CLEVELAND: An ex-school bus driver accused in the abduction ordeal of three young Ohio women was due in court on Thursday to face charges he kidnapped and raped the victims, who authorities said were held captive in the dungeon-like confines of his house for 10 years.
As two of the women received jubilant homecomings from loved ones yesterday and the third remained in hospital, authorities in Cleveland disclosed details of the isolation and brutal treatment the captives endured before they were freed earlier this week.
Officials said the three women were at times bound in chains or rope and endured starvation, beatings, sexual assaults and in the case of one of them, several miscarriages deliberately induced by their captor.
Their imprisonment came to an end on Monday after neighbors, drawn to the house by cries for help, broke through a door to rescue Amanda Berry, whose disappearance in 2003 the day before her 17th birthday was widely publicized in the local media.
The recording of her frantic emergency-911 call that evening, declaring, “I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for 10 years and I’m here. I’m free now,” has been replayed countless times on television news broadcasts around the world.
Rescued with Berry, now 27, was her 6-year-old daughter, conceived and born during her confinement, and two fellow captives – Gina DeJesus, 23, who vanished at age 14 in 2004, and Michelle Knight, 32, who was 20 when she went missing in 2002.
Their accused abductor and tormentor, Ariel Castro, 52, who was fired from his job driving school buses last fall, was formally charged on Wednesday with kidnapping and raping the women. He was scheduled to be arraigned in court today morning, prosecutors said.
His two brothers, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50, were initially arrested as suspects in the case but were not charged after investigators determined they had no knowledge of the abductions or captivity of the women, police said. (Reuters)
