The ten year long search and rescue of kidnapping victims Amanda Berry (left) and Gina Dejesus (right) has been taking over the news for the past 12 hours, and will continue to do so for at least the next few weeks, if not, months.
Why? Well, this might be the most interesting, intriguing, random story of all time.
Amanda was reported missing at the age of 16 in 2003. Gina’s been missing since the age of 14 in 2004, and the third, less televised victim is Michelle Knight, who was kidnapped back in 2002. We don’t know much yet, as this is still an ongoing investigation, and a sensitive one [can you imagine what these girls’ lives are going to be like?] but from what we do know, you can’t write this stuff.
Here is a simple breakdown of the latest developments that make this story possibly the most insane news story of all time…
1.
Well, this guy. Charles Ramsey, the hero.
Even McDonald’s got involved:
2.
Amanda Berry has a 6-year-old daughter but has been kept in hiding for 10 years. Where did she have the baby? Who helped her birth the child? What. the. fuck.
The father has not been confirmed, but we have our suspicions it might be her captor Ariel Castro. Neighbors have said they’ve seen Ariel out and about in the neighborhood with a little girl.
3.
The daughter of the prime suspect, Ariel Castro, was jailed for 25 years in 2008 for the attempted murder of her 11-month-old baby:
Daily Mail reports:
Emily Castro, 24, tried to slash her daughter Janyla’s throat in April 2007 after she broke up with the child’s father.
Court documents state that police were called to Emily’s home in Fort Wayne, Indiana – where she moved after she became pregnant – when a passerby saw a woman running out to the street with a bleeding baby in her arms.
The woman was Emily’s mother, Grimilda Figeroa, who told police that her daughter stabbed her own child.
When officers went to the home, they found Emily Castro covered in mud, water and blood.
She was bleeding from self-inflicted knife wounds to her neck and wrists and told police she tried to kill herself with the same knife she used to attack her baby. She then tried to drown herself in a nearby creek.
At the time, she had a long history of mental illness though was found competent to stand trial as it did not meet the legal definition of insanity.
During the trial, her defense attorneys produced evidence that Castro suffered from serious depression for years before the birth of her daughter, and that it spiraled into paranoia, causing her to think her family was trying to kill her and the baby at the time of the attack.
4.
One of Ariel Castro’s brothers, who was arrested in connection with the case, was caught on camera last summer saying that searching for Amanda Berry “was a waste of money.”
Daily Mail reports:
Pedro Castro, who has been arrested with two of his brothers, spoke last July as an empty lot was excavated for the body of missing Amanda Berry by forensic crews working on a tip from a convict.
The small lot on West 30th Street and Wade Avenue – which is two blocks from the Seymour Avenue home where the three missing women were discovered on Monday afternoon – turned up nothing.
Sitting on the stoop of a house, wearing a floral shirt and sunglasses, Castro, now 54, gestured to the lot and declared that looking for Miss Berry’s body was ‘a waste of money’.
The video has emerged as Pedro was taken into custody along with his brothers Ariel Castro, 52, and Oneil Castro, 50, in connection with the kidnappings of the three women: Amanda Berry, now 26, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32.
5.
The mystery of Michelle Knight
Most headlines on this story highlight the rescue of Amanda Berry and Gina Dejesus, but there was also a third girl: Michelle Knight. For some reason, Michelle is getting less attention, even though she was the first of all three to be kidnapped.
Business Insider reports:
Most of Michelle Knight’s family thought she’d taken off on her own back in August 2002 when she was 18, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. (Other news outlets have reported she was 21 when she disappeared.)
Based on what police and social workers told them, Michelle’s family believed she’d left because she was upset that she’d lost custody of her son. Only her mother, Barbara Knight, believed she’d been kidnapped, the Plain Dealer reports.
Police eventually stopped searching for Michelle, but Barbara kept papering the city of Cleveland with fliers. She eventually moved to Florida but kept going back to Ohio to look for her daughter even though the FBI apparently never got involved with the case.
She just didn’t think her daughter would leave without even calling.
This story is developing…
