and possibly a pencil thin beard."

Her case was linked to Amanda Berry's and the two of them were featured on America's Most Wanted and received regular media attention into 2012.

On May 6, 2013 a man by the name of Angel Cordero heard screaming and saw a woman yelling for help through a homes screen door. The man came over, but spoke very little English so it was hard for him to communicate with the woman. Soon another neighbor joined him, Charles Ramsey. They kicked a hole though the bottom of the door and the woman crawled out along with a young child. The woman was Amanda Berry.
 Charles said that Amanda told him that she and her child were being kept inside the house against her will. Upon being freed, she went to the house of another neighbor where she called 9-1-1. "Help me, I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for ten years. And I'm here. I'm free now. 



Police arrived and entered the home of one Ariel Castro. They walked though an upstairs hallway with their guns drawn, not knowing what they were going to come across. Michelle Knight was in the home and heard "Cleveland Police Department" she entered the hallway and leaped into an officer's arms saying "You saved me." over and over. Following after her Gina DeJesus, she entered the hallway from another room. All 3 women and the child were taken to the hospital. Gina and Michelle were release the next day while Amanda was discharged 4 days later. Her daughter was Ariel's. 

Who was Ariel Castro? He was born July 10, 1960 in Puerto Rico. He had a childhood of abuse by his parents as well as sexually abused when he was younger by a 9 year old boy.

As a child his mother found out that not only was his father having an affair, but also had children with this other woman. The pair divorced, and she immigrated to the United States. Ariel lived with his grandmother, after a couple years his mother sent for her children. They eventually ended up in Cleveland, Ohio after Ariel's father moved to that area. 

He met his girlfriend Grimilda Figueroa when his family moved into the house across the street from hers in the 1980's. They had 4 children together and it wasn't until 1992 that they were able to buy a house of their own, on 2207 Seymour Ave. The home was 2 stories and had a 1,400 sq. foot unfinished basement. Grimilda's sister said that when the couple moved in together all alone that's when "all hell started breaking loose." They claimed that Ariel would beat Grimilda, breaking her nose, ribs, and arms and even caused a blood clot on her brain that resulted in an inoperable tumor. He threw her down a flight of stairs, cracking her skull. Ariel was arrested in 1993 for domestic violence, but was not indicted by a grand jury because Grimilda wouldn't testify. Grimilda moved out of the house and gained custody of her 4 children in 1996. The harassment didn't end there for Grimilda, Ariel continued to threaten and attack her. She filed charges against him in 2005, accusing him of inflicting multiple severe injuries to her and he would "frequently" abduct their daughters. The court granted a temporary restraining order against Ariel, but a few months later it was dismissed. Sadly, Grimilda died due to complications from her brain tumor in 2012. 

Ariel Castro worked as a bus driver for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District until he was fired. He had made an illegal U-turn with children on the bus, left a child on the bus while he went for lunch, used his bus to go grocery shopping and also left the bus unattended while he took a nap at home. At the time the women were rescued from the home, his house was in foreclosure due to 3 years of unpaid taxes. 

So let's get into how these women (girls at the time) were put into captivity. 

Michelle Knight was flustered the day she went missing, she had an appointment with a social worker and originally was supposed to get a ride. When that fell through she decided she would walk as she had no car and no money, but she became lost. So she stopped by a store to ask for directions. She then heard a male voice that she recognized, the father of a friend of hers, his name, Ariel Castro. He offered Michelle a ride and she graciously accepted. On the way he told her that he was going to swing by his home to pick up his daughter. He then told her that he had a litter of puppies and said she could have one for her son if she wanted. When she walked through the doors of the home little did she know she wouldn't be walking out for a very long time. Her friend definitely wasn't there...and there weren't any puppies. She became the 1st prisoner.  

For Amanda she was walking home from work when a vehicle started to follow her down the street, the man inside asked if she needed a ride home. The man was Ariel Castro and she recognized him as the father of her friend and classmate from middle school. This is when she got into the car and told her sister she was getting a ride. Amanda recalled "He's like, 'Well she's at my house. Would you like to go see her?" Ariel said of his daughter, who in fact was not at his home. Amanda said yes and as they entered the home Ariel told her that his daughter might be taking a bath. "So he said, 'We'll just wait." "So he started showing me around the house. And I never got back out." 

Ariel took her upstairs and that's where she saw a woman sleeping in a bedroom, later she would learn that this woman was Michelle Knight who had been abducted and held by Ariel for almost a year. "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," Amanda 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." She then became Ariel's 2nd prisoner.

Gina DeJesus was close friends with Ariel's daughter, Arlene. Ariel was also close friends with Gina's dad. Arlene and Gina were actually heading home together that day when they went their separate ways. A maroon vehicle pulled up alongside a curb, and there in the drivers seat was...you guessed it, Ariel Castro.
He asked Gina "You seen my daughter?" "Yeah, she's right around the corner." Gina told him. Then he asked her if she could help find her and she agreed. Instead Gina was taken to the house, he asked if she could help him move a stereo. When they got inside Gina immediately recognized bizarre behavior from Ariel. Gina later recalled, "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." That when he led her to the basement, attacked her and chained her up. Gina became prisoner number 3. 

Excuse my language here, but what a sick Bastard to use his daughters as a way to lure in these young women. I won't go into the details, but these women went through hell and were tormented by Ariel Castro everyday for years on end. 

Castro being the coward that he was killed himself in 2013 while serving a life sentence plus 1,000 years after he pled guilty to 937 counts including kidnapping and rape. The home on Seymour Ave was torn down, in its place is now a garden. 

The women have all done their best to move on from their horrific experiences and to lead a normal happy life free from their captor.  

Resources:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/cleveland-kidnapping-survivors-amanda-berry-gina-dejesus-journey/story?id=67858538
https://people.com/crime/michelle-knight-2020-interview-ariel-castro/