Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

by Amanda Berry

  Then he’s back, and it starts all over again.

  • • •

  We’ve been watching the Olympics in Athens almost every night. He gets so excited at the sight of these gymnasts. I don’t get it. These girls are so small and young.

  “Wow, look at her,” he says.

  I don’t want to, but he makes me.

  Then he rapes me.

  I used to love to watch the Olympics, but now I’ll never watch them again.

  August 2004: New Strategy

  Amanda

  Those two girls in the next room make it even harder to be here. They bug me, laughing and talking all the time. I can hear them through the door, and they actually joke with him, like everything’s okay. They sing constantly with their radio up loud. I feel like I’m the only sane person here, but I guess everybody has their own way of coping with being kidnapped.

  He tells me that they’re nice to him, and that they say I’m stuck up and won’t talk to them when we are all together downstairs. We’re all in the same mess, but it feels like it’s me against them. He does treat them better. Lots of nights he takes them downstairs to watch movies, and I can hear them having fun. Sometimes he asks me to join them, but I think that’s messed up. I can’t feed his fantasy that we’re a big happy family.

  But I am starting to wonder if I’m handling this wrong. Being mad at him all the time is getting me nothing but more abuse. I had a bad headache tonight, and he wouldn’t give me any aspirin. I’m still hungry all the time, and he feeds them first. Last night I didn’t get Chicken McNuggets until two a.m., which is when their movie ended, I guess.

  Maybe those girls have the right idea. Maybe I should try being nicer to him. I might as well try anything to get better treatment. I can pretend to like him. That’s going to be my new strategy.

  August 30

  He can’t wait to tell me his news.

  “I saw your mom at Value City!” he says. “I was walking out, and she was walking in with two other ladies I didn’t recognize.”

  “Was she okay? Did she look healthy?” I ask him as I start to cry.

  “Yeah, she looked good,” he says, like it’s no big deal.

  What are the chances that he and my mom would come face-to-face? I wonder if she felt anything when she was close to him. She has strong intuition, so could she have sensed me, even for a second, as she passed him? I hope so. I would give anything to feel her close to me.

  • • •

  My new plan seems to be working. I’ve been laughing a little more and crying a little less. I’ve been talking to him and acting less miserable, and he likes it. He’s been nicer to me. He got me six goldfish, which I’m calling Ry, Riss, Chica, Blanca, Harley, and Shady, and he got me an Eminem picture in a frame. He even let me shave my legs for the first time since I got here almost a year and a half ago. It’s good to have my legs as smooth as they used to be.

  I’ve been going downstairs with him to watch TV, which means I get a little time without my chain. The other night he rented The Passion of the Christ, the Mel Gibson movie that he really wanted to see. It was weird to sit beside such an evil man and watch the story of Jesus.

  October 8

  He thinks I don’t notice that he treats Gina and Michelle better. I see him going into their room and I’ll bet he’s bringing them things he’s not giving to me. He treats them like friends but uses me for sex.

  As hard as this is to admit, I want him to talk to me, just not about sex. I need someone to talk to. I haven’t had a real conversation with anyone in eighteen months. When I try to talk to him, I’m careful not to mention family or anything that’s bothering me. He always wants to talk about sex, but I try to get him to talk about music or anything else. He plays his bass in the house, and he’s actually good. He sings, too, and thinks he’s great, but his voice is terrible.

  “Why can’t you talk normally to me?” I ask him. He doesn’t reply.

  I’m having a terrible day—even the last of my fish died. I’ve been crying since I woke up.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, sitting on the edge of my bed.

  “Can I have a hug?” I say. “I just really need a hug.”

  I can’t believe I said that. I know it’s not right. It’s strange. But just now I do need a hug. It’s hard to be so filled with anger and hate all the time. He puts his arms around me and holds me.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, “everything is going to be okay. I’m going to take you home one day, and you’ll be back together with your family.”

  “When?” I ask.

  “I don’t know—soon,” he says.

  I’m so tired of waiting that I begin sobbing into his shirt.

  “It’s okay, it’s normal to cry,” he says. “I want to tell you something.”

  “What?” I ask, wiping my tears.

  “I have feelings for you.”

  That’s crazy. How can he say that? He treats me like garbage. He has ruined my life. And he has “feelings” for me?

  I’m so confused. I decided to be nicer to him so he would treat me better. But I don’t want to be his girlfriend. Why did I ask for a hug from this monster? Is this what prison does to you?

  October 11

  He is doing laundry and says that we all have to help, so I go to the basement with him, Gina, and Michelle.

  We’re looking at one another awkwardly. We’ve been together as a group only a few times but have never had a real conversation. Gina and Michelle live in the same room, so they talk all the time, but I’m by myself.

  He stays there with us as we fold and hang clothes, so we really can’t talk about anything other than TV shows and movies. Gina and Michelle actually seem nice and it feels good to talk. We even laugh a little. There is so much I’d like to ask them. How did they get here? Do they know any way out?

  I think about escaping all the time. I have fantasies about prying open a window and jumping.

