Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

by Amanda Berry

  “Nice talking to you,” I tell her.

  • • •

  A couple of days later, he tells me I can come downstairs and fix Michelle’s hair.

  “You can use the bathroom. There’s a mirror in there.”

  I’m happy to have something to do. I am learning to read his moods and right now, thank God, he seems to be in a good one. He’s not yelling that I’m “good for nothing” and calling me mean names. When that happens I know not to talk to him, or even look at him. But when he’s in a good mood, I can get favors, like the other day when I asked for an empty cardboard box to draw on.

  “I need some rubber bands,” I tell him as we go into the bathroom. He must have some in all his piles of junk. He doesn’t throw anything away. There are rows of big plastic pop bottles filled with water sitting in the closets and the hall. He says they’ll be handy if there’s ever a fire. That makes me wonder: What would happen to us if the house caught fire and we were locked in our rooms?

  I don’t want to push my luck, but I also ask: “I see you have some hair gel. Can I use a little bit?”

  “Sure,” he says.

  Why is he being nice today?

  I bring a kitchen chair into the bathroom, and Michelle sits down. I ask her how she’d like her hair.

  “I’m going to be right here in the kitchen,” he warns us, “and I can hear everything.”

  I start styling her hair, and we talk about music and clothes. He ducks in, says Michelle’s hair looks good, and then goes into the living room. I lean over and whisper in her ear, “I’m not really Emily. I’m Gina DeJesus.”

  “I know who you are,” she whispers back. “I’ve seen you on TV.”

  He walks back into the kitchen, and we go back to talking about hair.

  May 23, 2004: America’s Most Wanted

  Gina

  “You want to see your family on TV?”

  “Of course I do!” I tell him.

  “Amanda recorded America’s Most Wanted, and your family is on it. Let’s go watch.”

  The guy who kidnapped me wants me to watch a TV show about my kidnapping! He unchains me, and we walk into Amanda’s room, directly across the hallway. I have seen her a couple of times, but we haven’t talked. One time our doors were open at the same time, and we waved to each other, but that was it.

  We all sit on her bed, and she only says “hi,” so I try to make conversation.

  “I like your nails,” I tell her, noticing that he must have bought her polish. “And your rings are really pretty.”

  “Thanks,” she responds, though she’s not smiling, and it’s pretty clear she doesn’t want to talk. She seems tough. On TV they say she has been missing for a year. A whole year—how has she been able to stand it? I would love to ask her.

  The show starts with my mom crying and talking about the day I disappeared. Then Arlene comes on, describing how we said good-bye at the pay phone. She says my last words to her were: “Well, okay. I’ll talk to you later.” I remember that, too. I wish she knew what happened next. It’s crazy that they’re showing pictures of me and Arlene being happy together while her father is keeping me prisoner.

  Now they’re showing pictures of Amanda, her mom and sister, and people walking near the Burger King with signs that read WE LOVE YOU, MANDY. They say the police aren’t sure if our two cases are related.

  It’s intense sitting here, all of us on Amanda’s little bed, watching this. I think he likes it. He keeps smiling, especially when Arlene is talking. He doesn’t seem worried that millions of people are watching this show all over the country. Doesn’t he care that people are looking for us and our kidnapper?

  As soon as the show is over, he tells me I have to go back to my room. Amanda is crying, and I start, too. I was so happy to see my parents, but now that the TV is off, I feel worse, like my mom and dad have been taken from me again.

  I haven’t cried this hard since the first couple of weeks, and that seems to annoy him.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have let you watch it,” he says.

  May 2004: Poinciana

  Nancy Ruiz was afraid that if she left her house, even for a minute, she might miss a call from Gina, or that Gina might actually walk in. So for a long time she stayed in her kitchen, barely stepping outside. When for the first time in weeks she finally did go out, the neighborhood seemed entirely different. Every person she saw looked suspicious, and houses that had been familiar now frightened her. When reporters showed up, she would freeze in front of the cameras and let Felix do the talking.

  Felix, meanwhile, continued to organize searches in every alleyway in the city. Nancy had fixated on one house a couple of blocks away that had broken windows covered with Christmas wrapping paper. One night she noticed a bright light inside, as if someone was trying to make an abandoned home look occupied. When she walked by again at three in the morning and saw the light still on, she called Phil Torsney, who found an old, mentally ill man living there, but no sign of Gina.

  Nancy told Torsney about a suspicious house in her neighborhood where the curtains were always drawn, so he knocked on the door. When the owner gave him permission to go inside, the stench was so overpowering from the large number of dogs who lived there and had defecated everywhere that one officer had to step out to vomit.

  Nancy kept passing on leads to police and even investigated some herself. She searched around Gina’s school and in nearby neighborhoods, always hoping she would see a poinciana blossom. Gina loved to draw the red tropical flower, and Nancy thought she might have drawn one where she was being held, a signal that only her mother would understand.

  May 2004: Ariel Castro, Interviewer

  One afternoon in May 2004, Castro’s son, who was named Ariel after his father, knocked on the door of Gina DeJesus’s house on West 71st Street.

