Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

by Amanda Berry

  Castro denied more than twenty times that he had ever laid a hand on Nilda.

  • • •

  Nilda took the stand the following day, describing publicly for the first time what Castro had done to her over the course of many years.

  “Did Mr. Castro ever physically assault you?” Ferreri asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he do that more than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Mr. Castro ever strike you in such a way that you required medical attention?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he ever do that more than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Mr. Castro ever cause you to get medical attention at a hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever receive any cuts or any bruises from Mr. Castro?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever have any dislocated limbs from Mr. Castro?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever have any problems with your eyesight or your nerves in your face as a result of Mr. Castro?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever have any problems with your brain or the inner workings of your brain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks to Mr. Castro?”

  “Yes.”

  Nilda recounted the first time Castro beat her, when a small disagreement escalated and he punched her in the face, grabbed her by the head, and threw her onto the concrete floor. She said Castro had punched her so many times in the face over the years that she required two reconstructive surgeries on her nose, as well as dental surgery.

  She recalled that one time when she was pregnant, he demanded that she wash the dishes.

  “I told him I was tired and to wait, and I yelled a little, but I don’t usually yell, but I was too tired, so he just punched me in the mouth and took my teeth out. . . . He dislocated my shoulders about twice by just throwing me around, most of the time pulling my arm to the back. He felt that it was some kind of punishment that I needed.”

  “Did he always just hit you with his hand, or did he sometimes use other objects?”

  “He used whatever he can get his hands on. Once he used a metal pipe.”

  “And what did he do with the pipe?”

  “He beat me over the head with it. It was always on the head. Most of the time.”

  “And did the hospital do any surgical procedures on you at that time when he hit you with the metal piece?”

  “Yes. I had maybe about twenty-five, forty stitches on my head at that time.”

  “Did Mr. Castro ever hit you in the head again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he use his hand or did he use an object?”

  “Then next time after that it was with a hand bar, weight.”

  “An exercise weight?”

  “Yes. I was nine months pregnant with Emily. . . . He hit me over the head with it, beat me.”

  Nilda testified that Castro had punched her so hard in the eye that her sight was severely damaged, and it left one of her eyes permanently “squinty.” She said Castro repeatedly referred to her as “his property.”

  “He says it all the time, repeats that to me all the time. . . . I’m scared of him.”

  Asked about the prognosis for the tumor that had been discovered, she testified: “I have none. I mean, there’s nothing they can do for the tumor. They tried. But they couldn’t do anything.”

  “Would it be fair to say that the prognosis is, in medical terms, terminal?”

  “Yes.”

  Emily and Arlene had testified at the start of the trial that Colon had touched them inappropriately many times. But Nilda asserted in her own testimony that she believed Castro had manipulated the girls into making up the allegations against Colon. She said both girls had emotional and behavioral problems, and Arlene’s had become much worse since her close friend Gina DeJesus had disappeared the previous year:

  “I took her, Arlene, to a psychologist and he evaluated her with post-traumatic stress disorder. She was Gina’s best friend, and she was with her when she disappeared, shortly before that, so it traumatized Arlene because Arlene felt responsible for her disappearance.”

  Gina’s vanishing had affected the entire family. Arlene had to change schools and repeat seventh grade and ultimately was expelled from her new school for poor attendance and disruptive behavior.

  Ferreri pressed Nilda about why she hadn’t sought more help from the police over the years of beatings she endured.

  “Because I always thought that he was gonna change.”

  “In your culture, is it likely—or in your family, if there’s something that goes on, do you run to the police, or do you try to fix it up among yourselves?”

  “Yes [we try to fix it among ourselves].”

  “Do you consider it an intrusion on your family to bring the police into anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when Mr. Castro said, ‘I won’t hit you anymore,’ did you believe him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you want to believe him?”

  “I wanted—yes, I wanted to believe him because I thought that maybe he would change.”

  “Did you hope and pray that he would change?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Do you believe he’s ever capable of change?”

  “No.”

  • • •

  Colon was convicted of “gross sexual imposition,” a felony, and sentenced to three years’ probation, but was acquitted of the more serious charges of rape and being a “sexually violent predator.” Without any physical evidence or witnesses, the only evidence against Colon was the testimony of the two girls. John Kosko, the prosecutor, said that because the case was in the end a matter of “he-said, she-said,” the judge delivered a compromise verdict, which Kosko believed was fair. In the end Kosko didn’t believe the theory that Castro had orchestrated the entire affair, saying that the girls’ testimony was “pretty convincing.”

  Nilda and Colon ultimately split up.

  August 23, 2005: Back to the Basement

  Amanda

  “Pack up everything. I want it all out of here,” he says.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “My kids have been asking a lot of questions. They want to know why they can’t go upstairs and see their old bedrooms.”