  I never thought I could hurt anybody, but now I find myself daydreaming about whether I could actually kill him. I picture trying to stick a knife in his back when we’re in the kitchen, but he has only two or three sharp ones, and he knows exactly where they are all the time. I could hit him over the head with a beer bottle. But what if I only wounded him? If he ever thought I was trying to kill him, he’d kill me first.

  He has a handgun—I saw him put it in a closet near the basement steps. He says he found it at his father’s car dealership after his father died last January. He took it out to show me once. I can’t get it out of my head because I know he would use it.

  He weighs 180 pounds—he talks about his weight all the time—and we’re all tiny. Gina’s about my size, and Michelle is even smaller, not even five feet tall, so if we attacked him it would be like three puppies trying to kill a grizzly bear. I wonder if that’s why he picked us. The only thing we have in common is that we’re all petite, and we all have big breasts. I guess that’s his type.

  November 16, 2004: Psychic

  Amanda

  This is huge! Mom’s going to be on The Montel Williams Show.

  I just saw a promo on TV, which said she’s going to be on tomorrow with Sylvia Browne, that cool psychic. I love her. This is amazing! Mom and I used to watch Montel all the time and we loved it when Sylvia was on. She made some amazing predictions.

  I’ve been praying that Montel saw me on America’s Most Wanted and that he would have Mom on with Sylvia. Now it’s happening. I hope Sylvia can see that I’m kidnapped and that I’m right here, so close to home. I want my mom to know I’m alive. Sylvia has to tell her!

  November 17

  There she is! My mom’s on TV, sitting right there with Montel and Sylvia. And they show Beth sitting in the audience. They must have flown to New York for the show. This is so exciting!

  Sylvia is asking Mom about a �
��Cuban-looking” guy who is short and stocky. It’s him! He’s Puerto Rican, not Cuban, but it’s close.

  “Can you tell me if they’ll ever find her?” Mom asks. “Is she out there?”

  Then Sylvia says: “I hate this when they’re in water. I just hate this. She’s not alive, honey.”

  What? Why did she say that?

  Mom’s face just drops. I start crying and shouting at the TV. I’m not dead! I’m alive and I’m right here!

  Now Sylvia’s describing how the Cuban guy wears his pants really low. What is she talking about? I can’t believe this.

  My mom sounds desperate: “So you don’t think I’ll ever get to see her again?”

  “Yeah,” Sylvia tells her. “In heaven, on the other side.”

  This is awful. When I get out of here, I’m going to have a few words with Sylvia Browne. She is a fraud. Now my poor mother is going to be convinced I’m dead, because she trusts Sylvia. This is going to crush her. She has to ignore what she was told and keep believing I’m alive and fighting to bring me home. If she doesn’t, how can I keep hoping?

  They cut to a commercial, and my mom is gone.

  November 21

  “I wrote a letter to my mom,” I say, handing it to him. “Please let me send it.”

  As he takes it from me and starts reading, I tell him, “I don’t say anything about you. I just tell her not to listen to Sylvia Browne, and that I’m alive. It breaks my heart that she thinks I’m dead.”

  “It says you’re being held hostage,” he says.

  “Well, what do you call this?” I snap back. “I am being held hostage. Please, I don’t mention anything about you. I just say that I want to come home, but I can’t.”

  I’m crying now. I didn’t mean to sass him, because that makes him mad. But I’m so upset I can’t help it. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I’m sick to my stomach worrying about my mom.

  “You shouldn’t believe in psychics anyway,” he says. “It’s stupid.”

  “I know, but I just want her to know I’m alive.”

  “You can’t send this,” he says and then tears the letter up and hands the pieces back to me.

  December 5

  My mom has been on the news a lot and she seems different, sadder. She says she took down the yellow ribbons at our house, washed them, and left them in my room.

  He brought me the Plain Dealer because there’s a story about me, and it says my mom took down the posters in my room and gave away my computer. She says she’s not even buying me a Christmas present this year because she’s not sure anymore that I’m alive.

  All because of Sylvia Browne, that fake. She put a knife right in my mom’s heart because it made for good TV ratings. The article says my mom is 98 percent sure that what Sylvia told her is true, that I’m dead. She said she “lost it” after that show.

  I write down what she told the reporter Stephen Hudak: “Please don’t misunderstand me. I still don’t want to believe it. I want to have hope but after a year and a half what else is there?”

  I am crying so hard that I’m shaking. I wish God would show her some sort of sign that I’m alive. I get my strength from knowing that my mom is fighting for me. If she gives up, I’ll feel like I don’t exist.

  December: Psychic Fallout

  On the drive back to the airport after her appearance on Montel Williams’s show, Louwana stared out the window in silence. She and Beth talked a little about 9/11 as they drove near Ground Zero, but Louwana didn’t mention Sylvia or Amanda. When they returned home Louwana, who had been so angry for so long, now seemed only sad. Beth tried to cheer her up, but nothing seemed to get through.

  On the first Christmas that Amanda had been gone, Louwana had bought her an Eminem poster and a gold bracelet, little things she thought Amanda would like. But this year there was no talk of gifts. Instead Louwana would lie silently on Amanda’s bed and listen to her radio for hours, smoking and drinking and alone.

