Transcript of True Crime Vault: Trapped

I'm John Quinones. Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old soldier, vanishes while on duty at an army base in Texas. Her family demands answers. How can she go missing on a military base? That's too ridiculous. The search goes on for months. Where is Vanessa? Where is Vanessa? And a dark story starts to unfold. She told her family that she was being sexually harassed and wasn't reporting it out of fear of retribution and retaliation. What investigators finally uncover is horrifying. Find out how one soldier, a beloved sister and daughter, ignited a movement and sparked a reckoning in the US military. Listen to Vanished: What Happened to Vanessa? A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Listen now wherever you get your podcast. This is the 2020 True Crime Vault. Tell us about that day when you were taken. But it was starting to get a little weird. And he said, You're not going to leave for a long time. I never got back out. What is truly amazing is that for the first time, we have all three women sharing their story. It was a veritable house of horror. And you're chained to a radiator. He starts to touch me and stuff.

He controlled everything that you did and said. Everybody knew Ariel Castro. The last one, you would suspect it wrongdoing. If you ever looked into his eyes, they were like, black, like he had no soul. He hated that fact that I couldn't be broken. How often did you think you were not going to survive? May 6, 2013. The gritty heartland city of Cleveland witnessed a miracle. Help me, I'm Amanda Berry. I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years, and I'm here. I'm free now. Amanda Berry is inducted. The day before her 17th birthday. Amanda told the police, I ain't just the only one. It's some more girls up in that house. Gina DeJayesus returns here. She is indeed home. Gina DeJayesus was walking home from school, and that was the last the time that she was ever seen. Michelle Knight was never on our radar at all. Police arrested who owns the home is-Their abductor, it turns out, was a deranged school bus driver, Ariel Castro. Throughout their captivity, these women held on to one thing, one thing that kept them going, and that was that their families would not give up on them.

And 10 years later, it was that faith that finally brought them home. Now we want the world to know we survived. We love life. We were stronger than Ariel Castro. Could you have imagined that you would be sitting here and saying that, knowing all the things that you've gone through in your life? Oh my gosh, not really. I didn't know I was going to actually make it. Cleveland was your typical American industrial city. It was struggling to find itself in a new economy. Well, it struggles from the bad image of the mistake on the Lake. There's a lot of poverty in the city, a lot of heart. You see people on their porches and kids playing in the street. The West Side, middle to lower class folks working at the factories. In the mills, were raising their families. Hardworking people. Decent. Do the right thing. Help you if they can. From a law enforcement perspective, it's never a dull moment, always something. There were drugs, robberies, shootings, gang activity. A very inner city, but at the same time, it was full of great families. It was full of hope. Growing up in Cleveland, I love the area.

It was very beautiful, but I hated my home life. Michelle had a terrible childhood. For a time, her family lived in the car. They were itinerant. Big house, but with very little in it. We didn't have a couch to sit on. We didn't have a stove. Just to give us a hot warm meal, I had to cook on a space here. It takes four hours for a hot dog to cook. Did you feel like you had to be protective of your siblings? Yes. Almost like raise your siblings. I basically was their mom. She is a very good, loving sister. She has always been there to help us. That's just the truth. In a really weird twist of fate, we had interviewed Michelle for a story that she helped deliver the baby. This is seven-pound, six-ounce Marcus Anthony Knight. First, she led off a big scream, and then here comes the water. And then, here comes, got to go get somebody because there was no stopping that baby coming out. Tell me about your childhood. I had a lot of things that went on in my life that was very traumatic, like sexual abuse, emotional abuse, you name it.

I went through it. She felt neglected. A male relative sexually abused her. And when you think she was 12, 13, 14 years old, it's just nightmarish. I got to the point where I was done with the abuse. I just needed a new outlook out of life. So the first thing I said, I'm more safer on the streets than I am living in my own home. So I basically ran away. Ran away at that tender age. It was pretty cold. During that time, I didn't really know where my next meal was going to come from or what was going to happen next. What did this 14-year-old child do? She slept under a park bench Then her home was a trash bin. I lived in a garbage can. I took a blanket from somebody's back porch, cuddled up with it. It was very cozy. She's 4'2, so she could crawl into the garbage bin and not be seen and protected from the elements. There was a bridge where I could hear cars going past. The vibrations just helped me be calm. When you were homeless, there was a Baptist Church. Yes. I ended up going there just because I heard beautiful music, and I was a little bit embarrassed because I didn't smell too pretty.

I was very dirty, and I stood in the back and singing along with every hem that they were singing. What was one of your favorite hymns, songs? Oh, my gosh. God is in my heart and in my soul, and he'll never disappear. You needed to hold on to that, didn't you? Yes. Early morning, the hungry and homeless feeding is about to do its thing. They would have a meal service every day at 2: 00, so I would go for lunch to the church. Unfortunately, one of my family members had recognized me and called my dead. Her father came and picked her up, and then she went back to high school. Oh, my. It was horrible. Going to school, I was always bullied. Just got shoved into lockers, got shoved downstairs, got told I was ugly, that I was unimportant, that I didn't belong. Did you have anybody you could reach out to? It was very hard to make friends. I was that girl that sat in the back of the class, the outcast. She was Approached by an older boy at school. He charmed her. They started having sex, and she realized she was pregnant.

I wanted to be the best mom. I wanted to be better than My mom. What were those early years like for you and your son, Joey? It was difficult because I didn't have very much money. She goes to look for a job to better her life and leaves her child in the hands of her mother. Her mother's boyfriend was drunk, and he grabbed Joey by the leg and fractured his knee. Michelle took Joey to the hospital, and social services put Joey in foster care. In her efforts to try to get her child back, she was on her way to a case management meeting. Michelle was lost, so she walked over to a family dollar store to ask the clerk where this address was. Eriol Casper was there, overheard her and said, I know where that is, and I'll take you. He thought he could be okay with him. Little did I know that it was going to be a bad trip. Art is important in my life because I was able to express myself and release some of my frustrations as well in a positive way. All I thought about was my son and How was he doing?

