THREE survivors of sadistic kidnapper Ariel Castro are speaking out about their horrific nine-year captivity, where they were chained, starved and tortured in a derelict den.
For more than nine years, elementary school bus driver Ariel Castro held three women – Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight – captive in his Cleveland home after abducting them between 2002 and 2004.
The women were subjected to unimaginable torture, imprisoned as sex-slaves and repeatedly abused every day.
But their determination never wavered.
On May, 6 2013 the brave women outsmarted Castro when Ms Berry managed to leave the home and call police from a neighbour’s phone.
In a sit-down interview that will air Friday, Ms DeJesus has told ABC’S 2020: “He was always there watching every move.”
“It was like he knew everything, every move that we did.”
“When I was telling [first responders] my name, they looked like they’d seen a ghost or something.”
Since their escape, the survivors have worked tirelessly to help and heal others.
Now, seven years since they broke free from Castro’s chains, they are sharing new details of their horror and how they triumphed over their trauma.
Elementary school bus driver Ariel Castro kidnapped his victims by offering them the false promise of a car ride.
He then lured the young women into his home and restrained them in his basement.
Michelle Knight, who now goes by the name of Lily Rose Lee, was the first of Castro’s victims, kidnapped at 21 years old when she was leaving her cousin’s home on August 23, 2002.
Amanda Berry was kidnapped on April 21, 2003 – the day before her 17th birthday – as she walked home from work.
Ms Berry was lured by Castro on the premise she could hang out with his daughter, one of her classmates.
Once she stepped inside Castro’s home, she wouldn’t leave for years.
Ms Berry revealed: “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,”
“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.”
Gina DeJesus was the youngest of Castro’s victims, kidnapped at just 14 on April 2, 2004.
The women were restrained in Castro’s filthy den with heavy chains, left in dark rooms for days at a time with no food, and given buckets to use as a bathroom. They were only allowed to shower once a week and were regularly fed poison.
Castro repeatedly sexually abused the young women over the course of their nine-year captivity.
During his campaign of terror, Castro would force Ms Lee to have five abortions by jumping on her stomach and beating her with barbells.
Her physical trauma was so horrific that Ms Lee now cannot carry a child.
Fellow captive Ms Berry became pregnant by Castro when she was 20 and gave birth to her daughter, Jocelyn on Christmas in 2006.
Ms Berry has spoken of the pregnancy: “I was terrified. How? I mean, I barely eat and I’m chained to a wall, and I have a bucket for a bathroom.”
“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.”
Ms Berry said she had to ‘numb’ herself to cope with the constant abuse.
“You, like, put your mind somewhere else so that you’re not there. You know, you’re not in that room with him”
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight – now Lily Rose Lee – escaped their captor on May 6, 2013.
Castro had left the women alone in the home for the first time in a decade, when Ms Berry noticed her bedroom door was also unlocked.
Ms 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.’”
Ms Berry and her 6-year-old daughter made a run for it and found a neighbour who alerted police.
Police stormed the horror house at 2207 Seymour Avenue – where Castro’s captives had been locked and tied indoors for years.
The three women and Ms Berry’s daughter were finally freed.
In 2013, Castro plead guilty to 937 charges, including aggravated murder, kidnap, rape and assault, and was given a prison sentence of life plus 1,000 years without the possibility of parole.
A month after sentencing, Castro committed suicide in his prison cell.
The Cleveland Kidnappings special will air on ABC’s 2020 on Friday.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.
