Hope: A Memoir of Survival

by Amanda Berry

Does he just like to lie?

I’m crying and bleeding. I’ve been terrified he would do this. But having this old pig on top of me was even more horrible than I’d imagined. He just took something I’ll never get back. I want to die. I try to cover myself with my clothes.

“We gotta celebrate!” he says, standing up and pulling his pants back on. “That was your first time!” He goes to the kitchen and returns with a bottle of red wine and two glasses, then pours one for each of us. “Now you’ll never forget me,” he says. “I was your first, and you never forget your first.” I can’t look at him. He makes me take a drink. I have never had wine before, and it tastes awful.

Now that he’s started raping me, he can’t stop. It’s three or four times every day. Day after day it’s the same: He comes in, takes off his clothes, and climbs on me. He’s so hairy everywhere, even his butt. He’s the most disgusting man I can imagine. He makes me look at him and tell him all this ridiculous stuff. “I love it.” “I want it.” “You’re so ...

I lean over and whisper in her ear, “I’m not really Emily. I’m Gina DeJesus.” “I know who you are,” she whispers back. “I’ve seen you on TV.” He walks back into the kitchen, and we go back to talking about hair.

The guy who kidnapped me wants me to watch a TV show about my kidnapping!

It’s crazy that they’re showing pictures of me and Arlene being happy together while her father is keeping me prisoner.

I shift the chain around so the padlock rests on my belly, then on my side, and finally on my back. But nothing feels better. I am covered with bruises and calluses. Just looking at the chain makes me cry. It’s like a snake in the bed with me, threatening to squeeze me to death.

“I want to kill myself,” I tell him.

“Okay, he says. “Let me help you.” He leaves and returns in a minute with a rope. He ties it into a noose and hands it to me. “If you really want to die, take this. I’ll watch.”

“I’ll keep this in your closet in case you need it later,” he says.

I’m glad I have Michelle here, but then he ruins everything. He comes in and starts taking his clothes off. He climbs on Michelle, and I roll away and try not to watch. I can’t stop crying. Then it’s my turn.

I can’t believe we’re both friends with his kids.

She’s never been on the news, so she thinks her family didn’t even report her missing.

It’s like he’s collecting girls. I wonder if he’s going to kidnap any more.

We’ve been watching the Olympics in Athens almost every night. He gets so excited at the sight of these gymnasts. I don’t get it. These girls are so small and young. “Wow, look at her,” he says. I don’t want to, but he makes me. Then he rapes me. I used to love to watch the Olympics, but now I’ll never watch them again.

I feel like I’m the only sane person here, but I guess everybody has their own way of coping with being kidnapped.

I can’t feed his fantasy that we’re a big happy family.

What are the chances that he and my mom would come face-to-face? I wonder if she felt anything when she was close to him. She has strong intuition, so could she have sensed me, even for a second, as she passed him? I hope so. I would give anything to feel her close to me.

He even let me shave my legs for the first time since I got here almost a year and a half ago. It’s good to have my legs as smooth as they used to be.

I’ve been going downstairs with him to watch TV, which means I get a little time without my chain. The other night he rented The Passion of the Christ, the Mel Gibson movie that he really wanted to see. It was weird to sit beside such an evil man and watch the story of Jesus.

I haven’t had a real conversation with anyone in eighteen months.

“I want to tell you something.” “What?” I ask, wiping my tears. “I have feelings for you.”

That’s crazy. How can he say that? He treats me like garbage. He has ruined my life. And he has “feelings” for me? I’m so confused. I decided to be nicer to him so he would treat me better. But I don’t want to be his girlfriend. Why did I ask for a hug from this monster? Is this what prison does to you?

If he ever thought I was trying to kill him, he’d kill me first.

He weighs 180 pounds—he talks about his weight all the time—and we’re all tiny. Gina’s about my size, and Michelle is even smaller, not even five feet tall, so if we attacked him it would be like three puppies trying to kill a grizzly bear. I wonder if that’s why he picked us. The only thing we have in common

I am crying so hard that I’m shaking. I wish God would show her some sort of sign that I’m alive. I get my strength from knowing that my mom is fighting for me. If she gives up, I’ll feel like I don’t exist.

Nilda sought a restraining order in domestic relations court barring Castro from coming near her or her children, telling the court about years of violence by Castro and that he had threatened to kill her and her kids. Even though Castro had no visitation rights, she said he “frequently abducts his daughters and keeps them from [her].” The court issued a temporary restraining order that required Castro to complete “batterer counseling” and banned him from drinking alcohol, using illegal drugs, or possessing a deadly weapon. No home visit was ordered. The temporary restraining order raised no red flags at the school system where Castro was a bus driver. A prosecutor said there were so many domestic violence cases that it was virtually impossible to check them against all school and city employees. The court then scheduled a hearing to determine whether to make that restraining order permanent. On the day of the hearing, Castro and his lawyer appeared before the magistrate, as did Nilda, but her lawyer, Robert A. Ferreri, failed to show up because he had a hearing at the same time in juvenile court. The magistrate would not proceed without Nilda’s lawyer present, and he gave her two weeks to file for a new hearing. Because she did not, her case was dismissed and Castro was free of any legal constraints. Nilda later told Elida that after her lawyer failed to appear, she lost her nerve to pursue the case.