  I’ve always wondered why his mother has never been here, and why his brothers and kids don’t think it’s suspicious that he never lets them past the kitchen. He tells them he doesn’t want them to see upstairs because it’s such a mess. But I guess now they’re insisting, and his daughter Emily is coming for a visit from Indiana. She’s going to stay here for a couple of days, he tells me, “So I’m putting you in the basement.”

  I can’t believe he’s going to take the risk of having his daughter sleeping in this house, and I hate the idea of going back to the basement. But what can I do?

  He unchains my ankle and hands me a plastic laundry basket, and I start filling it with my stuff. I gather my pens, crayons, paper, my picture of Jesus and my mom’s photos and stack them neatly in the basket. I fold up the few clothes he has given me and I put them on top. I slip my diary to the bottom so he won’t see it, because I’m afraid if he reads it he might rip it up.

  He walks with me down to the basement, where I leave the basket. We go back up to the room and he watches as I pick up my sheets and trash-can toilet and carry them downstairs, too. Then he helps me carry out the mattress and the TV.

  Every trace of me is gone from the bedroom, except for the chains. They run through a hole in the wall and are attached to something in the next room. He pulls the chains through, then moves the dresser in front of the hole to hide it.

  I pray that his kids notice something i
s not right. We’ve cleaned the room up pretty well, but maybe they’ll wonder why there’s wood covering the windows behind the curtains.

  He takes me back to the basement, where this all started more than two years ago, and then goes back upstairs. I sit on the mattress on the floor, wondering how long I’ll be down here. I look around to see if there might be a way to escape, but the door to the backyard is bolted and padlocked.

  After a while he comes down with Gina and Michelle. They’re carrying their own things and look scared. We’re all wondering what he really has in mind down here.

  “I need more privacy,” I tell him. “I don’t want to go to the bathroom in front of them. It’s embarrassing.”

  I can see his mind working. He always thinks that he can rig up some gizmo and find the answer to any problem somewhere in his piles of junk. And sure enough, he sees a dirty old wooden dresser and drags it to the middle of the room, like a divider.

  Now when I’m sitting on my mattress, I don’t have to see them. I just wish I didn’t have to hear them.

  Gina

  I don’t want to be back down here. He kept me here for two weeks after he kidnapped me. This time I’m chained to Michelle and the pole.

  Amanda’s ignoring us on the other side of the dresser. She’s trying to pretend that we’re not even here. He’s told us that she doesn’t like us, but I don’t know why.

  “You know the rules,” he warns all of us. “You know what you’re not supposed to talk about.”

  He loves rules. He has rules about which size spatula to use, which direction to flip an egg, what songs I can listen to. When I cook I have to keep the pan exactly in the center of the burner, or he calls me “retard” or “dumbass.” But his biggest rule is that we’re not allowed to talk about anything he says or does with us.

  He must really be freaked out about his kids coming over if he’s putting us all together like this.

  Amanda

  I’m watching my TV, and they’re just a few feet away on the other side of the dresser, watching theirs. It’s a little hard to concentrate with two TVs playing different channels, but I try to tune out their shows.

  We’ve been down here for a couple of hours, and we haven’t said anything to one another. I’m trying to keep to myself. But I am getting more and more curious. What is he so worried about? If he doesn’t want us talking, that seems like a good reason to do it.

  Why the hell not?

  I slide over and look around the dresser at them.

  “Hey,” I say.

  They both turn to look at me, surprised.

  I’m whispering so that they understand that I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t hear us. It’s quiet upstairs now, so maybe he’s out. But for all we know, he could be hiding at the top of the stairs, testing us to see if we’re talking.

  “What are you guys watching?” I ask.

  “Just stupid stuff,” Gina says.

  I move my chain so I can sit on their side of the dresser, and we start talking a little. It’s awkward at first, but we discuss music and TV shows. I mention that I like Eminem, and Gina says she’s into Christina Aguilera. She says she misses her family and her mom’s cooking.

  I tell them about him driving by my sister’s house and telling me that he saw her girls outside wearing matching clothes. That really scared me, I tell them, because I knew it was a threat. He meant he could kidnap them if I didn’t do what he said.

  “He did the same thing to me!” Gina says. “He told me that if I wanted company he would kidnap my friend Chrissy.”

  The more we talk, the more I like them. Gina is nicer than I thought, and I think our families have a lot in common. We have seen them together on TV, so we make jokes about Tennessee hillbillies and Cleveland Puerto Ricans hanging out, and we actually laugh.

  “Our families are better friends than we are,” Gina says.

  A Will Smith movie is playing on their TV.

  “He’s so cute,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah, he’s cute,” Gina agrees.

  “Does he tell you not to watch TV shows with black people?” I ask.

  “Yes!” they both say.

  We talk about what a horrible racist he is, and I tell them how he took my radio, opened it up, and stuck a little piece of a plastic spoon from Wendy’s inside, so I couldn’t turn the dial to the station that plays mostly rap music.