If I was ever going to see him again. That's the only thing that was going through my head. August 23, 2002. Tell me about that day. Oh, my. It was a really hot day. She is going to court because she's fighting desperately to get her little boy, Joey, back. I was so super excited to get to the appointment, and then I couldn't find the place. I was trying so desperately to get a hold of him. I tried to call him on a pay phone. It didn't work. So I felt like there was no way I was going to make it. She was pretty desperate So she walked over to a family dollar store to ask the clerk where this address was. And then my best friend's father comes into the store. So you recognized him? Yes. She didn't know him personally. Personally, but when Ariel Castro approached her, she knew who he was. He gets you to the appointment for the custody hearing. And he said, I know where it's at. I can take you straight to it. It only takes me five minutes. And I'm like, Okay, I'm going to make it. This is going to happen.

So I got into his car. We started driving down the road. We started talking about how his daughter was at home, and I was like, It would be super nice to see her. As we were going inside the house, he says, Oh, by the way, we have puppies. I got closer and closer to the door, and that's when he shoved me in the room and he said, You're not going to leave for a long time. And then he starts undressing himself. What is possibly going through your mind at this point? The first thing that I did is I dropped to the floor, begging him to let me go, begging him, saying, I need to get to my son. This can't happen. At that moment, you knew this was something. And he ripped up my son's picture right in front of me. The only picture I had inside, you'll never see him. And that hurt it so bad. The knife I felt like it was going deeper and deeper into my chest. He klapped his hand over her mouth and tells her, Don't scream or I'll kill you. And then he proceeds to tie her up.

Then he masturbates in front of her. Couldn't move, couldn't do anything. The extension cord was wrapped around my legs, then wrapped around my arms, and then wrapped around my neck. And Then to muffle my sound and my scream, he had shoved a sock into my mouth. You go from upstairs to the basement. How long were you there in the basement? I couldn't tell what time of day it was because I was hooked to a pole in the middle of the floor with a motorcycle helmet on my head, so I couldn't move. He does bring her food occasionally, and he routinely rapes in the basement three, four times a day. He would often leave a radio on really, really loud so that even if she started screaming, he couldn't hear it anyway because there was music playing. How were you able to withstand that abuse? It was difficult. I had to go blank. Anytime he was doing anything to me, I had to put myself in a different place. Ariel Castro, once again, he's crawling around, Looking for young women. How bold is that? How did that date begin? Well, my mom had came to the door, and she came to give me a kiss and just tell me, Have a good day.

And I got up, got ready for work. For her. Amanda Berry was the Eva for her 17th birthday. She was at work at Burger King. I almost caught off at work that day because the next day was my birthday. What if? What if I would have caught off that day? What teenager were you then? I was pretty much a homebody. I stayed home a lot, did my schoolwork. What did you want to be when you grew up? I was into fashion. The shoes had to match the shirt, and the shoelaces had to match the outfit. Amanda had been walking home from Burger King. Suddenly, a red car pulls up the driver. It's a familiar face. And he asked, Do you need a ride home? I said, Yes. And Amanda realized that this was Ariel Castro, and she knew his daughter. They had all gone to school together. It's a friend's dad, and he's like, Well, she's at my house. Would you like to go see her? I said, Yeah, sure. I haven't seen her in a while. And he takes her on this drive down Seymour Avenue. They up in front of a modest-looking white house.

So he started showing me around the house, and I never got back out. They got upstairs and he said, Oh, Angie's in the back, but my roommate's in here. It was like a little peep hole that the door not was supposed to go in. She saw a woman sitting on a bed watching TV, which we now know was Michelle Knight. When he took me to the next bedroom, it was just really dark in there, and he told me to fold on my pants. And from there, I knew this was not going to be good. I When he took me to the basement, he take my wrist and he take my ankles. Then he put a helmet over my head. He just left me there. He shut the lights off, and I just started screaming and crying. And somebody, Please help me. Nobody came. So you're there in the dark. You're chained up. Wait a minute. Lord only knows what you had to be thinking. I was so scared that I was going to die. I didn't think that I was going to ever make it home. We called and called. It's not like her. She always answered her phone or called right back.

So, of course, we knew something was wrong. So we immediately called the police. Missing person cases are probably the most difficult cases that we work. And the reason is because it really is the needle on a haystack. You're looking for that piece of evidence, some unusual person walking down the street, an unusual vehicle. It's just hard to imagine who would do this. I wish somebody would come forth because somebody out there knows something. It's just getting too hard. This is a scale model of Ariel Castro's home. There are four bedrooms, 1400 square feet, and there's only one bathroom. It was a veritable house of horror. From the basement all the way up to the second floor, Amanda, Michelle, chained up in separate bedrooms. This nondescript house played a huge role in the fact that it could help Ariel Castro in keeping a human prison going. It was all boarded up. The closet doors were nailed to the front windows, so everything was dark. The bolts that held those doors on the wall were sheared off. There was no way they could get at them, and those were even behind plexiglas. Ariel Castro is a really clever man.

He had a house, he dressed well. He worked driving a school bus for the city. Everybody knew Ariel Castro. Everybody knew the school bus driver on the street. He would grill outside. On the fourth of July, he would have fireworks. He was friendly, he was outgoing. He was a musician. He played in bands. He was the greatest bass player. Ariel would hear a song and play it like it was on the record. It was actually that simple for Ariel. On the outside, he appeared very normal. He might be the last when he would suspect a wrongdoing. But his personality was weird. Sometimes he would be joking around with you. And in another minute, he might be angry with the whole band. Ariel had no family. We knew he had kids, but at the time, he was living single. Ariel Castro had a horrible relationship with his first wife. He was extremely violent. Threw her down the stairs, broke her ribs, cracked her skull. He was very intimidating. He was very scary. His voice was mean and deep. And if you ever looked into his eyes, they were black, like he had no soul. Amanda Berry, when she first went missing, her mother, Louwanda Miller, was on the TV pleading for her return.

My daughter's son, how can you keep off the news like that. She ain't dead yet. But it's just so frustrating living daily. One day seemed like a week, so the week became months. And every day, we just passed out fire. We We had thousands of leads throughout Ohio. We searched 200 homes, and we expanded the grid, and we expanded the search to the other side of the state. As remote as it is, there's still hope for the family. Every day is hard to see her not walk through that door, not say good morning. My hopes are in there. They're trying to stay as strong as can be, but with no answers and not a lead, not a clue, not nothing. That's what's hard because you don't know. The news comes in like five 5: 30 now. So day after day, I watched a lot of TV. The holidays are coming and going, and my baby ain't home. So when I would see them on TV, and I'm like, That kept me going. And I said, You know what? I'm going to make it home to you. As long as you fight, I'm going to fight.

