Yesterday in court before Ariel Castro was sentenced to 1,000 years to life in prison for kidnapping and abusing Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, the world got their first glimpse into his Ohio house of horrors.
And while the photographs of chains, poles and boarded up windows no doubt floored the court room, it was the photographs of the three women just moments after they were rescued that evoked so much emotion.
Pale, emaciated and suffering from malnutrition, photos of Berry, DeJesus and Knight illuminated the court room and showed, first hand, just how much of a toll Castro’s torture had taken on them.
Imposed side by side with photographs of the girls before the abduction and after showed the stark contrast between girls healthy and full of life, teenagers who were repeatedly abused and raped, and the women they are now, resilient and determined not to let the situation define who they are.
That point couldn’t be conveyed better by anyone but Michelle Knight, who had endured captivity the longest and suffered the most severe abuse at Castro’s hand.
According to CNN:
In one case, he threw Knight down the stairs to cause a spontaneous abortion.
Under threat of death by Castro, Knight was forced to deliver Berry’s child, Ochberg said.
“She served as doctor, nurse, pediatrician, midwife. She did the delivery. She did it under primitive conditions. When that little baby wasn’t breathing, she breathed into the baby. She breathed life into that child,” Ochberg testified during the hearing.
“She interposed herself so that Gina wouldn’t get the assault, and she took it. She’s a very courageous and heroic individual.”
And in one of the more touching moments of yesterday’s emotional court hearing, Knight briefly talked about her friendship with DeJesus and how it kept her alive every day they were in captivity.
“Gina was my teammate. She never let me fall, I never let her fall. She nursed me back to health when I was dying from his abuse,” she said. “My friendship with her was the only thing that was good out of this situation. We said we will someday make it out alive, and we did.”
They did make it out alive, and now Castro, who argued that the sex was consensual and the abuse non-existent, will spend his life behind bars.
“You took 11 years of my life away, and now I’ve got it back. I spent 11 years in hell, and now your hell is just beginning,” said Knight.
We wish all three women the best of luck.
SOURCE: CNN | GETTY