  The young Ariel, who was twenty-two, had been studying journalism at Bowling Green State University and wanted to write a story about Gina’s disappearance for the Plain Press, a community newspaper on the west side of Cleveland. He said he was very sorry about what had happened.

  Nancy had met him with his father when he was a young boy, and because she was eager for any publicity about the case, she invited him in. For the next few hours she recounted everything she knew about Gina’s disappearance, and he listened politely.

  His story appeared the following month:

  Since April 2, 2004, the day 14-year-old Gina DeJesus was last seen on her way home from Wilbur Wright Middle School, neighborhood residents have been taken by an overwhelming need for caution. Parents are more strictly enforcing curfews, encouraging their children to walk in groups, or driving them to and from school when they had previously walked alone.

  “You can tell the difference,” DeJesus’ mother, Nancy Ruiz said. “People are watching out for each other’s kids. It’s a shame that a tragedy had to happen for me to really know my neighbors. Bless their hearts, they’ve been great.”

  On Cleveland ’s west side, it is difficult to go any length of time without seeing Gina’s picture on telephone poles, in windows, or on cars along the busy streets.

  “People are really looking out for my daughter,” Ruiz said.

  For seven weeks, Gina’s family has been organizing searches, holding prayer vigils, posting flyers and calling press conferences. Despite the many tips and rumors that have been circulating in the neighborhood, there has been no sign of her.

  One thing is for certain, however. Almost everyone feels a connection with the family, and Gina’s disappearance has the whole area talking.

  July 21, 2004: Chains

  Amanda

  At night, the heavy chain around my stomach makes it hard to sleep, and during the day it makes it impossible to forget where I am.

  My chain is actually a few different chains linked by padlocks, and it stretches five feet from the
radiator to my stomach. So five feet has become the size of my whole world.

  I shift the chain around so the padlock rests on my belly, then on my side, and finally on my back. But nothing feels better. I am covered with bruises and calluses. Just looking at the chain makes me cry. It’s like a snake in the bed with me, threatening to squeeze me to death.

  “I can’t take this anymore! Can you at least move it to my ankle?”

  He thinks about it for a minute and says, “Okay.”

  I’m surprised.

  “Which ankle?” he asks.

  I try to figure out which one will give me more room.

  “Right,” I tell him, holding it out.

  “There,” he says, as he winds it around my ankle several times. “Try that.”

  I take a few steps and feel lighter, freer, without the extra pounds around my stomach. I lie down on the bed and roll from side to side.

  After he leaves, I am happier for a moment, then suddenly scared. There was absolutely no way to get that chain off my waist, but my ankle is so skinny. Maybe I can slip it off. Could this be my chance to escape? Would I have the nerve to try? I feel like he knows what I’m thinking and he’s testing me, so I try to think about something else.

  “I need to know I can trust you,” he always says. “You know what I can do to you.”

  I never know when he is watching me or even when he is home. I think he just went downstairs, but I’m not sure because of the noise from the radio. What if he’s just outside the door and looking at me through the hole where the doorknob should be? I decide to not fiddle with the chain. If he saw me trying to take it off, he might move it back to my waist, and I couldn’t take that.

  An hour passes. I slowly flex my ankle back and forth and feel the painful new sensation of heavy metal there. I think again how I might be able to slide the chain off. It’s tempting and terrifying.

  I hear his footsteps on the stairs, and then they stop outside my room. He must be watching me. I keep my eyes on the TV and don’t even look at the chain.

  Finally he unlocks the door, hands me a bag of Wendy’s, and takes a long look at my ankle to see if I tried anything. I knew it.

  August 2004: One Bullet

  Gina

  He seems to treat me better than the other girls. I have the nicer room, and he brings me downstairs more often than them. He lets me eat first, so when he brings home a pizza that has ten slices, I can take four, and the other two get three each. I feel guilty about having more, but I’m hungry all the time, and it’s hard to wait for hours and hours to eat. I wonder if he’s kinder to me because I’m the new girl, and I wonder what happens when I’m not new anymore.

  I want to go back to before this all happened, to when I could just walk to the refrigerator if I was thirsty or hungry, to when I had fun doing cartwheels with my friends and playing pranks on my mom. I remember once sneaking up to our big front window when she was sitting on the couch watching TV with her back to me. I smacked the window hard, and she jumped straight up. It was the funniest thing ever, and she laughed when she saw it was me.

  I’m daydreaming about all that when he comes into the living room with a gun.

  Michelle starts freaking out, but he’s not pointing it at us and he seems to be in a good mood.

  “Let’s play a game,” he says.

  He opens the gun to show us that it is loaded with one bullet. He takes it out, puts it back, and spins the chamber around.

  Michelle is scared and moves as far away as she can. But I just keep staring at the gun. When he brought me here, he told me he had a revolver and would kill me if I tried to escape. He brought it from the kitchen, so he must keep it hidden on top of the refrigerator or in one of the high cupboards. He’s always telling us we are short and can’t reach anything. I’m the tallest and I’m not quite five-foot-two.

