If you turned on or consumed any form of media within the last week or so, you’ll likely be familiar with these three names—Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.
If you turned on or consumed any form of media within the last week or so, you’ll likely be familiar with these three names—Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.
These are the three women in the American state of Ohio who were freed from a house after being held captive for ten years. To those in the city of Cleveland, the citizens of the United States and around the world who watched this story unfold, their ordeal was abhorrent, and the reasons of why things happened the way they did appeared opaque.
When the news came that they were released, there were tears of joy and sighs of relief. What started for the families of those women as a decade of grief, torture, anguish and constant concern suddenly became unheralded joy, and the attempt to help the relatives they love adjust back into the reality that they had. (For the record, according to a report from the BBC, Berry and DeJesus are with their families, while Knight is in hospital.)
Now, the goal was to figure out who did it and why.
On May 8, officials in Cleveland called a news conference and said there were criminal charges filed. “I’ve just signed criminal complaints charging Ariel Castro with four counts of kidnapping, and three counts of rape,” said Victor Perez, the city’s Chief Assistant Prosecutor, as quoted by National Public Radio member station WCPN. “The seven criminal complaints are first degree felonies.”
Cleveland police also arrested Castro’s brothers, Onil and Pedro, but it is said no charges will be filed against the two, the BBC report adds, while Castro is cooperating with police. It is unclear of any timeline of trial, or if indeed more charges would be added on. In an interview with the Daily Mail, quoted in a BBC report, Castro’s son Anthony said he would not be allowed in on his last visit to the house on Seymour Avenue. “The house was always locked,” Castro said. “There were places we could never go. There were locks on the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage.”
What happens now is the investigations will continue and the answers will try to be revealed, to examine the extent of the behaviour of Castro over the course of those ten years, including the child that Berry gave birth to while she was in captivity. There will also be questions that the families of Berry, DeJesus and Knight want answered, but most importantly, the help of getting Berry, DeJesus and Knight back into the routine of normal life.
Indeed, for the people of Cleveland, who have faced the news of this case day in and day out for the last ten years, they too will want to get back into the routine of normal life, staying strong and helping the women who thought were gone forever on that dark day a decade ago, become part of life again.
The days ahead will by no means be easy, but when all is said and done, the people of this city will bounce back, stronger than ever. Indeed, although I’ve never met them, nor their families, I know they’ll bounce back.
After all, they’re Clevelanders.
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