http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/us-police-probe-how-kidnap-hidden-for-10/666830.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
US police searched an unremarkable home in a working-class neighbourhood of Cleveland on Tuesday after three women who had been missing for around a decade were rescued from kidnappers.
Three brothers have been arrested in the Midwestern city after one of the captives managed to alert a neighbour, who broke down the door to free her and the six-year-old daughter she apparently bore as a prisoner.
Police responding to a desperate 911 emergency call found two more women in the modest detached home with American and Puerto Rican flags on the porch. All had been reported missing in separate incidents around 10 years ago.
Journalists and local residents descended on Seymour Avenue, where officers had sealed off the property with barriers and crime scene tape, astonished that anyone could have kept such a crime quiet for so long.
The women -- Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32 -- were freed on Monday night and examined at a local hospital before being released to their families. The FBI was due to interview them.
"We have evidence response teams there, we have victims specialists working with the families, with the Cleveland police, trying to determine how it did happen," said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson.
Relatives of the missing women were shocked and overjoyed.
"She's like my best friend. I'm glad she's home," Ricardo DeJesus, brother of Gina DeJesus, told CNN, vowing to never let his sister out of his sight again. "It is a miracle by God that she came home. That's all I can say."
Police confirmed that Berry has a six-year-old daughter, apparently born while she was in captivity.
The three Ohio women were abducted separately in 2002, 2003 and 2004 but were found together in the home of 52-year-old Ariel Castro.
Castro and his brothers -- Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50 -- have been detained. Police mugshots revealed them to be thick-set men with grey beards.
"For Amanda's family, for Gina's family, for Michelle's family, prayers have finally been answered," FBI special agent Steve Anthony told reporters.
The nightmare ended when Berry -- kidnapped just before her 17th birthday -- reached through a crack in the front door and called for help.
"I heard screaming ... and I see this girl going nuts trying to get outside of the house," neighbour Charles Ramsey told a local ABC news affiliate. "I go on the porch, and she said, 'Help me get out. I've been here a long time'."
Ramsey said he could not pull the door open, so he kicked out a lower section and she crawled through carrying a little girl.
Berry went to a neighbouring home and called police, begging them to come as soon as they could -- "before he gets back" -- according to a recording of her 911 call to emergency services.When police arrived, she said two other women were being held captive.
Berry was last seen on April 21, 2003, when she left work at a fast food restaurant just a few blocks from her home.
DeJesus was 14 when she vanished while walking home from school on April 2, 2004. Knight, who was 20 at the time of her disappearance, was last seen at a cousin's house on August 23, 2002, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
No comments:
Post a Comment