  He explains the game: If I’m willing to take the risk, he will put the gun to my head and pull the trigger. If I live, he’ll give me a chance to put the gun to his head.

  “Come on,” he says. “Want to play?”

  “Okay,” I tell him. “I’ll play with you.”

  He seems surprised. Michelle looks shocked and says it’s a bad idea.

  “What do I have to lose?” I say. “I’ll play.”

  “You understand I’m going to pull the trigger, right?” he asks.

  I’m getting more nervous as I have time to think about it. But I can’t stand what’s happening in this house anymore, so I say a prayer to God and then to my parents to forgive me.

  “I’m ready,” I tell him.

  He puts the gun to my temple and pulls the trigger.

  I hear a click and then open my eyes. My heart is beating fast. I don’t know what I feel, but he seems excited.

  “Let’s keep playing,” he says. “Will you pull the trigger on me? If you do, it means you hate me. And if you can’t, it means you don’t hate me.”

  Is he serious? Doesn’t he know how much I hate him?

  “Think about it,” he says.

  He gets on his knees and says he needs a minute to pray. He bows his head and closes his eyes. Then he looks up and tells me again: “If you pull the trigger, it means you hate me.” He’s been drinking beer, and maybe he’s had more than I realize, because it should be obvious to him by now that I’d love to blow his head off.

  He hands me the gun and I don’t waste a second. I put it right to his head and pull the trigger.

  Click.

  I was hoping he’d be dead on the floor, and I would run out of the house, and we’d all be free. Now I’m afraid that I might be in big trouble, but he stands up and doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t seem mad. It’s like he doesn’t care at all.

  August 2004: Summer

  Gina

  I can’t take being here anymore. It’s been four months. I can’t stand what he’s doing to me. I’m scared every time the door opens.

  “I want to kill myself,” I tell him.

  “Okay, he says. “Let me help you.”

  He leaves and returns in a minute with a rope. He ties it into a noose and hands it to me. “If you really want to die, take this. I’ll watch.”

  When he first kidnapped me, all I cared about was staying alive because I was sure he was going to kill me. I kicked and clawed and screamed. But now I feel hollowed out. I have nothing left, no strength.

  I desperately want to go home, but I don’t see how this will ever end.

  I put the rope around my neck.

  He stands there watching me. He doesn’t seem to care if I die.

  I start thinking about what he will do with my dead body, so I ask him.

  “I’ll bury you in the backyard,” he says. “Nobody will ever know.”

  I think about my parents and start crying. They’ll never know Arlene’s dad did this to me. I don’t want him to get away with this.

  I lift the rope off.

  “I’ll keep this in your closet in case you need it later,” he says.

  • • •

  I don’t even bother to turn on the TV anymore. I spend all day lying down, staring at the ceiling, trying to forget where I am. Sometimes I stay like this for days at a time, barely moving.

  Every few hours back. Even after he leaves the room, I can still feel his hands on me.

  I tried to shoot him and I’ve looked in the kitchen for knives to stab him. I daydream about shoving him down the stairs and running out of the house, or finding a window he hasn’t boarded up and climbing out onto the roof. But it’s no use because of these chains, and I’m losing strength. Instead of trying to kill him, I’m now just trying to push him out of my head.

  “I can bring a friend into your room,” he says one day. “This is a big bed. You can share it.” He says Michelle can stay in this room with me. I would like to have someo
ne to talk to, but I don’t want to share a bed, so I don’t answer him.

  He leaves and comes back with Michelle, orders her to sit on my bed, and chains her ankle to the radiator. I guess he made up his mind: I’m going to have a roommate. He leaves and locks the door.

  Neither of us says anything for a while, then Michelle tells me he’s worried that I’m going to set the room on fire with my cigarettes. The other day, I emptied my ashtray into a cardboard box we use for trash, and it started smoking. He pretended that he was concerned that I was depressed, but I guess the real reason that he brought me a roommate was so that I don’t burn down his house.

  I’m glad I have Michelle here, but then he ruins everything. He comes in and starts taking his clothes off. He climbs on Michelle, and I roll away and try not to watch. I can’t stop crying.

  Then it’s my turn.

  • • •

  Michelle and I have been talking for days, telling each other everything. She’s been here for two years, since she was twenty-one. He got her into his car by saying that he had puppies at his house and that she could have one.

  She knows his daughter Emily, so of course she didn’t believe it when I said I was Emily. I can’t believe we’re both friends with his kids.

  She says her family is messed up. She has a son, but somebody else had been taking care of him even before she got here, and she has no idea where he is now. She’s never been on the news, so she thinks her family didn’t even report her missing.

  She knows everything about my family and Amanda’s because she sees them on TV all the time. She and Amanda were in this house together for a whole year before I got here, but he’s kept them separate so they’ve never talked—just said hi a few times.

  It’s like he’s collecting girls. I wonder if he’s going to kidnap any more.

  We’ve actually been laughing a little and trying to cheer each other up. We sing to the radio and do silly stuff like throw spitballs. We can’t move around much because we’re chained, but I’m happy to have somebody to help me pass the time.