3 ABDUCTED WOMEN FOUND ALIVE AFTER 10 YEARS AS SUSPECTS ARE IN POLICE CUSTODY

Amanda Berry (center) celebrates her liberation with family and friends yesterday. The child is believed to be Berry's daughter, Cleveland officials said today.

A 6-year-old girl — found along with three abducted women, kept for a decade — belongs to one of those victims, Cleveland authorities said today, revealing chilling new details of the remarkable rescue. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were held inside the house since they were in their teens or early 20s, before Berry broke free last night and called 911.

It’s believed the little girl is Berry’s, said Cleveland police Deputy Chief Ed Tomba.
Knight, disappeared in 2002, Berry in 2003 and DeJesus about a year after that.
Three brothers, between the ages 50 and 54, were arrested last night. Police have up to 36 hours to file a criminal complaint against them.


ARIEL CASTRO

The homeowner Ariel Castro, keep a creepy, vaguely religious-themed Facebook page. On May 2, Castro posted the message "miracles really do happen, God is good :)"
He had also shared a photo on April 22, stating that "a real woman will not use their child as a weapon to hurt the father when the relationship breaks down. do not lose site of the fact that it is the child that suffers."
Despite the victims’ long captivity, authorities insisted they were constantly working leads all these years.
“We reviewed [tips] them regularly with the family and with our partners in the Cleveland Police Department,” said Steven Anthony, the FBI special agent in charge in Cleveland.
“Not a year went, not actually probably a three -month period, went by where we didn’t have some lead generated by the public or the family.”
The missing women were discovered when a neighbor, who happened to be home from work, heard shouting coming from the house and went to investigate.
“I heard screaming . . . I come outside and I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of her house,” neighbor Charles Ramsey told Cleveland’s WEWS-TV.
“I go on the porch and she said, ‘Help me get out. I’ve been here a long time.’ ”
Another neighbor then helped break down the door and free the desperate young woman, who they later discovered was Berry.
As soon as she escaped, Berry called 911 from the Ramseys’ home and told police she was the girl they’d been searching for all these years.
“Help me, I’m Amanda Berry,” she said in the frantic 911 call. “I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for ten years and I’m here — I’m free now.”

FBI handout photos show Amanda Marie Berry (left), missing since she was 16, and Georgina Lynn Dejesus, missing since she was 14

When police responded to the house they found the other women inside.
Berry sparked a massive community response in Cleveland when she disappeared in 2003 after she called her sister to say she was going to get a ride home from her job at Burger King.
It was the day before her 17th birthday.

Berry’s mother, Louwana Miller, died in 2006 after the years looking for her lost daughter took a toll on her health, according to her family and friends.
DeJesus was 14 years old when she went missing about a year later while walking home from her Cleveland middle school.
Her mother, Nancy Ruiz, said she believed DeJesus was sold into human trafficking.
All three women were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland for observation.
Neighbor Anna Tejeda was sitting on her porch with friends when they heard someone across the street kicking a door and yelling.
Tejeda, 50, said one of her friends went over and told Berry how to kick the screen out of the bottom of the door, which allowed her to get out.
Speaking Spanish, which was translated by one of her friends, Tejeda said Berry was nervous and crying. She was dressed in pajamas and old sandals.
At first Tejeda said she didn't want to believe who the young woman was. "You're not Amanda Berry," she insisted. "Amanda Berry is dead."

FBI agents remove evidence from the house where the women were imprisoned.

But when Berry told her she'd been kidnapped and held captive, Tejeda said she gave her the telephone to call police, who arrived within minutes and then took the other women from the house.
Ramsey, the neighbor, said he'd barbecued with the home's owner and never suspected anything was amiss.
"There was nothing exciting about him — well, until today," he said.
Julio Castro, who runs a grocery store half a block from where the women were found, said the homeowner arrested is his nephew, Ariel Castro.
The uncle said Ariel Castro had worked as a school bus driver. The Cleveland school district confirmed he was a former employee but wouldn't release details.
The women's loved ones said they hadn't given up hope of seeing them again.
A childhood friend of DeJesus, Kayla Rogers, said she couldn't wait to hug her.
"I've been praying, never forgot about her, ever," Rogers told The Plain Dealer newspaper.
Berry's cousin Tasheena Mitchell told the newspaper she couldn't wait to have Berry in her arms.
"I'm going to hold her, and I'm going to squeeze her and I probably won't let her go," she said.