You're chained to a radiator, only have, what, about five feet? What was your world. Can you describe what it was like? Going to sleep at night. If you wanted to toss onto your back, you couldn't do that. You would have to take the whole chain and move it to the front of your stomach so that you're not laying on the big lock. The mattress was old and nasty. It was just disgusting. And the bucket to use the bathroom, and that smelt horrible. Amanda was not alone. Just down the hall was Michelle in another room, fearing no better because Ariel Castro controlled every action of these two young women. We were only allowed to take baths maybe once a week, and then once every other week. It all depends on how he felt that day. He tried to act nice, but he's like, Well, maybe you need to go take a shower. I had to take a shower with him. He forced you to take a shower with him? Mm-mm. He thought that, Well, I gave her that. I deserve this. He used food as a weapon. Amanda said a good day was when she got warm French fries, a bad day was when she got cold French fries, and a worse day was when she got nothing.

Food was like one of the things that he prolonged. I would go a week without food. And when I did get food, it wasn't very much. He was mercurial. Most of the time, he was cruel to them. But every now and then, he would do something special. So I asked for maybe a color book and something I can write in a journal or something. I would write if I saw them on the news or I was feeling that day, if I was angry or mad. So three X, what does that mean? That it had happened three times. She developed a little code that she would use, an X meant that she had been raped. She would mark 3X, 4X. Some days it was 5X. I would always write these numbers at the top of the pages because I felt like, one day, maybe authorities will get to read it, and he'll be punished for what he did. About a week after my sister was missing, we had a phone call. I have Mandy, which nobody called her Mandy, but who knew her? She wants to be with me. We're married, and I'd have her home in a few days.

The caller used Amanda's own cell phone. Ariel Castro called her mother. I mean, How cool is that to do that to somebody? What did you say to him? I said, please let me talk to her. Let me hear her voice. Just let me know she's there. Let me know she's okay. Silence. And then he hung up on me. And When I was the last we heard of anything. Police started trying to track that phone, and that was one of the first cases of trying to track a phone like that. At the time, the technology behind that, it was in the initial stages. The intelligence and the information we have indicated that Amanda's phone was used in about a 30, 40 block area. We spent about a week around the clock in that area, hoping that this phone would be used again. How often did you think you were not going to survive? There was plenty of times when I just never knew, why is he keeping me here? I didn't know if one day we were going to be murdered or he wanted more girls in the house. What was he going to do to us?

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What dreams did you have for yourself? I wanted to become a lawyer. Why? And I think it was fun to win cases. She came from a very tight, loving family. Even though her parents struggled for money, it was a really happy childhood. 14-year-old Gina D. Jesús grew up on the rough and tumble West side of Cleveland. And because of that, she learned some hard lessons, thanks to her mother. I told her, if somebody came up to you and tell you, Can you help me look for my dog? I lost my dog. Don't stop. You continue to walk in, you ignore the person. I told her to be aware of her surroundings at all times. Despite all the lessons instilled in Gina's brain, it still was no match for the serial predator. Tell us about that day you were with his daughter. Yes, Arlene Castro. Gina was walking home from school with a friend. We were talking about what we wanted to do because it was Friday. And then I was like, You could come over. And Gina lent her bus money to make the telephone call. She asked her mom, and her mom says no.

She went the other way, and then I went the other way. The last thing she said to me was, You owe me 50 cents. Right after that, Ariel Castro pulls up and offers Gina arrive. He asks me, If you've seen my daughter? I said, Yes, she's right around the corner. He was like, Can you help me find her? And I said, Sure. And this lure was the trick of Ariel Castro using his own children as pawn. You felt there's nothing strange about this, right? No. I just knew that that was her father, and my dad was friends with him. And next thing you know, he says, Can you help me move a speaker at the house? And sure, I guess, why not? And now she's in the house. He starts to touch me and stuff. And then I'm like, What are you doing? You can go to jail. And then he just switches up like, Well, you're going to go home He said, But you can't go through the same door you came in. You have to leave through another door. I have a superstition. Well, it turns out to be the basement. And then once you were in the basement, what happened?

And he ended up chaining me up to the pole. Nobody could hear me. The radio was too loud. Gina is a creature of habit. And when Gina didn't show up, we knew pretty quickly something wasn't right. Tonight, family and friends fan out into the neighborhood, armed with donated flyers from King Coast, searching desperately for 14-year-old Georgina De Jesús. We're going to keep going out there and putting as many flyers as we can. It did not become real until we've seen ourselves on TV on the local news. That's when it really hit me that she was... Something was really, really wrong, that she wasn't home. By air, on ground, every inch of Cleveland's West Side under the microscope. I went searching everywhere. Downstairs, schools, empty buildings. Irreli, this is the exact spot where Amanda Berry disappeared a year ago this month. Now, two missing flyers of two missing girls mark this corner. Same neighborhood, young girl, a few blocks away. You think you have a serial kidnapper or serial killer? Because how can you not think they're related? When did you see Gina De Jesús in the Well, I heard a little bit of ruckus downstairs when she first came.

Noise like, Get off of me, stuff like that. He would take my hair and put it in his mouth. I don't know. I don't know why he did it, but it was gross. When was the first time that he took advantage of you? May seventh. What are you comfortable in sharing and telling us about that? I'm not comfortable. First thing that popped in my head is, Oh, my gosh, she's so young. She is so young. Nobody ever deserves to be through something like that. When did you realize that there were others in the house that you weren't the only one? As I kept watching the news after a while, I was like, Did you take Amanda? 17-year-old Amanda Berry disappeared in April. Then one time, he was like, I have Amanda Berry upstairs, and I have another girl upstairs, but she's not on the TV. Nobody cares about her. Her name was Michelle Knight. Their families were looking for them, but there was no mention about yours. He would taunt me every single day. Your family don't care about you. Ain't you glad I took you? He was very abusive abusive to Michelle because Michelle spoke up the most.

