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| Amanda Berry, right, hugs her sister Beth Serrano after being reunited in a Cleveland hospital Monday May 6, 2013. Berry and two other women were found in a house near downtown Cleveland Monday after being missing for about a decade. |
CLEVELAND
(AP) -- A relative of three brothers arrested in Cleveland says their
family is "totally shocked" three women missing for years were found at
the home of one of them.
Juan Alicea says the arrests of his wife's brothers have left relatives "as blindsided as anyone else" in their community.
Alicea
says he hadn't been to the home of his brother-in-law Ariel Castro
since the early 1990s. Three women who vanished separately about a
decade ago were found captive Monday at the run-down house after one of
them escaped and contacted police.
Alicea says
he had eaten dinner with Castro at a different brother's house shortly
before the arrests were made. No charges have been filed. Castro is
jailed and can't be reached for comment.
The
case leaves Cleveland police facing questions about their handling of
missing-person cases. They're conducting an internal review.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
One
neighbor says a naked woman was seen crawling on her hands and knees in
the backyard of the house a few years ago. Another heard pounding on
the home's doors and noticed plastic bags over the windows.
Both
times, police showed up but never went inside, neighbors say. Police
also paid a visit to the house in 2004, but no one answered the door.
Now,
after three women who vanished a decade ago were found captive Monday
at the peeling, rundown house, Cleveland police are facing questions for
the second time in four years about their handling of missing-person
cases and are conducting an internal review to see if they overlooked
anything.
City Safety Director Martin Flask
said Tuesday that investigators had no record of anyone calling about
criminal activity at the house but were still checking police, fire and
emergency databases.
The three women were
rescued after one of them kicked out the bottom portion of a locked
screen door and used a neighbor's telephone to call 911.
"Help
me. I'm Amanda Berry," she breathlessly told a dispatcher in a call
that exhilarated and astonished
much of the city. "I've been kidnapped
and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm, I'm here, I'm free now."
Berry,
27, Michelle Knight, 32, and Gina DeJesus, about 23, had apparently
been held captive in the house since their teens or early 20s, said
Police Chief Michael McGrath.
Three brothers,
ages 50 to 54, were arrested. One of them, former school bus driver
Ariel Castro, owned the home, situated in a poor neighborhood dotted
with boarded-up houses just south of downtown Cleveland. No immediate
charges were filed.
A 6-year-old girl believed
to be Berry's daughter was also found in the home, said Deputy Police
Chief Ed Tomba. He would not say who the father was.
The women were reported by police to be in good health and were reunited with joyous family members but remained in seclusion.
"Prayers
have finally been answered. The nightmare is over," said Stephen
Anthony, head of the FBI in Cleveland. "These three young ladies have
provided us with the ultimate definition of survival and perseverance.
The healing can now begin."
He added: "Words can't describe the emotions being felt by all. Yes, law enforcement professionals do cry."
Police
would not say how the women were taken captive or how they were hidden
in the same neighborhood where they vanished. Investigators also would
not say whether they were kept in restraints inside the house or
sexually assaulted.
Four years ago, in another
poverty-stricken part of town, Cleveland's police force was heavily
criticized following the discovery of 11 women's bodies in the home and
backyard of Anthony Sowell, who was later convicted of murder and
sentenced to death.
The families of Sowell's
victims accused police of failing to properly investigate the
disappearances because most of the women were addicted to drugs and
poor. For months, the stench of death hung over the house, but it was
blamed on a sausage factory next door.
In the
wake of public outrage over the killings, a panel formed by the mayor
recommended an overhaul of the city's handling of missing-person and sex
crime investigations.
This time, two neighbors said they called police to the Castro house on separate occasions.
Elsie
Cintron, who lives three houses away, said her daughter once saw a
naked woman crawling in the backyard several years ago and called
police. "But they didn't take it seriously," she said.
Another
neighbor, Israel Lugo, said he heard pounding on some of the doors of
the house in November 2011. Lugo said officers knocked on the front
door, but no one answered. "They walked to side of the house and then
left," he said.
"Everyone in the neighborhood
did what they had to do," said Lupe Collins, who is close to relatives
of the women. "The police didn't do their job."
Police did go to the house twice in the past 15 years, but not in connection with the women's disappearance, officials said.
In 2000, before the women vanished, Castro reported a fight in the street, but no arrests were made, Flask said.
In
2004, officers went to the home after child welfare officials alerted
them that Castro had apparently left a child unattended on a bus, Flask
said. No one answered the door, according to Flask. Ultimately, police
determined there was no criminal intent on his part, he said.
Castro,
52, was well known in the mainly Puerto Rican neighborhood. He played
bass guitar in salsa and merengue bands. He gave children rides on his
motorcycle and joined others at a candlelight vigil to remember two of
the missing girls, neighbors said. They also said they would sometimes
see him walking a little girl to a neighborhood playground.
Tito
DeJesus, an uncle of Gina DeJesus, played in bands with Castro over the
last 20 years. He recalled visiting Castro's house but never noticed
anything out of the ordinary, saying it had very little furniture and
was filled with musical instruments.
"I had no clue, no clue whatsoever that this happened," he said.
Also arrested were Castro's brothers Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50.
On
Tuesday, a sign hung on a fence decorated with dozens of balloons
outside the home of DeJesus' parents read "Welcome Home Gina." Her aunt
Sandra Ruiz said her niece had an emotional reunion with family members.
"Those
girls, those women are so strong," Ruiz said. "What we've done in 10
years is nothing compared to what those women have done in 10 years to
survive."
Many of the women's loved ones and friends had held out hope of seeing them again,
For
years, Berry's mother kept her room exactly as it was, said Tina
Miller, a cousin. When magazines addressed to Berry arrived, they were
piled in the room alongside presents for birthdays and Christmases she
missed. Berry's mother died in 2006.
Just over a month ago, Miller attended a vigil marking the 10th anniversary of Berry's disappearance.
Over
the past decade or so, investigators twice dug up backyards looking for
Berry and continued to receive tips about her and DeJesus every few
months, even in recent years. The disappearance of the two girls was
profiled on TV's "America's Most Wanted" in 2005. Few leads ever came in
about Knight.
Knight vanished at age 20 in
2002. Berry disappeared at 16 in 2003, when she called her sister to say
she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. About a year
later, DeJesus vanished at 14 on her way home from school.
Jessica Aponce, 24, said she walked home with DeJesus the day the teenager disappeared.
"She
called her mom and told her mom she was on her way home and that's the
last time I seen her," Aponce said. "I just can't wait to see her. I'm
just so happy she's alive. It's been so many years that everybody
thinking she was dead."
Elizabeth Smart and
Jaycee Dugard, who were held captive by abductors at a young age, said
they were elated by the women's rescue.
"We
need to have constant vigilance, constantly keep our eyes open and ears
open because miracles do happen," Smart said on ABC's "Good Morning
America."