  We make fun of how cheap he is. He insists that I water down the dishwashing liquid because he says a small bottle needs to last for at least two months. If I need more, I have to ask him, and he puts a little pea-size drop on the sponge. He has a fit if I use too much.

  It feels good to talk, and to know that we’re all feeling the same things.

  Gina

  Amanda isn’t stuck-up at all, like I thought. She listens and cares when I tell her about all the sick stuff he does to me and Michelle, like how he rapes me and her while we’re chained together. It’s as horrible watching it happen to someone else as it is having it happen to you.

  Amanda’s crying now as I tell her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know he was doing that to you.”

  She says that he told her that he was not having sex with me and Michelle, so she thought it was easier for us.

  “He says he has me for sex, but you two are here to be his maids. I always figured he was lying, because why would you go to all the trouble of kidnapping two girls just to have them clean your house?”

  We talk about how he says he has a “sexual problem,” and he calls his thing Charlie.

  “He told me it’s not his fault,” I say. “He blames Charlie. He’s always saying, ‘What Charlie wants, Charlie gets.’”

  Amanda

  I realize now what he’s been doing. He lies to them about me, and he lies to me about them. That’s his way of dividing us and making sure we don’t trust one another. Screw him. We’re on to his mind games.

  Conan O’Brien’s show comes on TV, and there’s a funny skit about a bear in a diaper that runs around being really obscene. It’s so silly that we all crack up. It feels great to laugh after we’ve been talking for hours and crying.

  It’s late, and I’m about to fall asleep. But I feel like we need to get something straight first.

  “Anything we talk about, we have to trust each other not to say anything to him,” I tell them. “Otherwise we’re going to get each other in trouble. We have to stick together.”

  August 24

  Amanda

  I’ve barely gotten to sleep when I feel him next to me. He has his clothes off, and he’s pulling at my sweatpants. It’s humiliating. Gina and Michelle are on the other side of the dresser, and I know they’re just pretending to be asleep.

  “They’re right there,” I whisper through my tears. “Stop it.”

  He’s mad, but he gets up and unchains me. “Come upstairs,” he orders, loud enough for everybody to hear. “I need you to help me clean the kitchen.”

  I walk upstairs with him and he takes me to the living room, where he finishes what he started downstairs.

  When he’s done with me, he leads me back to the basement. It’s so hot in the house that I can feel his sweat all over me. I smell like him, and it sickens me. He twists the chain around my ankle again and snaps the padlock shut.

  August 25

  Gina

  We’ve been down here all day, watching TV and playing with a PlayStation. We’ve been talking about how he kidnapped us—it was almost the same experience for Amanda and me. He tricked us into his car by talking about one of his kids.

  We hear his footsteps across the kitchen floor, and as the basement door opens Amanda hurries back over to her side of the dresser.

  “My daughter Rosie is coming over,” he says.

  Oh, my God. That’s my friend Arlene. Rosie is her midd
le name, and a lot of people call her that. I haven’t seen her since that day I was taken, except when she was on America’s Most Wanted, crying about missing me.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he warns us. “Don’t talk. Don’t get up to use the bathroom. Shut the TVs off. I better not hear any sound from down here.”

  He turns off the light and leaves.

  “She’s my friend,” I whisper as we sit in the dark. “We go to school together, and she was with me right before he kidnapped me.”

  Amanda says he was dropping Arlene off at her mom’s house right before he kidnapped her. Poor Arlene. What will she think if she ever finds out?

  We have other connections to his kids, too. Amanda tells us she went to school with Angie, his older daughter, and that she’s met his son, Anthony. Michelle says she knows his daughter Emily.

  I hope the police notice all the connections we have to him and his kids.

  We hear the back door open, then footsteps and voices in the kitchen.

  Arlene is ten feet over my head.

  Amanda

  We can’t make out what they’re saying, but Gina can tell it’s Arlene’s voice. There’s somebody else up there, too. Maybe a friend of Arlene’s? They walk through the kitchen and up the stairs to the second floor. We’re too scared to make a sound.

  Arlene lived in this house until she was about five or six, and he told me her bedroom was the one where he kept Michelle for a long time. So I guess she wants to see her old room.

  After a few minutes we hear them coming back down, and then the living room TV comes on. It sounds like they are watching videos and having a good time.

  “They’re up there laughing, and look where we are,” I whisper.

  We’re all mad, but we can’t help being a little goofy, cupping our ears with our hands, as if that will help us hear them better. Of course it doesn’t work, but we’re giggling. It’s hard to stay completely quiet, especially when you know you have to.

  “What if we scream?” Gina asks.

  We’ve all been thinking the same thing, but I’ve been too afraid to speak it out loud.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. It’s too risky. He’s smart, and Arlene is only fourteen. I’m sure he could come up with some story. He could tell her, “Oh, my girlfriend is downstairs with her friends, and they’re just messing around.” He could think of some lie that Arlene would believe. He’s that clever. I’ve seen it.