Immigration Spotlight...Three women reunited with families after years in captivity by Mexicans

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/07/us/ohio-missing-women-found/index.html

Editor's note: For more on this story, check out coverage on CNN
affiliates WJW, WEWS, WKYC and WOIO

Cleveland (CNN) -- She knew she didn't have long. He would be back soon.
After 10 long years in captivity, this was Amanda Berry's chance.

She broke out the bottom of a screen door and screamed, startling a
neighbor who came over and helped kick in the door. Then, frenzied,
panicked, tearful freedom.

"Help me, I am Amanda Berry," the 27-year-old woman told police in a
frantic 911 call from the neighbor's house. "I've been kidnapped, and I've
been missing for 10 years. And I'm here, I'm free now."

Cleveland police and the FBI hailed Berry as a hero for her daring escape
Monday night that also led to freedom for two other women held inside the
house -- Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32. All three
had disappeared close to a decade ago from the same Cleveland
neighborhood.

Police also arrested former school bus driver Ariel Castro, 52, who lived
at the house and was identified by Berry on the 911 call.

Authorities also picked up his brothers, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil
Castro, 50. All three are jailed pending charges in the case, police said
Tuesday.

The latest developments

"The real hero here is Amanda," Cleveland's Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba
said. "She's the one that got this rolling. Without her, none of us would
be here today."

While little is known of what the women went through, Berry seemed to have
seized the moment to escape when Castro left the house.

When the 911 dispatcher told her officers would be on their way "as soon
as we get a car open," Berry panicked, saying "No, I need them now, before
he gets back."

She also indicated she had some knowledge of the outside world, or at
least how much coverage her 2003 disappearance had received, telling the
911 dispatcher, "I've been on the news for the last 10 years."

Authorities said Tuesday they had no prior indication anything suspicious
was going on at the nondescript home on Seymour Avenue with a Puerto Rican
flag hanging from the porch. But a few neighbors said they had called
police in recent years after hearing yelling at the house and, in another
incident, seeing a naked woman walking in the backyard.

Police Chief Michael McGrath said FBI evidence technicians worked at the
house until 5 a.m. Tuesday, and said it will likely be a few more days
before they complete their investigation inside the residence.

Investigators also plan to inspect other properties possibly owned by
Castro, according to Tomba. They haven't yet interviewed the women in
detail to learn details about their abductions and decade in captivity, he
added.

"Our first and foremost concern was their mental well being," he said.

He described their reunion with relatives at a Cleveland hospital Monday
night as "chaotic."

Witnessing it, he said, allowed for "nothing but compassion and love in
your heart for them."

Finally free

The women vanished in separate incidents nearly a decade ago, within
blocks of each other, according to police. Each disappeared from the same
Cleveland street -- Lorain Avenue -- three miles from the home in which
they were found Monday.

Amanda Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in
Cleveland on April 21, 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday.

Georgina "Gina" DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, on April 2, 2004.
She was 14.

Michelle Knight vanished on August 22, 2002, according to Cleveland Public
Safety Director Martin Flask. A family member reported her missing the
next day, Flask said. She was 21 years old at the time, Cleveland police
said.

The three women and the child were released Tuesday from the hospital
where they had been taken for evaluations, a spokeswoman said.

Tomba said all four appeared to be in good condition, if in need of a good
meal.

FBI special Agent Vicki Anderson declined to discuss the conditions under
which the women had allegedly been held.

She said state charges would likely be filed by Thursday. No federal
charges are expected, she said.

The escape

Neighbor Charles Ramsey was sitting down to a fast food meal Monday night
when he heard screaming.

"I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of a house," he told CNN
affiliate WEWS. "I go on the porch and she says, 'help me get out. I've
been in here a long time.'"

Figuring it was a domestic dispute, Ramsey kicked in the bottom of the
door and the woman came out with a little girl and said, "Call 911, my
name is Amanda Berry," according to Ramsey, who admitted he didn't
recognize the name at first.

Neighbor who helped Berry an instant Internet star

Free from the house where they had been held captive, Berry pleaded for a
phone.

