Three women, missing for years, rescued from Cleveland home

[busybeeburns]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XRzsNbskTA]3 Women Missing For Nearly 10 Years Found Alive - YouTube[/ame]

 

Three women, missing for years, rescued from Cleveland home

 

Three women who had been missing as long as 11 years were rescued from a Cleveland home on Monday, police said, an announcement that rocked the city and prompted celebrations in the street.

 

Cleveland police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight seemed to be "in good health" after their surprise discovery at a Seymour Avenue home, and an unidentified man had been arrested.

 

A 911 recording obtained by local media captured the dramatic moment when Berry told authorities who she was.

 

“Help me, I’m Amanda Berry…. I need police.… I’ve been kidnapped, I’ve been missing for 10 years, I’m here, I’m free now," a breathless, emotional Berry told a dispatcher.

 

She added of her captor, "I need them [the police] now, before he gets back.... I'm Amanda Berry. I've been in the news for the past 10 years."

 

Berry was 16 when she disappeared on April 21, 2003, after she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King, the Associated Press reported. DeJesus was 14 when she disappeared a year later. Knight vanished Aug. 23, 2002, when she was 21, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported.

 

Charles Ramsey told WKYC-TV he'd just gotten home from McDonald's when he started to hear screaming inside the home next door, and he and another neighbor ran to help.

 

"This girl’s kicking the door and screaming, and so I go over there with my Big Mac, and I say, 'Well, can I help you, what’s going on?' And she says, 'I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been in this house a long time. I want to leave right now!' "

 

The door wouldn't open, so the men began kicking the bottom of it to allow the woman to get out, Ramsey said. She identified herself as Berry.

 

"I thought she was the only one," Ramsey told WKYC-TV. "She grabbed some little girl ... and said, 'This is his daughter' " -- an apparent reference to the man living in the home.

 

He said emergency officials didn't at first believe that they'd discovered Berry, and when they arrived, a more dramatic story unfolded.

 

"That girl, Amanda, told the police, 'I ain't the only one in there,' " Ramsey told WEWS-TV.

 

Police went into the house and discovered the other women.

 

"When they came out, it was astonishing," Ramsey said.

 

Neighbors told reporters they had no idea women lived in the house and had never seen them outside. The owner blacked out his windows and entered his home through the back door, Jannette Gomez, 50, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

 

"I ate barbecue with this dude," Ramsey told WEWS-TV.

 

The women were taken to a hospital, where a doctor said they were in "fair condition."

 

"This isn’t the ending we usually hear to these stories, so we’re very happy,” said Dr. Gerald Maloney of the MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland. Maloney said the women could communicate but wouldn't go into further details.

 

Police said they would hold a news conference about the case Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.

 

Berry’s mother, Louwana Miller, died in March 2006 after being hospitalized for months with pancreatitis and other illnesses, the AP reported. Friends said the search for her daughter had taken a toll on her health.

 

The incident evoked the cases of Jaycee Dugard, kidnapped at age 11 near her South Lake Tahoe home and held for 18 years until her rescue, and of Elizabeth Smart, kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home when she was 14 and held for nine months as her captor’s “plural wife” until someone recognized the man who was a suspect in her disappearance.

 

Dugard was kidnapped in 1991 and rescued in 2009; she had two children during her captivity, both fathered by her kidnapper.

 

Another case involved Steven Stayner of Merced, kidnapped at age 7 and held until age 14, when he escaped with another young kidnapping victim. He told authorities he wanted to free the second victim, then himself.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-missing-cleveland-women-20130506,0,1408429.story

[Prince Myshkin]

I wonder how many of these things never come to anybody's knowledge and they get away with it.

 

Oh, and http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/05/06/in-2004-psychic-sylvia-browne-told-amanda-berrys-mom-her-daughter-was-dead/

[iccp]

:| glad they got out!

[NumbersGirl]

Suspect in Cleveland missing women case helped neighbors look for girl

 

 

 

CLEVELAND (AP) - Neighbors say one of three brothers in custody after three women were found alive in his Cleveland home passed out fliers and joined in the search for one of the girls nearly a decade ago.

 

They say the man also attended a candlelight vigil just a year ago to remember the girl and comforted the girl's mother.

 

Ariel Castro and his brothers are in jail but haven't been charged in the missing-persons case. They could appear in court as early as Wednesday morning.

 

A 911 call led police to his house near downtown Cleveland where the three women, who disappeared over several years, were found Monday.

 

The women have been reunited with joyous family members but they remain in seclusion.

 

A relative of the brothers says their family is "totally shocked." The three are expected to be formally charged Wednesday.

 

 

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[Tash]

Ariel Castro 'hell house' demolished in Cleveland (link)

 

The demolition was part of a deal made in court that spared Castro the death penalty

 

It took workers less than two hours to bring down the building

 

Contractors were instructed to shred building material for fear that people would try to sell it online

[Prince Myshkin]

Part of a deal to spare the death penalty? Bit weird.

[busybeeburns]

Should have knocked it down then told him you're still going to death row

[Matter-Eater Lad]

You support the death sentence, Ian?

[Black Rose]

It's not like anybody was going to buy that house after what he did so a rather pointless deal.

[Prince Myshkin]

Should have knocked it down then told him you're still going to death row

 

WOW

[Batman]

Should have knocked it down then told him you're still going to death row

Dafuq Ian, that's very impolite to say lol

[busybeeburns]

yeah, lol.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Ariel Castro gets life in jail. His house gets the death penalty. That will deter other structures from such activities.</p>— Allen Thornton (@AllenThornton2) <a href="https://twitter.com/AllenThornton2/statuses/365094192638197760">August 7, 2013</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Batman]

yeah, lol.

