More than 10 years after her disappearance, 27-year-old Amanda Berry resurfaced this week in Cleveland, Ohio. In her now-famous phone call to 911, she said, “I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years. And I’m here. I’m free now.”
Neighbor Helped Amanda Berry Escape and Call 911
Berry was held captive in a house along with a 6-year-old child she said was hers and two other women, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. They were taken to Metro Health Medical hospital and were released Tuesday, finally reunited with friends and family.
The three women were kidnapped in separate incidents. Knight, now 32, went missing in 2002. In April 2003, Berry went missing after a phone call to her sister saying she was getting a ride home from her job at Burger King. DeJesus was reported missing a year later after not returning home from school one day. She was 14 at the time.
Neighbor Charles Ramsey helped Berry escape. He heard her screaming and when she couldn’t get out, he kicked the door down. She escaped with her child and called 911. Police arrived soon after and released DeJesus and Knight.
Three Brothers Arrested Tuesday
The house they were held in belongs to Ariel Castro, 52, arrested Tuesday; Berry named him in her 911 call. His brothers Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50, who live elsewhere, were also arrested in connection with the crime.
Ariel Castro had been in trouble with the law before. In 1993 he was arrested on a domestic abuse charge that was later dismissed by the grand jury. In January 2004, authorities from Children and Family Services went to the house of the former school bus driver but weren’t able to make contact with him. They wanted to question him about a child left on a school bus but dropped it when there appeared to be no criminal intent.
Neighbors call Ariel Castro as friendly while a relative describes him as “intensely private.”
Police Followed Some Leads, Allegedly Missed Others
The separate cases of the missing women gained different degrees of notoriety in the Cleveland area. Police didn’t stop searching for them, following leads they received years later. They arrested two men for questioning over the disappearance of DeJesus but found no connection to the case. Acting on a tip, they dug up the garage floor and searched for her body with a cadaver dog. Later, Robert Wolford gave the police a false tip on where Berry was buried. He was sentenced in January of this year to 4 ½ years for charges including obstruction of justice.
During this investigation, two neighbors have stated that they called police over incidents at Castro’s house but nothing came of it. Police say they never received any information about suspicious activities at the house, but they are still checking their files.
Suspects Will Be Questioned and Charged
The women were healthy enough to leave the hospital Tuesday. Their families never gave up hope. DeJesus’s mother Nancy Ruiz and Knight’s mother Barbara believed that one day their daughters would be found. Amanda Berry’s mother Louwana Miller never heard the happy ending to the story; she died in March 2006.
The three suspects are expected to be formally charged and interviewed Wednesday by local and federal law enforcement agents. Questions remain on how and why the women were abducted and how they remained hidden for so long. Whether or not the local police should have, or could have, done more will certainly also be called in question.
