Life after kidnap: Ariel Castro's victims recall the horror of a decade in chains

When Amanda Berry’s toddler daughter had night terrors and started screaming and running around the room, Berry couldn’t always get to her — because she was chained and couldn’t move that far.

Big, heavy chains were a regular part of Berry’s life for years as she, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were held captive in a Cleveland home by Ariel Castro before finally escaping in 2013. So were repeated rapes and other abuse.

But the women survived, and now Berry and DeJesus have written a book about their experiences. “We are free, we love life,” the women said in the note to readers at the beginning of Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland, which they wrote with journalists Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan.

Hope was scheduled to come out yesterday. 

Berry kept journals and other writings during her captivity; the book shifts between her and DeJesus’ perspectives and recounts what their families went through and what Castro’s background and life were like. Knight, who legally changed her name to Lily Rose Lee, has written a separate book about her experience, which was published last year. Berry and DeJesus said they invited her to write with them and “wish her only the best.”

Castro kidnapped the women from 2002 to 2004 and kept them locked up in his home. Berry, who gave birth to Castro’s daughter during her imprisonment, broke out through a door in May 2013, leading all three women to freedom.

Castro, 53, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison. He hanged himself in his cell in September 2013.