Three women who went missing at different times about 10 years ago were found alive Monday in a residential area south of downtown Cleveland and three suspects are in police custody, according to news reports. It's something that countless people have prayed for, families and friends never gave up searching for them, and it's great news coming out of Ohio!
Police didn't provide many details of how the women were found, but said they appeared to be in good health and taken to a hospital for evaluation. Cheering crowds gathered Monday night on the street near the home where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight (no photo available) were found earlier in the day, blocks from where they disappeared.
Berry disappeared at age 16 on April 21, 2003, when she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. DeJesus went missing at age 14 on her way home from school about a year later. Police said Knight was 20 when she went missing around the year 2000.
Cleveland police say the suspects, including Ariel Castro, a hispanic 52-year-old former bus driver, are awaiting charges that could come in the next 24-36 hours. Some quick background on the missing women -- In January, a prison inmate was sentenced to 4 1/2 years after admitting he provided a false burial tip in Berry's disappearance, who was last seen the day before her 17th birthday. A Cleveland judge sentenced Robert Wolford on his guilty plea to obstruction of justice, making a false report and making a false alarm. Last summer, Wolford tipped authorities to look for Berry's remains in a Cleveland lot. He was taken to the location, which was dug up with backhoes.
Two men arrested for questioning in the disappearance of DeJesus in 2004 were released from the city jail in 2006 after officers did not find her body during a search of the men's house. One man went to county jail on unrelated charges and the other was released. In September 2006, police acting on a tip tore up the concrete floor of the garage and used a cadaver dog. Investigators took evidence. No Amber Alert was issued the day DeJesus failed to return home from school in April 2004 because no one witnessed her abduction.
Charles Ramsey, a neighbor who found the missing girls inside the house, is being hailed as a hero. Ramsey found one of the women waving her arm out of a window and screaming for help. Ramsey ran to the house and helped the women escape and Amanda Berry made the 911 call for help. Check out Ramsey's interview with reporters:
There are several questions (like, how was this man/men able to keep these women locked up for nearly a decade? Were they held in bondage as sex slaves?), and they will surely be answered as the case unfolds. Charles Ramsey and Cleveland were trending topics on Twitter. As a Cleveland native who remembered when Berry and DeJesus disappeared, this makes me so happy and grateful to God for keeping His hands on these women! Let us all keep them and their families in our prayers.
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