WEBVTT 00:00:02.120 --> 00:00:04.139 I have a calltick on the phone with a female 00:00:04.139 --> 00:00:06.780 who says her name is Amanda Berry and that she 00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:10.119 had been kidnapped 10 years ago. She's at this 00:00:10.119 --> 00:00:15.980 location now. It's a code 1. The cat is 0149. 00:00:17.460 --> 00:00:27.600 0149. She still has on the phone right now. She's 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:32.479 saying that the male is Ariel Castro. 52 year 00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:35.259 old Hispanic male that lives at 2207 Seymour 00:00:35.259 --> 00:00:37.679 and that he's been holding her here for 10 years. 00:01:02.199 --> 00:01:17.159 Go ahead. We found them. We found them. We also 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:21.400 have a Michelle Knight in the house. I don't 00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:23.120 know if you want to look that up in the radio. 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:33.340 Hi, my name is Tanya and this is day nine of 00:01:33.340 --> 00:01:37.359 my 100 days of growth for my podcast Bloom Talks. 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:40.900 Three separate days, three moments when life 00:01:40.900 --> 00:01:44.680 should have gone on as normal. Instead, each 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:47.959 moment ended the same way. A door closed, a lock 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:51.500 clicked, and childhood freedom safety just disappeared. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.939 For nearly a decade, three young women were held 00:01:54.939 --> 00:01:59.079 captive inside a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, 00:01:59.079 --> 00:02:03.640 Ohio. Their names were Michelle Knight, Amanda 00:02:03.640 --> 00:02:09.639 Berry, and Gina DeJesus. For nearly a decade 00:02:09.639 --> 00:02:15.580 these women would be held captive. This is the 00:02:15.580 --> 00:02:18.719 true story of how they were taken, how they survived, 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:21.840 and what they did with their lives after the 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:28.400 world finally found them again. Michelle Knight's 00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:32.419 was born in 1981. Her childhood was already marked 00:02:32.419 --> 00:02:35.460 by hardship, instability, foster care, poverty 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:39.039 and abuse. By adulthood, she had already learned 00:02:39.039 --> 00:02:46.180 how to survive difficult circumstances long before 00:02:46.180 --> 00:02:51.740 captivity even begun. On August 22, 2002, Michelle 00:02:51.740 --> 00:02:55.800 was 21 years old. She was walking near downtown 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:59.400 Cleveland when a man approached her. His name 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:07.639 was Ariel Castro. He told her he could help her 00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:11.620 and look for her missing son and she believed 00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:14.219 him but instead he drove her straight to his 00:03:14.219 --> 00:03:18.360 house. Once inside the true revealed itself immediately. 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:22.020 Michelle was beaten, restrained, assaulted and 00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:24.860 locked inside. She would not leave that house 00:03:24.860 --> 00:03:28.280 again for nearly 11 years. For a long time she 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:30.860 was completely alone and slowly the world stopped 00:03:30.860 --> 00:03:36.340 looking for her. On April 21st, 2003, Amanda 00:03:36.340 --> 00:03:39.840 Berry would disappear. She was only 16 years 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:45.639 old. Amanda had just finished a shift at Burger 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:48.099 King and was waiting for her sister to pick her 00:03:48.099 --> 00:03:52.539 up. A man she recognized pulled over, Ariel Castro. 00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:57.400 He lived nearby, she had met him before and he 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:00.379 offered her a ride. She accepted this ride and 00:04:00.379 --> 00:04:03.360 minutes later she was inside the same house. 00:04:03.939 --> 00:04:07.560 Amanda was again assaulted and locked away. Now 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:10.080 there were two girls kept separate, isolated 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:16.100 from one another, controlled through fear. On 00:04:16.100 --> 00:04:24.899 April the 2nd, 2004 Gina De Geus vanished. She 00:04:24.899 --> 00:04:28.160 was only 14 years old. She had a whole life ahead 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:31.500 of her, all these girls did. She was just walking 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:34.600 home from a friend's house when Castro approached 00:04:34.600 --> 00:04:38.279 her. Once again, trust was exploited. Gina was 00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:40.800 taken to the same house and she would spend her 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:44.519 teenage years, her entire adolescence, in captivity. 00:04:48.220 --> 00:04:51.550 Now there were three. three lives unfolding in 00:04:51.550 --> 00:04:55.889 parallel rarely allowed to interact this is the 00:04:55.889 --> 00:04:59.189 hardest part of the story and it matters inside 00:04:59.189 --> 00:05:02.670 that house life was defined by absolute control 00:05:02.670 --> 00:05:06.350 all three girls were locked in rooms restrained 00:05:06.350 --> 00:05:13.430 with chains threatened with death and subjected 00:05:13.430 --> 00:05:17.069 to repeated assault Windows were boarded shut, 00:05:17.149 --> 00:05:20.350 doors were reinforced, music was played loudly 00:05:20.350 --> 00:05:25.050 to drown out any noise. They were denied privacy, 00:05:26.089 --> 00:05:29.430 denied dignity. Michelle Nye endured the longest 00:05:29.430 --> 00:05:32.870 captivity and often the harshest treatment. She 00:05:32.870 --> 00:05:35.790 was frequently beaten, starved and psychologically 00:05:35.790 --> 00:05:39.029 broken down. She suffered forced miscarriages 00:05:39.029 --> 00:05:43.449 and extreme neglect. Amanda Berry and Gina lived 00:05:43.449 --> 00:05:47.350 under constant threat, learning to read moods, 00:05:47.350 --> 00:05:50.370 anticipate danger and survive moment to moment. 