Arrests after 3 Women Kidnapped for Decade Found Alive in Ohio
Three brothers have been arrested in the U.S. city of Cleveland in connection with the kidnapping of three women found safe in a home after being missing for a decade, authorities said Tuesday.
There were more questions than answers the day after the stunning turn of events that began with a frantic arm sticking out of a screen door, a woman screaming for help, and a neighbor kicking in the door to free her in a working-class neighborhood of the city in the American heartland.
Authorities said it will be some time before the details of the ordeal come out, as FBI agents go about the delicate task of interviewing Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight.
Police did confirm that Berry, now 27, has a six-year-old daughter, apparently born while she was in captivity.
The three Ohio women were abducted separately in 2002, 2003 and 2004 but were found in the home of 52-year-old Ariel Castro, not far from where each disappeared.
Castro and his brothers -- Pedro, 54, and Oneil, 50 -- have been detained, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear why the women were abducted and how they were held. The city heaved a sigh of relief at the happy ending to a horrible story. The women were released from a Cleveland hospital early Tuesday.
"For Amanda's family, for Gina's family, for Michele's family, prayers have finally been answered," FBI special agent Steve Anthony told a press conference.
"The nightmare is over. These three young ladies have provided us with the ultimate definition of survival and perseverance. The healing can now begin," Anthony said.
Cleveland Director of Public Safety Martin Flask said police had not been alerted to anything untoward happening at the house on Seymour Avenue.
Police came to the house twice over the years -- once in 2000 when the detained owner Ariel Castro reported a fight in the street, and again in 2004 because in his job as a school bus driver, he had inadvertently left a child on board when he parked the vehicle at a lot.
No charges were filed, Flask said.
What went on in the house for the past decade or so will come out in time from the women themselves, deputy police chief Ed Tomba said.
"They are going to have to tell us that," he said
"Obviously, there was a long period of time where nobody saw them. So we have to wait until we interview them and hopefully they are going to tell us exactly what went on in there. They were the only ones there along with the suspects," he added.
Tomba said he has seen the women Monday night and they seemed to be in fairly good health, although he said "they needed a good meal."
The long nightmare ended when Berry -- kidnapped 10 years ago at the age of 16, just shy of her 17th birthday, -- reached her arm through a crack in the front door and called for help.
"I heard screaming... And I see this girl going nuts trying to get outside of the house," neighbor Charles Ramsey told the local ABC news affiliate.
"I go on the porch, and she said, 'Help me get out. I've been here a long time'."
Ramsey, a bystander now hailed as a hero, said he tried to get her out through the door but could not pull it open, so he kicked out the bottom and she crawled through, "carrying a little girl."
Authorities later confirmed the six-year-old child was hers. They gave no information about the identity of the father.
Berry went into a neighboring home and called police, begging them to come as soon as they could, "before he gets back."
"I'm Amanda Berry. (...) I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and am here. I'm free now," a frantic Berry says in the recording of her 911 call to emergency services.
When police arrived, she said two other women were being held captive.
Berry was last seen on April 21, 2003, when she left work at a fast food restaurant just a few blocks from her home.
DeJesus was 14 when she vanished while walking home from school on April 2, 2004. Knight, who was 20 at the time of her disappearance, was last seen at a cousin's house on August 23, 2002, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Details about Ariel Castro started to emerge.
Jannette Gomez, 50, who often visited family and friends on the street, said Castro would park his motorcycle and red pickup truck behind the house, lock the gate and enter the house through a back door, the Plain Dealer said.
Sometimes he would turn on a dim porch light, but the house was always dark, Gomez said. Windows were blocked by shades and at least one window was boarded up, she was quoted as saying.
The case immediately recalled some of the most notorious child kidnappings.
Jaycee Dugard turned up 18 years after she was kidnapped at the age of 11 in the U.S. state of California. She had been kept in a hidden backyard behind the house of her captor, Phillip Garrido, and had two children with him.
Elizabeth Smart was 14 when she was taken from the bedroom of her home in June 2002 and repeatedly raped by a self-styled prophet during nine months of captivity.
Smart was rescued in March 2003 less than 20 miles (30 kilometers) from her home. Her abductor, Brian David Mitchell, was jailed for life in 2011.
Austrian Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped at age 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil, who held her captive in a cellar for eight years before she managed to escape in 2006. He threw himself under a train the night she got away.
Source: Agence France Presse
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