I felt like he hated me the most because I was the one that stood my ground. He was defiant. She wasn't taking it, and she would fight back. He impregnated her several times. He would inflict pain on her and caused her to lose the fetus. Five times you were pregnant? Yes. And each time he aborted it, one was worse than the other. First, he'll starve me. He'll give me soda all the time to prevent milk. He'll throw me downstairs, use blunt objects to abort it. Pipes, bats, he will use anything to make it go away. One day, he came in the room, and I was sleeping, and he jumped on my stomach. I'm sorry, Michelle. And he's the reason why I can't have children now. And that's the most suckiest feeling ever. But he couldn't break me. And I feel, why let the devil control me? Physical scars from the abuse was painful and eternal. But there's no doubt that the psychological abuse perpetrated on these women was equally painfully indelible. He played these terrible, terrible mind games. One day, Castro said, Hey, do you want to play Russian roulette? Ariel Castro always would be fashionably late to every gig.

When we mentioned travel to Ariel, it was usually a quick, I can't do it. You guys need I'm either play local or I'm out of the band. At Belinda's Nightclub, they used to have a little kitchen behind the bar, and he would buy all the leftovers. Three or four bags. I'm like, Dude, you got the Munchies? He said, No, I just got this food to take home because... Just to have it around. What they didn't know is that he had three young women locked in his house at home, and he needed to get back to them and feed them. He was a complicated guy who presented one face to the world and inside the house, he was just this diabolical, horrendous monster. On occasion, the girls were permitted to leave their bedrooms, but generally, it was to perform chores around the house. There were so many just tiny rolls that we had to live by. We got a little sliver of soap, about like that thick, just to wash our bodies with. We had to use a tiny drop of dish soap to wash a full sink of dishes. We had to put the pan in the center on the stove.

It couldn't be a little to the left, a little to the right. What was the relationship between the three of you? Well, in the beginning, we really didn't have a relationship because he kept us divided. He wouldn't let us talk. He built this climate where they didn't trust each other. They didn't like each other. He made them think that each one of them was in this alone. In the In the beginning, I was his favorite, and then he would get me different restaurant foods and clothes. When you have very little, you can become jealous. Yeah. What were you jealous of? It could be from getting more food, less food, different clothes. I mean, it was just simple things. But when you don't have anything, you're like, Why don't I have that? I want that. He was very shrewd. He divided them by making them suspect each other. He would tell them lies about what one of them said about the other. Sometimes he would just walk out, make a noise like he was going downstairs, then creep up and check on them to make sure they weren't talking. And of course, he would catch them and give them some punishment.

No heat, no light, no radio, no TV, no food. One day, he was on his motorcycle, and this was years after Gina had gone missing. And he was driving along and he saw Nancy, Gina's mom, passing out flyers. He had gone to school with Nancy. He knew her. He asked me, Well, can I have one of those flyers? And I said, Sure. And I gave him the flyer, and then he drove off. I just thought, How could you talk to my mom? Knowing inside you're laughing I had them, but I never understood that. Ariel Castro was a monster. He was a self-absorbed narcissist. He went to the vigils and stood with their families. We pray Lord God that you would bless all those, the volunteers. How much of a monster are you? When you could go to that girl's parents and say, I've been looking day and night. I can't find it. That's a hell of a game to play with somebody. Ariel Castro got drunk a lot, and the alcohol fueled his cruelty. He played these terrible, terrible mind games. He was like, You want to play Russian? I was like, Why not? I'm not going home.

I got nothing to lose. He took a gun out. He'd always warned, but they hadn't seen it. And he opened it and he showed there was one bullet in it. Who went first? He went first. So then he pulls the trigger and then happens. He gives me the gun, and I'm about to pull the trigger. And he's like, Let me pray for a minute. He knelt down and he said, If you love me, you really won't pull this trigger. If you hate me, you will. And she's thinking, What is he thinking? Of course, I can't stand this guy. And she didn't even wait another second, and she fired. I pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. Not only did he have the physical restraints, the chains, the doors, the pad locks, but also had psychological restraints that he used with them, including several attempts where he may have left the door open and was around the corner and tested the resolve. He was always there watching every move. It was like he knew everything, every move that we did. You don't think all those days we sat there, we didn't think about, How can we get out of this door?

Can we get out of that when window. Can we get out of the kitchen door while we're using a bathroom? And he's maybe in the living room or something. But he had mirrors everywhere. I thought about putting rat poison in his beans, and then I thought about spray and pine saw in his eyes, but he was always a step ahead of what I was doing. A few times, some member of the family came in. The house is tiny, and they could hear Castro talking to his daughter. He would take the girls and he would put them together in the basement, and he would chain them up, and he would say, not a word. Don't make a sound. The three of you were in the basement, and his daughter was right there. We could hear him laughing and talking. Did you think about if we yell, She's right there. We're right there. Possibly she could hear you? There was always a chance. What if he killed everybody? I think by then, they were so beaten down about what could happen, and they froze. On another occasion, one of his daughters came to stay in the house with him, and he had to think fast, What am I going to do with these three women?

And he brings them outside and puts them in this van. He put them in wigs and sunglasses and hats to disguise them. He chained us up to the middle of his van. It was so hot, sticky. Everything smelled like gasoline and oil. This is when we started talking for the first time, me, Jean, and Michelle. So he took the van out just a little bit up the driveway. The key was in the van, and he was outside the van. So she was like, I could run him over. What if we just put it in drive and press the gas? I'm sure that you were thinking, maybe this is our chance. What happened? That close to freedom, but We were still too scared. He was very scary. Amanda regreted not trying it. And then it was several more years before another chance came along. It was a dark and hopeless existence in that house until one day everything changed when Amanda announced she was going to have a baby. And he was going to allow her to keep that baby. When did you realize that there were others in the house that you weren't the only one?

Seven years ago, eight years ago. Nine years. Today marks 10 years since Cleveland teenager Amanda Berry disappeared. Every day is hard to see her not walk through that door, not say good morning. When I would see them on TV, that kept me going. And I said, I'm going to make it home to you. She was always fighting, and she was never going to give up on me. I have been on this story since it first broke, and I'm still learning so much from these amazing, incredible women, the horror and the hope. Ariel Castro was a monster. He went to the vigils. Who do we want? It's killing me. And stood with their families. Three of you were in the basement, and his daughter was right there. Did you think about if we yelled, possibly somebody could hear you? His car is gone. Should I chance it? If I'm going to do it, I need to do it now. Out comes Amanda. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Three women that vanished had been found alive. Ran up and jumped in their arms. He said, Never let me go. She was then pale. I told her we've been looking for you for a long time.

