Cleveland kidnap victim: ‘I spent 11 years in hell’
Print Edition
One of three women kidnapped and repeatedly raped for years before their escape told her abductor yesterday that her life is just beginning while his is over now that he’s about to be sentenced to life in prison.
Michelle Knight stood feet from Ariel Castro in a Cleveland, Ohio, courtroom, the first time she’s been seen publicly since her rescue from the house where she was held captive.
“You took 11 years of my life away and I have got it back,” she told Castro. “I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all this has happened, but you will face hell for eternity.”
Knight, 32, did not face Castro as she spoke, but he glanced toward her several times after she entered the courtroom.
She said she cried every night and that her years in captivity “turned into eternity.”
Knight was the only one of the victims to speak at the hearing. Relatives of the other two read statements on their behalf.
Knight was the first woman abducted by Castro in 2002 after he lured her into his house with the promise of a puppy for her son. Castro has pleaded guilty to charges that he repeatedly raped Knight and two other victims, and forced Knight to miscarry after he impregnated her.
At yesterday’s hearing, prosecutors detailed Castro’s assaults and law enforcement witnesses described the prison he built in his home. With the possibility of the death penalty for a forced miscarriage taken off the table, Castro stands to get life in prison plus 1,000 years.
FBI agent Andrew Burke said Castro turned his house into a prison by creating a makeshift alarm system and chaining the women inside bolted bedrooms.
Bedroom windows were boarded shut from the inside with heavy closet doors and doorknobs had been removed and replaced with multiple locks, he said.
The house was divided in ways to make it more secure and to hide the existence of rooms, he said.
Burke also testified that Castro would occasionally pay his victims after raping them. But he then would require them to pay him if they wanted something special from the store.
The women quickly escaped after Amanda Berry kicked out the door panel on May 6 and Castro was arrested within hours.
They had disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.
Berry, 27, made a surprise onstage appearance at a rap concert last weekend, and the third victim, Gina DeJesus, 23, has made a few televised comments. Knight appeared with Berry and DeJesus in a video in early July thanking the community for its support.
Knight also sent police a handwritten letter thanking them for their help collecting cards and gifts for the women.
In the note, Knight told Second District Commander Keith Sulzer, “Life is tough, but I’m tougher!”
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