I listened to the bizarre ordeal of Michelle Knight, the first of the three young ladies who were kidnapped for more than ten years by their own neighbor, Ariel Castro in Cleveland-Ohio. The Kidnapping was described by several news headlines as one of the most shocking in America’s History.
The vivid narration of the whole incident, how and where it happened and what she went through is so incomprehensible. Telling her side of the story as the first among the three on the Dr. Phil’ Show, Michelle who was 20 years at the time said although she lived every day hoping to be free someday and the thought of her son kept her going , but she could not believe it lasted for 11 years. She suffered brutal torture from this man.
She described how she was chained, beaten, raped, starved, left naked at the mercy of the cold weather and most sadly Castro forcing her to miscarry by punching her in the lower abdomen each time she became pregnant for five times.
When the story of their rescue by the police brook in the media,one question that everyone following the story kept asking was how can one be kidnap in her own area just few blocks away for that long and no one will notice anything despite police investigations and constant community search as well as annual vigils held to create the awareness of their missing.
Speaking out for the first time in an Exclusive interview with Dr. Phil McGraw, she recalled that on that fateful day in 2002 she was on her way to attend to some matter relating to her son who was just a toddler at the time with the social welfare department office. She stopped to ask for direction since she could not locate the place. Little did she know that Castro was eaves dropping on her. He followed her in his car, pulled over like a Good Samaritan and offered to give her a ride.
He later came up with an excuse of wanting to attend to his puppies and drop her off later since it was on the same route. Ariel Castro then lured her to come over to see the puppies and also offered to give one of the puppies to Michelle to be given to her son.
According to Michelle, that made her to get down from the car into his house in a broad day light. So she more or less walked willingly down to the dark basement of Ariel’s captivity of hell without knowing it was a trap. ‘When I got there, the puppies were not there, I asked him to let me go but he refused…that was when he started chaining me and I was chained like a fish” she described.It was indeed very disheartening to look at the chains, the pole she was tied to and the dirty rooms she lived all those years.
Despite the fact that the house was located in a closely knit area, he made it impossible for them to escape as he did not only threaten to kill them but he also subjected her to severe abuse each time she tried' ...i became the most hated one ... because he could not break me". In addition to all what she was going through, this monster mandated her to deliver Amanda Berry of her baby and was warned that failure to do so safely will result in their death, he threaten.
Although there were very little about her in media something she blame her family for, she said we had access to TV and we knew all about the annual vigils held by the families of Amanda Berry and Gina Dejesus but there was nothing we could do than hope for the best.
So with hope from thoughts of her son, that day came on May 6 2013 when Amanda fled the house while the door was presumably left unlocked for once by the captor and she made a 911 call to their rescue. Indeed the experience has left deep emotional wounds and physical damage to her sight among other things yet she survived as a victor, a strong woman and an inspiration for many families searching for their missing loved ones and those still living in such bondage‘… I wanted to come out as a victor and not his victim” she said.
Ariel Castro committed suicide by hanging in prison one month into his sentence He was arrested on the same day the women were finally freed and was charged two days later with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. Castro pleaded guilty to 937 criminal counts of rape, kidnapping, and aggravated murder. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole, plus 1,000 years.
With tears in her eyes but beam of smile on her face Michelle described Castro as a coward for not being able to endure a gist of what he subjected them to instead, chose to commit suicide. An estimated of 2,300 children are missing every year in America.
In writing this article, my prayers and thoughts are with everyone in this situation and hopes no one live to suffer any more of what Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina Dejesus had to go through.
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