Two teenage girls disappeared from their Cleveland communities. Days passed. Weeks went on. Months became years. Hope that the girls remained alive slowly evaporated through time. A decade passed until the girls resurfaced. On May 6, 2013, a woman screamed for help from a house in Cleveland and assistance arrived. She was one of the reported missing teens, and turned 27 by then. Soon after, two other women were discovered locked inside the house. One included the other reported teen.
Ariel Castro, the owner of the house was a former school bus driver. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 1,000 years for the kidnapping of the three girls. However, he hung himself after a month inside the prison cell.
"Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland" described the experience of Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. Two of the three girls stuck inside Castro's home. The two girls told their story with the aide of Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, journalists from the Washington Post. Much of the detail in this memoir came from Berry's diaries which she kept while locked inside Castro's home.
All three victims were deceived by Castro through offers for a ride in his car. He drove the victims to his place through false stories. Soon after entry into Castro's residence, the women faced chains, gagged, and rape. The girls faced realistic circumstances where many people might lead themselves to believe a stranger. The reality that the girls experienced a run-in with a man which altered their lives permanently felt beyond belief.
Castro's first victim, Michelle Knight told her narrative of the decade long kidnapping in a separate memoir. However, Berry and DeJesus mentioned her on a few occasions throughout their memoir. Knight experienced pregnancy at least once in Castro's house although he forced her to miscarry. Castro likely abused Knight physically until the baby died inside the womb. The thought that forced abortions occurred to an innocent woman inside this house of horrors sent shrills through my spine. Knight encountered rape as well as an incapacity to make decisions with the her pregnancy.
The second unlikely victim included Amanda Berry. Like Knight, Berry became pregnant in Castro's house although he permitted her to deliver the baby. Castro desired Berry to provide birth to the child inside his residence rather than a hospital. Likely to avoid questions of the circumstances of the pregnancy. He provided Berry an empty plastic swimming pool to sit in while child birth occurred. Picture conditions like this as a manner to create a life. Tough to imagine what the situation would feel like as a person whose never experienced.
Third victim included Gina DeJesus. Castro's youngest captive at age 14 when she disappeared from a 'normal' life. DeJesus shared in the memoir that she decided to cut her wrists at one point inside the Castro home. Cutting provided an escape from the daily trials and tribulations which she certainly faced.
One moment which presented an emphasis on how life continued to move on while these girls remained jailed inside Castro's home correlated to Amanda Berry. She discovered news of her mother's death while watching t.v. Berry's mother passed away oblivious of where her daughter vanished to. Castro was aware of the close death to Berry and neglected to express empathy towards her. A realization surfaced that Berry lacked the ability to reunite with her mother because of Castro. A heart wrenching detail enclosed inside this memoir.
Castro appeared to live in a continuous delusion which ran rampant inside his head. DeJesus and Berry described that Castro proclaimed the sex was consensual inside the house. The thought that two girls kidnapped against their will to live inside another man's residence and consented to sex presents a tough argument to validate. On occasions, Castro referred to him and Berry as 'together'. The manifestation of a relationship possibly generated inside the man's mind.
The escape presented a moment of redemption for DeJesus and Berry after a decade passed by. The disappearance of a child sounds sick and horrific at the surface. Trauma likely occurs to the immediate family. Parents and siblings must deal with the lost of a loved one and and the mystery of the disappearance. I recently read Dejesus and Berry's memoir and their book enlightened a topic which usually neglected to pass through my mind. The memoir offered a chance to understand what the two girls faced in their experience as victims of kidnapping. The book also challenged me to comprehend the seriousness which surrounds the issue of long term child kidnapping. The memoir provided an outlet to gather insight into this legitimate issue which affects and hurts many families as well as the victims of the unfortunate event.
