Missing women found in Cleveland

[Natalka]

Amazing story!

Three Cleveland women, found alive after vanishing for about a decade in their own neighborhood, were freed from a house that authorities tried to visit several years ago, police said on Tuesday.

Three brothers, one of them a school bus driver who owns the house in Cleveland, Ohio where three women and a child were found on Monday, are under arrest, police said at a news conference....

... Monday evening's rescue, described as a "miracle" by one family member, unfolded with a frantic emergency call from a woman who told a 911 operator she was Amanda Berry, who disappeared in April 2003 and was the subject of years of searches.

She had escaped from the modest, two-story house in the low-income neighborhood on Cleveland's West Side with the help of a neighbor who told police he heard screaming and helped her kick out a locked screen door.

Police arrived to find Berry, now 27, along with Gina DeJesus, 23, who vanished in 2004, and Michelle Knight, now 32, who went missing in 2002, police said. They also found a 6-year-old girl who police said was Berry's daughter. She would have been conceived and born during Berry's captivity.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/s...252,full.story


Charles Ramsey, honestly a hero! He heard cries coming from the house, thought it might be a domestic dispute, so went to help

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/07/us/ohi...sey/index.html

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Prayers for these women and the child, as they heal from this ordeal.

[Darth Penguin]

It's a shame that Amanda Berry's mother died not knowing she was still alive.

For nearly three years, Louwana Miller desperately sought answers in the case of her missing daughter, Amanda Berry.
Miller died early Thursday without those answers. The ordeal had taken a toll as her health steadily deteriorated in recent months, family and friends said. She was 44.
She died of heart failure at a Lakewood rehabilitation center, said her sister, Theresa. She had been hospitalized since December for pancreatitis and other ailments.

[Darth Penguin]

And it's even more of a shame that Sylvia Browne told her that her daughter was dead.

The psychic said what the FBI, police and Miller hadn’t.“She’s not alive, honey,” Sylvia Browne told her matter-of-factly. “Your daughter’s not the kind who wouldn’t call.”
With those blunt words, Browne persuaded Miller to accept a grim probability that has become more likely with each passing day.
Miller went back to the West Side home where she had been keeping Amanda’s things in careful order and cleaned up. She gave away her daughter’s computer and took down her pictures. “I’m not even buying my baby a Christmas present this year,” she said.
Miller said she returned devastated from the show, taped this month in New York.
“I lost it,” she said.
Miller said she believes “98 percent” in Browne.

[Patty Smyth]

It's a shame that Amanda Berry's mother died not knowing she was still alive.

I saw John Walsh interviewed last night on Piers and he said that she "died of a broken heart". so sad

[Darth Penguin]

Here's an intereasting article about Elizabeth Smart on why some women don't run away.

Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”
Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

[jasperandchar]

Absolutely fantastic, poor ladies but atleast they will get the help they need and be reunited with their families after such a long time.

Good news all around in my opinion.

[beckyrobinson1]

What an utterly crazy story!

[Lynn49]

Amanda returned to her home today, and I believe Gina has returned also...but Michelle remains in the hospital...did I hear correctly on CNN that her sister or friend said she was "unbalanced"? Apparently she doesn't want to see her Mother...I saw her brother in a brief interview and couldn't understand much of what he said, but he does seem to want to help her...

Poor girls....Amanda so far seems to be the most vocal and 'well-adjusted' (as much as one can be under the circumstances)...she's quite the survivor...and her little girl...what truths will she know about her dad in the future....

As for Sylvia Browne....ppphtt!!....what a hot mess! And does Miller STILL believe in her?!
What a disgusting creature Browne is....ugh...!!!Horrible!

[Darth Penguin]

Charles Ramsey: "take that reward and give it to the kidnap victims"

The man who is being hailed as a hero for rescuing the lives of three women kidnapped for a decade says that he would like any reward money to be turned over to the victims. Charles Ramsey became an instant Internet sensation on Monday when he helped free Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus and Michele Knight from the house next to his where they had been trapped for around 10 years.
“Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms,” he told WEWS following the rescue. “Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway.”

[Darth Penguin]

The more I read about that man, the more I'm grateful for such people.

[Darth Penguin]

It's scary how close together the victims were abducted.

[Natalka]

Charges laid

Ariel Castro - Four charges kidnapping, three charges rape -

Two others, no charges at this time, but there are outstanding warrants.

[Darth Penguin]

There's another missing girl from the area

Ashley Summers

Ashley Summers was 14 years old when she disappeared in 2007 from the same Cleveland neighborhood where Berry, DeJesus, and Knight went missing. She was presumed to have run away from home after a family dispute, but when she was never seen or heard from again, authorities began to suspect she was being held against her will. Summers’ grandmother claimed she saw Ashley in a car in November 2007, with short, dyed-blonde hair. In a 2009 Oprah segment about the disappearances of Summers, Berry, and DeJesus, FBI Special Agent Phil Torsney seemed to discount this, saying “there’s been no legitimate sighting of Ashley since she left her house.”

[Lynn49]

I don't have a good feeling about her, poor thing....Apparently the police or FBI searched another home today and came out with shovels....so terribly sad....

And as for Charles Ramsey...more than a hero: he's their Angel. Loved his line about the pretty white girl running into his arms...what a good, kind man...Gives us hope...

[abbasgirl]

Amanda returned to her home today, and I believe Gina has returned also...but Michelle remains in the hospital...did I hear correctly on CNN that her sister or friend said she was "unbalanced"? Apparently she doesn't want to see her Mother...I saw her brother in a brief interview and couldn't understand much of what he said, but he does seem to want to help her...

I think what you may have heard about Michelle was that the police reported her as mentally instable at the time she was reported missing - a statement that her mother disagreed with. There was some uncertainty at the time though because she had just lost custody of her son.
Regardless of what her mental state was when she was abducted though, I don't think any of the 3 women could have survived 10 or more years without it affecting their mental health.