It's real. We're going home. It gets harder and harder for us. I thought it would get easy, and it doesn't. My daughter is out there somewhere. Somebody knows something. I try to keep those thoughts. But after so long, your wishes fade away. She's sitting there crying. A lot of times, I'm I'm crying behind the camera for her. You detach somewhat through the viewfinder, but how can you help it feel for a mom who's sitting there crying as hard as she did about her daughter? It's just getting harder and harder. The holidays are coming and going, and my baby ain't home. What was the biggest part of you that you felt he took from you that you lost? Living life as a normal teenage girl, having birthdays or going to a prom, having no fun times. It's just a regular teenager. They poured their heart out on paper and diaries and drawings. This one was a Christmas card that I did for my son. This was their therapy. When did you get this and start drawing the word hope? I got that when we went to the yard, so I thought it was so random. When What did it mean to you?

It gave me hope to come home one day. Those three years was really tough on my mom. Is she out there? Is she laying somewhere? Especially when she went to the Monte Williams show with Sylvia Brown. I would watch her every time she was on Monte and I'd say, I wish my mom would go on there. And then she could tell my mom that I was alive and that I'm okay. The psychic says I'm sorry. I just hate that she's not alive, honey. I just broke down crying because I couldn't believe she said that. And then my mom broke down crying. So that hurt even worse. And she just gave up hope. And the huge tragedy is that she would die before Amanda would be freed. And I think everyone knew that really she died of heartbreak. For three years, Louana Miller fought hard to find Amanda. I think that was the hardest part of being in there. She was always fighting, and she was never going to give up on me. And for her to get sick, and I couldn't be there with her. I couldn't help her when she was sick. You asked him to hug you.

I was just really sad, and I started talking to him, and he's like, Everything's going to be okay. Everything's going to turn out all right. And so I asked him for a hug, and we hugged. There had to be a part of you that was saying, What in the world? I needed a human caring touch instead of everything that he always did, which was not caring. It was Amanda's 20th birthday when she gets an unexpected gift of hope. She announces She's pregnant. It's Christmas morning, 2006, and Amanda goes into labor, and she is terrified. She doesn't know how she's going to do this. He got this baby pool because he didn't want a mess on the bed. And he brought Michelle in the room. He says, If this child dies, I would kill you. Michelle He was just talking to me like, Relax, calm down. You're okay. I cried so much. I'm not a medical expert. And he sat in the rocking chair right there just reading this book about birth and stuff. Amanda gave birth to this child in the room where she had been chained. And she picked out her name, Jocelyn. What was it like for you, Amanda, when you looked in her eyes for the first time?

It was amazing because she She was so quiet, and she was just the most beautiful. You hear of rape victims who have a child. How do you just wrap your mind around it and make it work? This is his kid. How do I feel about that? She resembled him a lot, and I would look at her, and I just felt like she's mine. She's mine. Does she see the chains on you? Yeah. So he started to call them bracelets. And she was about two, almost three years old, and he finally took the chains off of me. And that was because of Jocelyn. What was her relationship like with her father? Normal. I mean, she loved him, and he loved her. Did you ever worry that he was going to harm her? I was. Would he touch her? Would he ever think about touching her? Because he had his problems. But ultimately, he never did anything. He never laid a hand on Jocelyn. Surprisingly, he bonded with this child. They had a connection that no one expected. When she was about two, he started taking her outside, and he would take her to park. She would play on the swings and the slides.

She had never been to parks before and seeing little kids like herself. And I know one of the best times when you looked out and you saw the sunlight on her face for the first time. It was the most beautiful thing. I just felt like that's where she should always be. I see him walking the baby up and down the street. He's spoiling it. This kid riding. The strangest thing for us at a practice Ariel comes in with this little girl. She looked Latina. I was like, Who'd you steal this girl from? And Ariel just looks over and said, Oh, this is my girlfriend's daughter. He was having daddy-daughter time with this baby. When Jocelyn is five and she's kindergarten age, Amanda sets up their room with a little desk for Jocelyn, and she gets Castro to get workbooks and cool supplies. She created a classroom out of nothing in the bedroom. She put bright cloth over the boarded-up window. It had toys. It had a small easel with lessons on it. Pages from coloring books displayed. How did you come up with that? It's a mother's instinct. I just wanted her to have a normal life, and that's normal.

What she was able to do in that environment, I don't know that anybody else could have done that. None of the three women wanted to do anything to upset Jocelyn. And so she brought joy to them. It was fun because the guy was playing with Jocelyn. Jocelyn made me forget everything. Can you imagine that the baby was born on Christmas Day, and it turned out to be the gift that got them out of the house. Cleveland 911. This broad is trying to break out the house next door to me. John Aries has arrived. Hostiles. Repeat, we have hostiles. Mayday, mayday. Oh, my God, there's hundreds of them. On October 10th. We came here from the digital world. The war for our world begins. What God's name is that? You and I, Max. This is the end of this world. No, it's not. I can help you. Tron Aries. We did PG 13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theater, October 10th. Get tickets now. Fx presents The Lowdown. What I've uncovered is insane. Starring Ethan Hogg. Behind every great fortune is a great crime. And from the co-creator, Reservation Dubs, Sterlin Harjo. Hidden tunnels, kinky sex stuff.

I don't know how it all connects, but till I do, I just keep laughing. Fx is The Lowdown. All new Tuesdays on FX. Stream on Hulu. Seven years ago tonight. It was eight years ago tonight. It's been nine years. That Amanda Berry, Gina DeJaisus, disappeared. Today marks 10 years since Cleveland teenager Amanda Berry disappeared. She was 16 years old. Those who knew Amanda Berry gathered to remember. Gina's family has been gathering right here at this corner. The families were always optimistic. I'm hoping she's out there somewhere. I mean, I don't care. Just come home. They are still waiting and still hoping. After a while, we thought these girls will never be found. They're dead. They're gone. Fbi agents and police are searching for the remains of a missing teen, Amanda Berry. A tip from a prison inmate launched today's search. Using a cadaver dog. Search in a vacant life. After 10 hours of digging. There is nothing of evident entry value that was found. We didn't know, but they were less than three blocks away. It's devastating. All those years, all those tips, all those leads, been you were no closer. It's a warm spring day, and a source of hope for escape would come from the most unexpected place, six-year-old Jocelyn.