 

Ariel Castro gets life in jail. His house gets the death penalty. That will deter other structures from such activities.

— Allen Thornton (@AllenThornton2)

August 7, 2013

Poor house dude D:

[Prince Myshkin]

Expand on your views Ian, I'm intrigued.

Not very Coldplay'y

[Tash]

Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro found hanged in cell

[Coeurli]

Infuriating.

[nancyk58]

Well, what could be expected I guess (facing lifetime in prison).

 

My thoughts and best wishes go to the 3 victims and the child who have been through a horror the memories of which will never escape them.

[NumbersGirl]

Infuriating.

That he committed suicide?

[Prince Myshkin]

I think she's saying it's a shame that he didn't serve his sentence.

Providing he didn't have a death penalty, I can't remember what the sentence was.

[NumbersGirl]

I think she's saying it's a shame that he didn't serve his sentence.

Providing he didn't have a death penalty, I can't remember what the sentence was.

I believe his sentence was life in prison plus 1000 years. ("Life" sentence can mean different things based on the jurisdiction, often it means 20 years as opposed to actual future lifetime.)

 

I know people will think it sounds callous, but I don't think it's a shame. It would be one thing if his sentence was such that he could eventually be released, and had the possibility of some sort of rehabilitation (since he claimed he was "just sick".) But, since his sentence was such that there is no possibility that he would ever be released into society again, in essence any attempt at rehabilitation wouldn't be fruitful. Potentially millions of tax dollars would have been spent to keep him alive for the rest of his natural life in prison; millions of dollars that could be spent on rehabilitating other criminals that would eventually be released back into society.

[Black Rose]

Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro found hanged in cell[/url]

 

Suicide, probably not

 

Crooked guard more like

[Guest LiquidSky]

link[/url])

 

The demolition was part of a deal made in court that spared Castro the death penalty

 

It took workers less than two hours to bring down the building

 

Contractors were instructed to shred building material for fear that people would try to sell it online

 

 

I'm still confused as to how this got to be a "deal"...

[Cobalt]

I believe his sentence was life in prison plus 1000 years. ("Life" sentence can mean different things based on the jurisdiction, often it means 20 years as opposed to actual future lifetime.)

 

I know people will think it sounds callous, but I don't think it's a shame. It would be one thing if his sentence was such that he could eventually be released, and had the possibility of some sort of rehabilitation (since he claimed he was "just sick".) But, since his sentence was such that there is no possibility that he would ever be released into society again, in essence any attempt at rehabilitation wouldn't be fruitful. Potentially millions of tax dollars would have been spent to keep him alive for the rest of his natural life in prison; millions of dollars that could be spent on rehabilitating other criminals that would eventually be released back into society.

 

true

 

i think it's a shame because it brings more attention to him instead of the survivors, and he will not experience some of what it felt like for those women to be trapped for years etc

 

but i am not really into retributionary justice in general as a good idea

[NumbersGirl]

Police say ill-fated risky sex act, not suicide may have caused Ariel Castro's death

 

 

 

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A state patrol investigation may shed more light on the possibility that Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro died after an ill-fated attempt to choke himself for a sexual thrill.

 

The probe into the Sept. 3 death of Castro includes evidence that he may have died from autoerotic asphyxiation.

 

An Ohio prisons report on Castro's death released Thursday suggests that possibility, noting his pants and underwear were around his ankles when he was found.

 

The report also says two guards falsified logs documenting the number of times they checked on Castro before he died.

 

Castro, 53, was found hanging from a bedsheet just weeks into a life sentence. He pleaded guilty in August to kidnapping three women off the streets, imprisoning them in his home for a decade and repeatedly raping and beating them.

 

Autoerotic asphyxiation is a sexual act in which people achieve sexual satisfaction while choking themselves into unconsciousness.

 

Castro did not leave a suicide note, a full psychological evaluation had found no sign he was seriously mentally ill or contemplating suicide, and investigators could find no reason he would have taken his own life, according to the report.

 

In fact, the day Castro died, the warden recommended he serve his time apart from the other inmates, an option Castro expressed interest in, the investigation found.

 

The findings were forwarded to the Ohio Highway Patrol "for consideration of the possibility of autoerotic asphyxiation," the report said.

 

The Highway Patrol said it would have no comment pending the release of its own investigation.

 

Franklin County Coroner Jan Gorniak, who classified Castro's death as a suicide last week, said Thursday that her office was never told his pants were down. But she said she stands by her finding of suicide.

 

In Castro's cell, officials found a Bible open to John, Chapters 2 and 3 and pictures of Castro's family arranged "in a poster-board fashion," according to the report.

 

Surveillance video indicates guards did not do at least eight required checks on Castro the afternoon and evening before his death and falsified the logs, according to the report. Two checks were done properly just before Castro died.

 

The report also says staff failed to make sure Castro watched a suicide-prevention video when he first arrived in August.

 

Similar allegations of falsified logs have been made against two other guards in the Aug. 4 suicide of a death row inmate just days before he was to be executed.

 

After release of Thursday's report, the prison system announced that supervisors will conduct random checks at all prisons to make sure guards are doing their rounds.

 

Castro's lawyer brushed off the suggestion of autoerotic asphyxiation and said the prison bears responsibility for his death.

 

The prison guards union accused the state of scapegoating employees instead of dealing with overcrowding and violence behind bars.

 

The prison report also found that an ambulance was significantly late in arriving but that the delay probably didn't affect the outcome.

 

In court, Castro blamed his problems on an addiction to pornography. He described himself as a sex addict and said: "I'm not a monster. I'm sick."

 

 

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