00:05:53.670 --> 00:05:56.129 This was not survival driven by hope. It was 00:05:56.129 --> 00:05:59.529 survival driven by endurance. In 2006, Amanda 00:05:59.529 --> 00:06:02.850 Berry became pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter 00:06:02.850 --> 00:06:06.550 while in captivity. This moment changed everything. 00:06:07.129 --> 00:06:09.870 Amanda later said that her daughter gave her 00:06:09.870 --> 00:06:13.470 a reason to stay alive. She protected her fiercely. 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:16.319 She taught her to read and write using television 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:20.000 captions, scraps of paper, and repetition. She 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.240 tried to create a version of childhood inside 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.100 a locked house. Michelle and Gina helped when 00:06:25.100 --> 00:06:28.180 they could, small acts of care in an environment 00:06:28.180 --> 00:06:33.819 designed to erase humanity. Years passed, birthdays 00:06:33.819 --> 00:06:36.379 passed, and the girls grew older behind locked 00:06:36.379 --> 00:06:39.899 doors. Outside the house, families searched. 00:06:40.220 --> 00:06:45.170 Amanda Berry and Gina De Jesus. became high profile 00:06:45.170 --> 00:06:49.509 missing persons cases. Michelle Knight unfortunately 00:06:49.509 --> 00:06:52.430 did not. Many believed she had simply disappeared. 00:06:53.110 --> 00:06:55.689 Inside the house, the women learned not to expect 00:06:55.689 --> 00:06:59.670 rescue. Hope became dangerous. Escape felt impossible. 00:07:00.569 --> 00:07:04.509 Until one day that was. Imagine this. The house 00:07:04.509 --> 00:07:08.689 is quiet, Castro leaves, and Amanda notices the 00:07:08.689 --> 00:07:12.750 door is not fully secured. She breaks part of 00:07:12.750 --> 00:07:16.209 the door frame. She screams, she pounds and a 00:07:16.209 --> 00:07:19.850 neighbor hears her. With help, Amanda escapes, 00:07:20.230 --> 00:07:22.490 carrying her daughter. Police arrive and they 00:07:22.490 --> 00:07:27.910 enter the house. And one by one, after nearly 00:07:27.910 --> 00:07:32.350 a decade, Michelle walks outside. Gina follows 00:07:32.350 --> 00:07:36.470 her. All three women step into the daylight alive. 00:07:38.149 --> 00:07:42.290 Ariel Castro was arrested and charged with kidnapping, 00:07:43.769 --> 00:07:47.689 sexual assault and aggravated murder related 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:51.230 to forced miscarriages. He pleaded guilty and 00:07:51.230 --> 00:07:54.490 he's sentenced to life in prison plus a thousand 00:07:54.490 --> 00:07:58.110 years. He died by suicide in prison in 2013, 00:07:58.529 --> 00:08:02.350 but his victims lived on. Freedom did not, of 00:08:02.350 --> 00:08:05.050 course, erase that trauma. Healing was slow, 00:08:05.050 --> 00:08:09.370 personal and different for each woman. Michelle 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:12.360 Knight's later changed her name to Lily Rose 00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:15.980 Lee. She wrote the memoir, Finding Me, reclaiming 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:19.000 her identity in her own words. She became an 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:20.980 advocate for missing and exploited children. 00:08:21.399 --> 00:08:24.259 She built a family, married and spoke openly 00:08:24.259 --> 00:08:28.180 about survival after long term captivity. Amanda 00:08:28.180 --> 00:08:31.819 Berry focused on raising her daughter. She co 00:08:31.819 --> 00:08:34.919 -wrote the memoir, Hope. She became a missing 00:08:34.919 --> 00:08:37.899 persons investigator and radio host, helping 00:08:37.899 --> 00:08:41.750 families find loved ones. turning her experience 00:08:41.750 --> 00:08:47.490 into purpose and Gina DeJesus returned to her 00:08:47.490 --> 00:08:50.809 family and chose a quieter path. She co -authored 00:08:50.809 --> 00:08:55.250 Hope and participated in advocacy while prioritizing 00:08:55.250 --> 00:08:58.210 privacy, healing and rebuilding her life in her 00:08:58.210 --> 00:09:01.710 own terms. Each woman reclaimed their future 00:09:01.710 --> 00:09:05.779 differently and every path was valid. This story 00:09:05.779 --> 00:09:08.059 is not inspirational because of what happened, 00:09:08.460 --> 00:09:11.100 it's inspirational because of what didn't destroy 00:09:11.100 --> 00:09:16.779 them. They survived that loss of freedom and 00:09:16.779 --> 00:09:20.259 years of isolation, that psychological terror 00:09:20.259 --> 00:09:25.720 and the threat of their youth. They endured without 00:09:25.720 --> 00:09:28.759 knowing if rescue would ever come. And when it 00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:31.519 did, they chose life. Their stories remind us 00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:34.820 that survival is strength. That healing is not 00:09:34.820 --> 00:09:38.059 linear and that victims are not defined by what 00:09:38.059 --> 00:09:43.799 was done to them. Yes, they lost 10 years of 00:09:43.799 --> 00:09:47.860 their life, but still they chose to live fully 00:09:47.860 --> 00:09:54.059 once rescued. They're not just survivors, they're 00:09:54.059 --> 00:09:58.179 women who came home and this is the story of 00:09:58.179 --> 00:10:01.480 Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Jean Kerr. 00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:09.500 Thank you for listening to another episode of 00:10:09.500 --> 00:10:12.000 Bloom Talks with Tanya Bloom. If you enjoyed 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:14.480 this episode, be sure to subscribe and join us 00:10:14.480 --> 00:10:17.139 next time for another incredible journey of resilience. 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:21.379 Until then, stay safe, keep growing and take 00:10:21.379 --> 00:10:21.639 care.