Jocelyn goes downstairs, and then she runs back up, and she says, I don't fight Daddy. Daddy's nowhere around. And she's like, Mom, Daddy's car is gone. My heart immediately started pounding. Should I chance it? If I'm going to do it, I need to do it now. This is the one time that your room was not locked. Never before in 10 years has that happened. She crept down the stairs, and she had never seen the front door open. There was one more door that she needed to get through, and she said her heart was racing. I'm like, Okay, now I just got to fly out this front screen door, and I'm free. And that didn't happen. And it's padlocked, and she pushes it open enough so that she can get her arm out. So I'm just waving my arm and I'm like, somebody, please, please help me. I'm Amanda Berry. I'm hearing all of this. I turned to Michelle. I'm like, we could run, we could do this. But then once Michelle gets pumped, I'm like, no, I have I talked her out of it. Why'd you talk her out of it? I thought that Amanda got caught and that he was hitting her.

I thought they were fighting, so I was scared. So I turned up my radio so I couldn't hear the pain. I couldn't hear her suffer. Charles Ramsey is Ariel Castro's neighbor sitting on his porch eating his Big Mac and hears this noise. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. What the hell is that? He goes next door to see what's happening. She said, Get me out of this house. How do we say this? I destroyed Ariel's property, getting her out of the house. He started trying to pull in the door, but he couldn't get it open either. And so he kicks it. Kick the out of it. There you go. Finish kicking it out. Out comes Amanda. Out comes the little girl. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This child has been screaming, I want my daddy. What do we do? Right. Call the police. Help me. I'm Amanda Berry. I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years, and I'm here. I'm free now. Okay. Talk to the police when they get there. No, I need them now. We're going to settle as soon as we get a car open. I'm Amanda Berry. I've been on the news.

Were you still frightened that he may show up at any time? I was terrified. And just because there's people on the street doesn't mean that he wouldn't hurt me. 05: 52 PM, we get a call for a code 1 assignment, the highest priority you can get. A female who says her name is Amanda Berry and that she had been kidnapped 10 years ago. I immediately looked at my partner. Is this for real? He threw the lights of sirens on, and we started heading southbound. 2210 Seymour. I'm heading over. When we pulled on to Seymour, this female holding a child started walking out towards us. It was Amanda, she was just a little bit older, just looked the same as the missing person flatters. It's not going to be for real. The only way he can describe it is mind-blowing. Then she gives us, Well, there's two more girls in the house. It's not the others in the house. When I get to the door, I try I'll pull it open, and I can tell it's been chained shut from the inside. So I try to boot it a few times. Finally, the whole screen door and everything came off.

We all rushed into the home. And then they start walking upstairs, and I'm like, Oh, we're next. He's coming for us, so close the door. Had my gun out, and I started walking up the steps slowly, and I started screaming, Cleveland Police, Cleveland Police. I hear noises in the hallway. Police, police. I pushed my head out. There was a bedroom door open with a light on, and I heard some scuffling. I see a badge. So I, book in my underwears and my T-shirt, ran up and jumped in their arms. I said, Never let me go. I thought she was a child because that's She was so tiny. My name is Michelle Knight. I've been here for 12 years. You saved us. Never let me go. I said, Honey, you're okay now. It's okay. You're safe. And she jumped out of Officer Spada's arms and then jumped up into mine. It was just an amazing feeling. It took me a while to come out my room because I didn't believe that there were cops. I thought maybe there were people in costumes because I was shocked. Then all of a sudden, I see another person walking out.

I knew who it was. She was then pale. But I needed confirmation. So I asked her her name. She told me her name Georgina De Jesús. And I told her, We've been looking for you for a long time. When I was telling them my name, they looked like they have seen the ghost or something. They couldn't believe it or anything. Their face completely dropped. It was just like getting smacked in the face. Like, Holy cow, she's still alive after all these years. We found them. We found them. It was just an amazing feeling. The first thing that I did as I dropped to the ground, I didn't care how dirty it was. I kissed that ground. I kissed that ground, and thank God that he helped us get out of there. What was a moment when you knew you were finally safe? The ambulance. Amanda reaches out, her daughter reaches out. Everybody is reaching out towards each other. And it was like, It's real. We're going home. When you saw them, you're like, Now we're free. Once I saw that, I'm like, This is it. I think we're free now. Cleveland Police, it looks like being greeted by applause.

It helped bring Gina and Amanda home to their families. But cops have a job to do, and they need to do it quickly, and that's to find their guy. Ariel Castro. Michelle grabbed a picture off of a refrigerator. She was like, That's the guy right here. Ariel Castro, 52-year-old Hispanic male. Help me, I'm Amanda Berry. I have a call check on the phone with a female who says her name is Amanda Berry. Adam 23, right here. We found them. We found them. Three women that vanished have been found alive. We're going to push everybody It was a controlled chaos. We secured the scene, we put yellow tape up. It pretty much blocked the whole street of Seymour. The street was flooded with patrol officers. There were neighborhood residents coming to the scene. Excitement in the air, the buzz in the air. You had people on their porch. They were emotional, crying. This was happy cries because these girls were found. They were alive. I was actually three blocks away, and I saw one of the FBI agents, and I ran to him, and I just asked him, Just tell me if it's her, and he told me yes.

We hugged and cried, and I just remember her saying, Is it true? Being able to tell her, yes, it is, that I saw That was one of those moments that I say was an unforgettable and best moment of my career. The manhunt is on, but it's not a long one because in short order, police are able to find Ariel Castro, who's behind the wheel of his Mazda Miata. As we proceed down Clark Avenue, here comes a blue convertible, and they stopped at the stop sign, and I made eye contact with Ariel, the driver, and he proceeded to make a right-hand turn right into the McDonald's. The police pulled him over in his car, and Castro didn't say a word, nothing. We patted him down for weapons, handcuffed him, and put him in the back of the control car, and I read him as Miranda. I told him he's held at this point under suspicion of kidnapping. I said, Do you wish to make any statements at this time? And he said, No. I told the girls that we got the suspect in custody, and they were all very like, Oh, thank God. You could see the relief in their eyes.