  April 2, 2005: Vigils

  For a year after Gina went missing, Nancy and Felix held candlelight vigils every Friday on the corner where she was last seen. The crowds eventually waned, and they held the gatherings less often, but more than fifty people turned out on the cold, windy night of the first-year anniversary of her disappearance, standing in a circle at Lorain and West 105th Street, holding hands and praying. They then marched five blocks to Wilbur Wright Middle School, chanting Gina’s and Amanda’s names, along with the name of another girl who had been missing from the neighborhood for a decade, Christina Adkins. Beth marched with them.

  Over the past year Nancy and Felix had become aware of what seemed to be an epidemic of missing children in America, and they felt an obligation to talk about not just Gina, but all of them. Nancy began making calls to groups that supported the cause, educating herself on the issue. She discovered that thousands of children disappear in America every year, and was struck by how little she had known about them. It seemed to her that no one was paying enough attention to the issue.

  Nancy only learned about Christina Adkins after her own daughter never came home from school. She started to tell everyone she could: “People are taking our children, and we’ve got to stop it!”

  She was determined to become a public advocate, a voice for the missing kids, but she was often crippled by sadness. One night when she thought she couldn’t take the pain any longer, she prayed, “Please take this burden off of me because I cannot carry it.” She felt immediate relief and a shot of new energy and kept praying, “Please, God, open your arms and wrap them around Gina.”

  She remained certain that Gina was alive and that God would watch over her. In a quiet act of faith, Nancy opened a bank account for Gina and deposited twenty or thirty dollars in it every month.

  August 2005: Testimony

  On August 30, 2005, Fernando Colon stood trial on charges that he had molested Nilda and Ariel Castro’s daughters, Emily, age sixteen, and Arlene, age thirteen. The previous September, at a time when Castro was holding Amanda, Gina, and Michelle captive, he had taken his two daughters to a police station to file a complaint that Colon had touched them inappropriately while they slept.

  Colon insisted that the charges were false and had been instigated by Castro, who he said had coached them into making the allegations. Nilda defended Colon in court, corroborating Colon’s testimony that Castro had persuaded the girls to make false charges in exchange for money and gifts.

  “If anything inappropriate had occurred, my daughters would have been quick to tell me,” Nilda said in an affidavit filed in the case. She explained that Arlene told her that she’d had a dream that Colon had touched her, and that dream had become “an exaggerated story.”

  Five days before Colon’s trial, Nilda reported to police that Castro was pressuring Emily, who was then living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to return to Cleveland to testify against Colon. Nilda said Castro told her he was going to “bring Emily back and beat your ass in front of her.”

  Nilda sought a restraining order in domestic relations court barring Castro from coming near her or her children, telling the court about years of violence by Castro and that he had threatened to kill her and her kids. Even though Castro had no visitation rights, she said he “frequently abducts his daughters and keeps them from [her].”

  The court issued a temporary restraining order that required Castro to complete “batterer counseling” and banned him from drinking alcohol, using illegal drugs, or possessing a deadly weapon. No home visit was ordered. The temporary restraining order raised no red flags at the school system where Castro was a bus driver. A prosecutor said there were so many domestic violence cases that it was virtually impossible to check them against all school and city employees. The court then scheduled a hearing to determine whether to make that restraining order permanent. On the day of the hearing, Castro and his lawyer appeared before the magistra
te, as did Nilda, but her lawyer, Robert A. Ferreri, failed to show up because he had a hearing at the same time in juvenile court.

  The magistrate would not proceed without Nilda’s lawyer present, and he gave her two weeks to file for a new hearing. Because she did not, her case was dismissed and Castro was free of any legal constraints. Nilda later told Elida that after her lawyer failed to appear, she lost her nerve to pursue the case.

  But Colon’s case went to trial and provided dramatic courtroom testimony about Ariel Castro’s long history of violence against Nilda.

  The defense’s central argument was that Ariel Castro was a violent, vindictive, and controlling man who was fully capable of using his own daughters as a means to settle a grudge against a man who was now living with his ex-wife.

  “What did take place here is not exactly a love triangle,” Ferreri told the judge. “It’s kind of a power triangle. It’s kind of a control triangle. Mr. Castro is obsessed with power and control over Nilda.”

  Just after lunch on Wednesday, September 1, Castro took the witness stand.

  Prosecutor John Kosko asked for his address, and Castro told him 2207 Seymour Avenue, where at that moment he was holding Amanda, Gina, and Michelle.

  “Does anyone live there with you?” Kosko asked.

  “No,” Castro replied.

  Under questioning, Castro acknowledged that his relationship with Nilda had been violent at times, but that she provoked it.

  “We were always arguing, you know. She always—she always waited until I would come home, like especially on the holidays or something. She always waited for me to have a beer or two before she would start stuff, and I never understood that. Why? When I was okay, there was no fights, but for some reason, when I would have a beer or two, she always started fighting. So I couldn’t understand why.”

  When asked if their confrontations had ever gotten physical, Castro replied, “There was times that she did get physical with me. She would throw herself on me, striking me. One time, yes, we struggled together, and we fell and she fell and hit . . . her head on the doorjamb.”