Cleveland Kidnapping Survivors Speak Out for First Time About Being Captives
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Heidi Gutman/ABC(CLEVELAND) — For the first time since their escape, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus are coming forward to talk about how they survived unimaginable horrors inside their captor Ariel Castro’s Cleveland home.
Berry and DeJesus sat down for an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts.
Their story will air in a one-hour special edition of 20/20 on Tuesday, April 28, at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.
In the interview, they describe their lives in captivity, including how they felt about each other and what happened when Berry gave birth to Castro’s child, then had to raise her in captivity.
They also talk about their dramatic escape in 2013, how they are rebuilding their lives now and their upcoming memoir, Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland, which will be released on April 27.
Written with Washington Post journalists Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, the memoir details the girls’ lives inside Castro’s home, including Berry’s personal accounts written in diaries, on napkins, fast food bags and other scraps of paper, as well as efforts from law enforcement to find them.
Berry and DeJesus, along with fellow kidnapping victim Michelle Knight, escaped from Castro’s home in May 2013. The three women were abducted between 2002 and 2004, when they were in their teens or early 20s, and kept as sex slaves for over a decade. Castro had a child with Berry during her captivity.
Castro, 53, pled guilty in July 2013 to 937 charges relating to kidnapping, torturing and imprisoning the three women. On Sept. 3, 2013, he was found dead in his prison cell after committing suicide.
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