Right now, those three women are here at Metro Health Medical Center being tended to by doctors and also being reunited with family members. You get to the hospital and you get to see your family. I'm hugging everybody. And then the first thing I pulled out was this right here, and I showed my mom. She pulls out this flyer, and it's a flyer of her. And she says, I've been holding it for years. And then she said, I smell it sometimes because my mother was holding this flyer. It was like a dream. I need you somebody to wake me up. Thank you, Lord. You brought my baby back home. I remember Amanda Berry and her sister hugged each other so, so, so tight. She was just really skinny and short hair, but she was still beautiful. She had the biggest smile that she always had. What was it like when you introduced your daughter to him? She was just like, Oh, hi. I heard about you. And she gave him a hug like, she knew him forever. Sassing was full of life. She was running back and forth. She'd tell me jokes. You know why the chicken crossed the road?

I said, I don't know. She goes, To get to the other side, and she starts cracking up. For 10 years to just want to find them and to go there and to see them standing there, it really was a miracle. We noticed right away that no one's coughing for Michelle. Breaks your heart. Sorry. After all this time. Michelle really is not in good shape, and she needs special medical care. You were in the worst condition. They couldn't find out why I was bleeding, why I was having stomach issues. But they did different tests, and they told me, You only got two days to live. It's been too long, and the antibiotics are not working on you. What were you thinking after going through all that you did to be safe in a hospital and now to be told you have two days to live? It was really difficult, but I didn't let that get me down. I really didn't. I was singing, I was dancing. I was trying to make the best of the life that I had left. They put me on 14 different medications before I was actually better. The FBI were doing the search of the house.

The evidence response team on hand right now, going through that home here on Seymour. There was a letter in the kitchen. It was a stack of papers on the kitchen counter that was written by Ariel Castro in 2004, just a couple of days after Gina's kidnapping. And it was like a if I get caught letter. If you find this, this is why I did it. He had been abused as a child. He had a sexual addiction. He didn't mean to do this. Police did have in their possession a confession written by Ariel Castro, but they wanted to hear it from the perpetrator himself. I choose them out. Everything points to Ariel. We need to talk to Ariel. Is that the case, please? Yeah. Okay. They answered their interrogation in a little bit of a different way with Ariel Castro. I said, one question, answer, question, answer. I thought that we should meld it down into paragraphs. Then those statements were taken to Ariel Castro, who would actually, for lack of a better term, fact check those statements. And this is where it seems that Ariel had a tremendous sense of arrogance and self-righteousness. What's in my force?

What type of sex was it? Consensual. He was clearly minimizing everything we talked about. Instead of using words like kidnapping, he would say, I abducted, or we had consensual sex. During those nine years, I kept the hate I just locked up in my house. I used chains, padlots. This only happened for a short period of time. Then I got comfortable and took the chains off. That's on offer. He tried to explain that he I would like them a better life in this situation than they would have had otherwise. They lived there as one big happy family. When I had girls, I wasn't good. I treated them well. The sex part is the biggest part about it. I didn't force myself on them. I just had my way of convincing them. Convincing them to have sex with you? Okay. Michelle is telling us about the extermination of pregnancies. He did confirm a lot of the things that Michelle had said, however, once again, minimizing his involvement, saying, we decided that the baby should be aborted. Knight and I, it's not just you, thought the best way to terminate the pregnancy would be through a diet of T-O.

Now, we have an acknowledgement of termination of pregnancy, we could rely on that to bring the aggravated murder charge. Amanda's journals were instrumental in this case. She basically wrote a game plan of what had happened to her the entire time she was there. It would just be something as simple like, he moved me downstairs today. Well, that movement constituted another kidnapping. He was charged with 977 counts, including aggravated murder, rape, and kidnapping. He did every in a favor, it seems, by agreeing to a plea deal, and he was sentenced to life in prison plus a thousand years. Court of Inception, please be seated. Ariel Castro stood up in court. Here is this guy who was charading, acting like the perfect neighbor, school bus driver. Now he's in chains, and he was so contradictory. I am not a violent predator, I'm not a monster. I'm a normal person. These allegations about being forceful upon me, that is totally wrong. Because there was a time that they would even ask me for a sentence. You know, I couldn't believe that he would say that. I mean, do you think I would be there for ten years if I had a chance to go home?

No. That's why you had chains on me. God is my witness. I never beat these women like they're trying to say that I did. I never told you. He was a mean, no good, SOB who had ten years to have a moment of clarity or a moment of remorse. I am truly sorry to I'm here with the Vincent family, Amanda and Michelle. You guys know all the harmony that went on in their home. Michelle is the only one that came to court to speak. She is the only one that had the courage. You took 11 years of my life away, and I have got it back. I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all this that happened, which will face hell for eternity. From this moment on, I will not let you define me or affect who I am. For as little as she is, she's a big girl, man. I don't know how she did it. I don't know how she did it. Where did you find the strength to do that? I had to show him that he no longer has control over me, that he doesn't define who I am.

I define who I am by everything I do in life. For 10 miserable years, they survived. But Ariel Castro lasted just one month and one day in prison before, apparently, taking his own life. It was a matter of a couple of weeks, and then he kills himself. Are you kidding me? He was a coward. It's what he was. I wish he would not kill himself because I wanted him to suffer like we did. I think he took the easy way out. You said you could never forgive him. Do you still feel that way? I absolutely do feel that way because I never got to see my mom again, and I'll never, ever, ever forget about that. I chose to forgive him because I didn't want the emotional chain of that situation. I didn't want it to hold me or control my life anymore, so I had to break free. Talk about resilience. Wow. It's really been quite impressive about how you can heal and move on. Talk about stepping up. It's time to level up your game. Introducing the all-new ESPN app, All of ESPN all in one place. You're home for the most live sports and the best Championship moments.

The electricity is palpable. Step up your game with no annual contract required. It's the ultimate fan experience. Level up for more on the ESPN app or at stream. Espn. Com. Sign up now. For the first time ever, you can get all of ESPN in the new ESPN app, along with Disney Plus and Hulu, with one incredible offer. The most live sports, biggest blockbusters, and most talked-about shows. Get it all in one bundle for 29. 99 a month for 12 months. Visit disnieplushuluespnbundle. Com for details. Add supported plan auto renews at regular price. Currently 35. 99 a month, subject to change. Unless canceled, ends 1. 526 terms apply. The community needed to go away. It provoked things in people to drive by there and see it still standing. You cried? Yeah. Why? I think it was like Tears of happiness. Everything bad that happened in that house, now it's gone. Michelle came and released some balloons, and that was a good moment for the town. It was a good moment for the victim. First thing that I thought is they're taking a horrible situation and turning it into good. What is your relationship with Gina and Amanda to this day?

