Police: Women left house twice in decade

The Cleveland man accused of kidnapping and holding three young women captive for the past decade will make his first court appearance this morning.

Ariel Castro, 52, is charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. He will appear in Cleveland Municipal Court for an initial hearing.

Ariel Castro, principal suspect dans l'enqu?te sur les s?questrations de Cleveland, Cleveland Police Departmen??Police say that Castro held Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, captive at his west side Cleveland home, where the women were reportedly restrained with ropes and chains. Court documents indicate that Castro repeatedly raped the women over the past decade.

Berry, who went missing 10 years ago after leaving her job at a nearby fast-food restaurant, was able to escape from Castro's home with her 6-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, on Monday. After she called police, DeJesus and Knight were able to escape, too.

Castro, along with his brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, were arrested on Monday. Onil and Pedro Castro have not been charged.

Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba told reporters on Wednesday that the women, as well as Ariel Castro, have given lengthy statements to police.

During their captivity, the women had been let outside twice to walk from the Castro house to the garage in the rear of the house. The women were forced to wear disguises on those occasions, he said.

City Councilman Brian Cummins, who was briefed by police on the investigation, told the Associated Press that the three women were subjected to prolonged sexual and psychological abuse. He said the women suffered multiple miscarriages while kidnapped.

One of the women apparently suffered five miscarriages while being held. Berry, according to reports, was forced to give birth to her daughter in an inflatable pool on Christmas Day 2006. A paternity test has been ordered to confirm the father.

While Knight remains in a local hospital, both Berry and DeJesus were escorted home by police motorcades to raucous crowds on Wednesday.

Berry and her daughter went to Berry's sister?s home, while DeJesus returned to her parents' tan bungalow. Both families live in the city's west side neighborhood, just a few miles from the ramshackle row house where they were apparently held as prisoners.

Berry?s sister, Beth Serrano, briefly addressed the crowd outside her home and said that Berry needed time to recover before talking publicly about her ordeal.

?At this time our family would request privacy so my sister, niece and I have time to recover,? Serrano said. ?We appreciate all you have done for us for the past 10 years. Please respect our privacy until we are ready to make our statement."

Later in the day, DeJesus, wearing a bright yellow hoodie was quickly taken inside her home without speaking or showing her face. She was seen giving a thumbs-up to the crowd of reporters and onlookers assembled outside.

Her parents, Felix DeJesus and Nancy Ruiz, and aunt Sandra Ruiz thanked the police and FBI for their assistance in the investigation. They asked for patience and promised to take questions from reporters soon.

?The three of them are doing great. Those were miracles," Nancy Ruiz said of her daughter, Berry and Knight.

(Information from Reuters and the Associated Press was used in this story.)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/accused-kidnapper-3-women-appear-court-084310905.html

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