"They were crazy, screaming, 'Help, call police, please help.' ... They
were desperate, crying, running," said Angela Garcia, whose aunt provided
the phone for them to call police.

Ramsey also called 911, less than a minute later.

"She's like, 'This (expletive) kidnapped me and my daughter,'" he told
911.

When police arrived, Knight and DeJesus "came out of the house on their
own," Tomba said.

DeJesus's mother, Nancy, met with her daughter at the hospital, cousin
Sylvia Colon told CNN's "Piers Morgan Live." She had never given up hope
of finding her daughter alive.

"She has always said that she just could feel it, a link a mom can feel,
but she always believed Gina was alive and well," Colon said. "She always
believed that. I just want to say what a phenomenal Mother's Day gift she
gets this Mother's Day."

Neighbors report strange behavior

Nina Samoylicz, who lives nearby, said she called police about two years
ago after spotting a naked woman walking around the backyard of Castro's
house, and called out to her. She said a man told the woman to get in the
house, then ran in himself.

"She was just walking around, and naked," Samoylicz said. "We thought that
was weird. We thought it was funny at first, and then we thought that was
weird so we called the cops. They thought we was playing, joking, they
didn't believe us."

She said she had also seen tarps covering the backyard.

Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said his sister got a bad vibe from the
house and asked him not to let the children play unsupervised nearby. He
said he heard yelling in the house in November 2011 and called police to
investigate, but they left after no one answered the door.

But authorities never had any indications that the women were being held
in the home or that anything suspicious was going on there, Flask said.
Neighbors had not provided any tips, he added.

Police had visited the home twice, authorities said Tuesday, once after
Ariel Castro called about a fight in the street and another time to
investigate Castro on an unrelated incident involving a child who had been
left on a school bus.

Neighbors reported seeing the 6-year-old who left the home with Berry out
playing sometimes at a neighborhood park.

Lugo said he saw Castro at the park Sunday with a little girl and asked
who it was.

"He said it was his girlfriend's daughter," Lugo told CNN.

Survival the key difference from 'House of Horrors' case

The suspects

Read CNN story on three missing from 2009

Of the three brothers arrested, Ariel Castro was the only one to live at
the home where the three women were apparently held, police said. The
others lived elsewhere in the city.

Their uncle, Julio Castro, told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" on Monday that
his family had grown up in the same west Cleveland neighborhood and knew
the DeJesus family.

Castro told CNN's Martin Savidge on Tuesday that family members were
"surprised" over the developments.

"Shame on you," Julio Castro said, when asked what he would say to his
nephews.

Ariel Castro used to work as a bus driver for the Cleveland Metropolitan
School District, according to district spokeswoman Roseann Canfora. She
did not have specifics Monday night on how long he was employed, when he
left or whether he was fired or left voluntarily.

Ramsey told reporters the suspect wasn't known for anything exciting --
"until today."

"We see this dude every day. I've been here a year. I barbecued with this
dude. We eat ribs and listen to salsa music," Ramsey said.

"We never saw the girls there, and we were always outside," said Angela
Garcia, whose aunt is a neighbor. "We only saw the guy."

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said there were "many unanswered questions
regarding this case, and the investigation will be ongoing."

"I am thankful that these three young ladies are found and alive,' he said
Monday.

Other cases

While amazing, such discoveries are more common now, said John D. Ryan,
CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

"To us at the National Center, this is not something that we find shocking
any more," he said. "The fact is, we have seen more and more long term
missing cases end up in the victim being rescued many years after their
original abduction."

The most widely reported such incident in recent years was that of Jaycee
Dugard, who was freed in 2009 after 18 years of captivity behind the home
of a California couple.

Dugard released a statement Tuesday saying the women who broke free in
Cleveland "need the opportunity to heal and connect back into the world.

"This isn't who they are. It is only what happened to them," Dugard said.
"The human spirit is incredibly resilient. More than ever this reaffirms
we should never give up hope."

In another case, Ryan said last year a 43-year-old man was found and
reunited with his mother after being abducted at the age of 2.



--
Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.

Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.

Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.

Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptness.

Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 200% and leaves millions without health care.

Obama helped bankrupt Illinois. Democrat run Chicago closes 54 public
schools.

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