What is it like? I decided to separate from them because we are all going through difficult times. And when we see each other, it brings back memories. We're a part of this because of what did to us. But that doesn't mean that we were friends before or we have to be friends after. What these young women decided to do was just keep a low profile. They needed to heal. So we didn't know a whole lot about them, except for releasing books about the experience. These women that just have overcome so much. Behind the scenes, do they have struggles like you and I? Without a doubt. But the fact is, they get up every day, they put a smile on. They're thankful. It's definitely life changing. I was gone for nine years. I had to learn iPhone, Snapchat. Maybe you can teach me Snapchat because I still don't get it. I still don't understand it. I'll teach you. Okay. Once she came home, she was adamant about, I need to do school. I didn't finish school. That's the first thing I need to get out of the way. In 2015, Gina and Amanda graduated from high school.

They got a huge standing ovation and cheers from the people at the graduation, and it was a wonderful day for them. It's like she's determined to do things that was taken away from her from that time. She didn't get to have a guitañera, so her godmother decided to throw this big party. And she had the big white dress. She looked like a princess. Gina, obviously, Leslie with her family, they have surrounded her with love and protected her. Amanda has Jocelyn, which is really huge. Your precious daughter. She's a teenager. Listen, she thinks she's a teenager. She's twelve. Let's keep she's twelve. Okay, I don't want to rush it. All right, twelve. Yes, let's not rush it. Not the cusp of it. All right. Yeah. So how is she? She's happy. She's vivacious. She's doing great. She's in middle school now. Jocelyn is more special than I could even use words to describe. I always describe her as wise beyond her years. Were you able to explain the situation, the chains? Not so much about the rapes and stuff like that, but I did tell her, I used the word kidnapping because I wanted to make sure she knew what that was.

I just explained to her, your dad, he was sick in the mind. I just never want her to feel that she's not here for a special reason. She's here because she's special, and I just wanted to help her with that. It's a beautiful thing. I couldn't even imagine what they went through, and then you run into them at a party or whatever, and they're living life, loving life like nothing had happened. To the left. It's a good day. It looks better on the left and the right. Michelle, we're worried about the most because she had no support system, nothing. Oh, my. When I first arrived to the horse therapy, it was super amazing. That horse helped me with so much. It showed me something that no No other human has ever shown me respect and love. But now she has this big family of friends that she created. Okay, so now you can go. I love my friends that I have. I love my chosen family. She's someone that I really look up to. She's got depth. She's so intelligent. She has such great feelings. I got my adoptive to dad, which his name is Jim.

He's such a sweetheart. He's the one that showed me that men are not all the same, that there are the nice ones out there. When we first met, we were at karaoke. He started singing this particular song. She's basically saying no matter what, the world should know that she's doing fine. So now whenever we go karaoke, she knows that's what I want to hear. Tell us about Miguel. Oh my gosh. He is the love of my life. He's my other half. He showed me I'm really happy that life doesn't have to be horrible, and you don't have to be alone. That must feel great for you. Yes. She's like a big bomb in a small package. When I first came out of the house, I didn't even know What love was. What a tender touch was. All I knew was abuse. It's a huge personality. Very, very intelligent. She's got her own light that she walks in. Michelle, she's found happiness and joy. She's married. She looked beautiful that day. I don't know what came over me. I couldn't hold it in. I had tears in my eyes. These women, now they live their lives wanting to change the world for the better.

I'm Amanda Berry, and I've made it my personal mission to help police find missing people. Everybody in life that goes through a tragedy that's been in the dark for so long needs to see the sun rise. Just show the people that have harmed us that they don't control us anymore. You legally changed your name to Lily Rose Lee. Why did you do that? Because I wanted a new beginning to my new journey of life. We have a check for Lily's Ray of Hope for $1,500 because that many people want to support. It's going to go to a lot of great women and young girls that went through domestic violence, human trafficking, and child of abuse. These three women moving on with their lives, starting foundations, and helping other people. This is really ultimately the plans for the building, and we're really excited because it's going to be a beautiful building once it's completed. Our foundation's name is the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children and Adults. This is our office space. Basically, we work with the families to help them navigate the media, to help them go to the police station. Gina gives an insight to the missing kids world that books and a lot of stuff can't teach you.

My center is located right next there to where I was held at. Girl, you You know how powerful that is to put it on that street? I just want to turn the neighborhood. I want to turn it to positive, and I want to give back. There's such goodwill for these survivors that there's a lot of possibilities about what they could do in the future. I'm working with a local news station. They approached me and they said, We would love if you would do a segment with us for missing children, adults in our area. I'm Amanda Berry, and I've made it my personal mission to help police find missing people I want to do something that means something to me. I'm just a regular person, and I just I want to make the road a better place. Proud of you. You're making your mess your message. I wanted to give you a hug. Thank you. You've been an inspiration to me. These women are our heroes. They're champions. They're survivors. Five years ago, I felt like I was always going to be scared. I would never want to come out of the house. Now I'm finding my own voice.

You You once wrote, Always believe in hope, even through the hardest times. How are you able to do that? I always like to be positive, and I just don't like negativity, so always hope for the best. You can overcome all obstacles that stand in your way. Don't let the darkness control your light in your life. You're an overcomer. Stay in the fight till the final Amanda Berry, Gina De Jesús, and Michelle Knight. You might be down for a moment, feeling like it's hopeless that's it. And those amazing women have overcome so much. If you want to know more about Amanda, Gina, and Michelle, and the work they're doing now, you can go to our website at abcnews. Com. I'm Robin Roberts. Thanks for watching. And from all of us here at 2020, have a good night. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9: 00 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening. Talk about stepping up. It's time to level up your game. Introducing the all new ESPN app. All of ESPN, all in one place. Your home for the most live sports and the best Championship moments.

The electricity is palpable. Step up your game with no annual contract required. It's the ultimate fan experience. Levelup for more on the ESPN app or at stream. Espn. Com. Sign up now.