On May 6, 2013, the city of Cleveland witnessed a miracle when Amanda Berry called 911 from a neighbor’s phone. Berry, along with Gina DeJesus, now 29, and Michelle Knight, now 38, had been held captive for more than 9 years by Ariel Castro.
On May 6, 2013, the city of Cleveland witnessed a miracle when Amanda Berry called 911 from a neighbor’s phone.
“I almost called off of work that day because the next day was my birthday. You know, what if? What if I would’ve called off that day?” Berry said. “So he said, ‘We’ll just wait,’” Berry said. “So he started showing me around the house. And I never got back out.” “I just started screaming and crying… ‘Somebody please help me,’ you know. And nobody, nobody came,” she said. “I was so scared that I was going to die. I didn’t think that I was going to ever make it home.”
Story continues“It was really hard, you know, because in the beginning, the chain was around my stomach,” Berry said. “Going to sleep at night, you know, if you wanted to toss on to 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 on your back.”
“We spent about a week, around the clock, in that area, hoping that this phone would be used again,” FBI agent Tim Kolonik said. But Castro never used Berry’s phone again.Meanwhile, Berry’s dark and filthy room at Castro’s house was about the size of a closet. “There was plenty of times when I just never knew,” Berry said, adding that she thought, “Why is he keeping me here?”
As DeJesus continued her journey home, a maroon vehicle pulled up on the curb with Arlene’s father at the wheel. “He’s like, starts like, to, like, touch me and stuff, and then I’m like, ‘What are you doing? You could go to jail.’ He just switches up like, ‘Well, OK, we’re going to, you’re going to go home now.’ He said, ‘But you can’t go through the same door you came in.’”“He didn’t make it tight enough, so I threw it over, and then I tried to run, but he sat on my back,” DeJesus said. “And then I just start kicking him. I kicked him and I bruised him really bad.
Berry said the slight gestures of favoritism made the girls feel jealous: “It was just simple things, but when you don’t have anything, you’re like, ‘Well, why don’t I have that? I want that.’” March 2006: Amanda Berry’s mom dies while she’s in captivityBerry said she would watch the Montel Williams Show featuring psychic Sylvia Browne, desperately wishing her mother would appear on the program so “[Browne] could tell my mom that I was alive and that I’m OK,” she said.
“I think that was the hardest part of being in there. Like, she was always fighting. And she was never gonna give up on me,” Berry said. “For her to get sick and I couldn’t be there with her ... I couldn’t help her when she was sick.”“I was terrified. How? I mean, I barely eat,” Berry said, “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.
DeJesus said she thought Berry had been caught by Castro and talked Knight out of running to Berry. Berry said someone passing by outside saw her, but did not intervene.“He kind of, like, started like trying to pull on the door, but he couldn’t get it open either,” Berry said. “And so he, like, kind of kicks it, and he’s like, ‘There you go. Finish kicking it out, and you can get out.’”
“I thought maybe they were people in costumes ‘cause I was shocked,” she said. She wasn’t the only one.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Cleveland kidnapping survivors Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus on journey from captivity to helping othersAmanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were held captive for more than 9 years by Ariel Castro and endured unimaginable abuse.
Read more »
Cleveland kidnapping survivors Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus on journey from captivity to helping othersAmanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were held captive for more than 9 years by Ariel Castro and endured unimaginable abuse.
Read more »
WellSet COO on avoiding burnout and finding work-life balance in tech - Business InsiderThis 30-year-old COO quit a career in private equity and a starring role at Pinterest to work in wellness tech after finding purpose in Buddhism
Read more »
Searching for Britain’s most important surrealistLeonora Carrington tapped into a deep layer of Mexico's psyche. Mexicans have begun to love her for it
Read more »
Should You Be Freaking out About Hair Dye and Its Link to Cancer?As Gina Rodriguez would say: Mama, let's research
Read more »
Woah! Halle Berry's Top 9 Photos of 2019 Prove How Incredibly Fit She IsHalle Berry’s top 9 Instagram photos of 2019 prove how incredibly fit she is at 53 — photos
Read more »