Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed: A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings

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One month into Castro's sentence, he was found dead in his cell, hanging by a bed sheet. It was ruled a suicide. "What a punk! I wanted him to sit in his cell and rot away a little bit at a time for the rest of his life, just like he forced me to do. 'He couldn't even deal with one month of the torture that he put us through,'" Michelle later told Gina.

Charles Ramsey interview, rescuer of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight in Cleveland". YouTube. News 5 Cleveland. May 6, 2013. Archived from the original on February 21, 2018 . Retrieved January 26, 2018. Harp, Carl (May 6, 2013). "Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus & Michele Knight Recovered From Tremont Home, Multiple People Arrested". CBS Cleveland. Archived from the original on May 17, 2013 . Retrieved May 13, 2013.Ariel Castro's relatives in Puerto Rico say 'demon inside made him lose his mind' ". New York Daily News. a b "Cleveland rescue: The mystery of 2207 Seymour Avenue". BBC. May 10, 2013. Archived from the original on May 10, 2013 . Retrieved May 14, 2013. Muskal, Michael (August 2013). "Ariel Castro gets life, no parole; victim says his hell awaits". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 11, 2013 . Retrieved September 4, 2013. Some of Castro's family members disowned him and denounced his actions and apologized to the victims and their families. [140] [141] [142] [143] [144] [145] [146] When Knight came out of captivity, her jaw was so badly damaged that she slurred her speech. Now she speaks more clearly. For six months after her release, she lived in sheltered accommodation where most of the residents were elderly. Today she lives in a beautiful one-bedroom apartment in the smart bit of Tremont, where she can afford the rent because of her substantial book advance and various trusts that have been established for her.

A consultant's report was released on December 3, and officially concluded that "all available evidence pointed to suicide, including a shrine-like arrangement of family pictures and a Bible in Castro's cell, an increasing tone of frustration in his prison journal and the reality of spending the rest of his life in prison while subject to constant harassment." The Ohio State Highway Patrol also reviewed the case and reached the same conclusion. [139] Castro's family [ edit ] Gomez, Henry J. (May 13, 2013). "The rescue of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight: 30 minutes that ended a decade of nightmares". The Plain Dealer. Archived from the original on May 15, 2013 . Retrieved May 13, 2013. Kiesel, Connor (May 13, 2013). "Amanda Berry's grandfather keeps 1986 Monte Carlo he promised before she went missing". Newsnet5.com. Archived from the original on July 10, 2013 . Retrieved July 9, 2013. a b c Krouse, Peter (July 26, 2013). "Ariel Castro agrees to plea deal: Life in prison, no parole, plus 1,000 years for abduction, rapes of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight". The Plain Dealer. Archived from the original on July 30, 2013 . Retrieved July 26, 2013.

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Sara Shookman. "Gina DeJesus speaks out as the five-year anniversary of her escape nears". wkyc.com. On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a Cleveland home and called 911, saying: “Help me, I’m Amanda Berry. . . . I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for ten years.” The question I keep asking Knight is how she kept going. She says she tried not to wake up in the mornings. She wouldn't get up until Castro bullied her out of bed. "I felt that me living in that house, everything was frozen. The only thing moving was the outside world. There was no reason to wake up, no reason to talk." Often she'd pretend to be asleep. He constantly taunted her: about her looks, about the fact that nobody was looking for her.

a b Palmer, Kim & Gray, Kevin (May 8, 2013). "Cleveland kidnapping victims endured decade of isolation, rape, beatings". Reuters. Archived from the original on October 5, 2013 . Retrieved May 13, 2013. Also published by the Chicago Tribune as "Cleveland kidnappings: Victims endured years of rape, isolation, beatings". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on May 9, 2013 . Retrieved October 4, 2013. . Dolan, Matthew; Barrett, Joe; El-Ghobashy, Tamer; Maher, Kris (May 9, 2013). "Charges Filed in Abduction of Ohio Women". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on October 15, 2015 . Retrieved May 14, 2013.

Newsletter

Welsh-Huggins, Andrew (December 3, 2013). "Consultants: Kidnapper Ariel Castro's death a suicide". USA Today. Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 6, 2013 . Retrieved October 3, 2013.

Starzyk, Edith (May 7, 2013). "Ariel Castro fired as Cleveland school bus driver for leaving bus and going home "to rest" ". The Plain Dealer. Archived from the original on May 10, 2013 . Retrieved May 13, 2013. Three US women missing for years rescued in Ohio". BBC. May 7, 2013. Archived from the original on May 12, 2013 . Retrieved May 13, 2013. Astonishing. After reading Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland, I was curious why the third victim featured in it so little, although all of the girls seem to be on good terms and wish each other well. In reading this, it's clear that the perpetrator's first victim had already suffered so much before she ever even got into the car with Ariel Castro (bitter poverty, abuse, homelessness, having her son taken by CPS), and that she was isolated from the other girls and treated very differently. It makes total sense to me that she chose to write her own story, and I hope that she and her son have the chance to connect sometime when he's older. I do have a bit of a problem with Michelle's story in it saying part of it has been fictionalized. HOWEVE Woods, Jim (September 4, 2013). "Ariel Castro dies in apparent suicide". The Columbus Dispatch. Archived from the original on September 6, 2013 . Retrieved September 4, 2013.McClam, Erin (May 9, 2013). "Cleveland man charged with kidnapping, rape; no charges for 2 brothers". NBC News. Archived from the original on May 13, 2013 . Retrieved May 13, 2013. Robert Wolford was a prison inmate who had lived in Tremont, and he claimed in July 2012 that he had information about the location of Berry's body. He led police to an empty lot on Cleveland's West Side, where they conducted a fruitless search. [47] [58] He was sentenced in January 2013 to 4 + 1⁄ 2 years in prison for obstruction of justice, making a false report, and making a false alarm. [59] Gina DeJesus [ edit ] 2004 FBI sketch of a suspect in DeJesus's disappearance O'Malley, Michael (May 8, 2013). "Castro family among first Hispanics to settle in Cleveland, coming from Puerto Rico just after World War II". The Plain Dealer. Archived from the original on August 8, 2013 . Retrieved September 9, 2013.