Castro denied more than twenty times that he had ever laid a hand on Nilda.

Nilda took the stand the following day, describing publicly for the first time what Castro had done to her over the course of many years. “Did Mr. Castro ever physically assault you?” Ferreri asked. “Yes.” “Did he do that more than once?” “Yes.” “Did Mr. Castro ever strike you in such a way that you required medical attention?” “Yes.”

“Did he ever do that more ...

“Yes.” “Did Mr. Castro ever cause you to get medical attention at a hospital?” “Yes.” “Did you ever receive any cuts or any bruises from Mr. Castro?” “Yes.” “Did you ever have any dislocated limbs from Mr. Castro?” “Yes.” “Did you ever have any problems with your eyesight or your nerves in your face as a result of Mr. Castro?” “Yes.” “Did you ever have any problems with your brain or the inner workings of your brain?” “Yes.” “Thanks to Mr. Castro?” “Yes.” Nilda recounted the first time Castro beat her, when a small disagreement escalated and he punched her in the face, grabbed her by the head, and threw her onto the concrete floor. She said Castro had punched her so many times in the face over the years that she required two reconstructive surgeries on her nose, as well as dental surgery. She recalled that one time when she was pregnant, he demanded that she wash the dishes. “I told him I was tired and to wait, and I yelled a little, but I don’t usually yell, but I was too tired, so he just punched me in the mouth and took my teeth out…. He dislocated my shoulders about twice by just throwing me around, most of ...

“He beat me over the head with it. It was always on the head. Most of the time.” “And did the hospital do any surgical procedures on you at that time when he hit you with the metal piece?” “Yes. I had maybe about twenty-five, forty stitches on my head at that time.” “Did Mr. Castro ever hit you in the head again?” “Yes.” “Did he use his hand or did he use an object?” “Then next time after that it was with a hand bar, weight.” “An exercise weight?” “Yes. I was nine months pregnant with Emily…. He hit me over the head with it, beat me.” Nilda testified that Castro had punched her so hard in the eye that her sight was severely damaged, and it left one of her eyes permanently “squinty.” She said Castro repeatedly referred to her as “his property.” “He says it all the time, repeats that to me all the time…. I’m scared of him.” Asked about the prognosis for the tumor that had...

“Do you believe he’s ever capable of change?” “No.”

Amanda isn’t stuck-up at all, like I thought.

She listens and cares when I tell her about all the sick stuff he does to me and Michelle, like how he rapes me and her while we’re chained together. It’s as horrible watching it happen to someone else as it is having it happen to you. Amanda’s crying now as I tell her. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know he was doing that to you.” She says that he told her that he was not having sex with me and Michelle, so she thought it was easier for us.

“He says he has me for sex, but you two are here to be his maids. I always figured he was lying, because why would you go to all the trouble of kidnapping two girls just to have them clean your house?” We talk about how he says he has a “sexual problem,” and he calls his thing Charlie. “He told me it’s not his fault,”...

And what would he do to us? He doesn’t make mistakes. I’m so worried the police and FBI will never figure it out. He seems like a nice, normal, middle-aged, friendly guy. He doesn’t look crazy.

That’s how he gets away with this. He hides in plain sight. He says he can get away with anything, including killing us.

I once told him my father was looking for me and asked him what he would do if my dad found us: “Would you shoot him?” “I’m not going to talk about that,” he answered. I do think he would kill my dad. He doesn’t care about anybody but himself.

We’ve been down in the cellar for four days. Between visits from his kids, he’s come down here a bunch of times to take Michelle upstairs to help with the “cleaning.” Yeah, right. We know what he’s really doing with her, and she tells us anyway. So why does he try to hide it? I don’t get it.

He takes Amanda upstairs, too, and she’s crying each time she comes back, but he hasn’t bothered me. I don’t know why. Maybe seeing Arlene has made him feel guilty. It’s so rare that I get this much time away from his disgusting body.

As we make our way across the backyard in the dark I realize it’s the first time I’ve been outside in a year and a half. I smell freshly cut grass and feel a breeze.

We shuffle along the side of the van, looking at the ground. The side door is open, and he tells us to get in. The two seats in the back are folded all the way down, and he makes us lie down there, chaining us to the seats.

It must be a hundred degrees in here. The little fan is swinging slowly from side to side, pushing around the hot, wet air.

This van. It’s the one. It’s the same maroon van that drove me away from my life. I see that day happening all over again: He pulls up alongside me, and I get into that passenger seat. So stupid.

He’s obsessed with making the house look normal so the neighbors don’t suspect anything.

I think of his daughter. She’s now sleeping comfortably in the house while he attacks me fifty feet away. When he’s done, he’ll probably go inside and cook her breakfast.

Everyone in this house is a liar. He just yelled at me for telling Gina and Michelle that he forces me to have sex, and he’s furious that I was thinking about trying to escape in the van. I’m scared about what he’s going to do to me. Sometimes he hits me across the face. Sometimes he won’t feed me, or gives me only the worst

leftovers. Other times he unplugs everything for days: my TV, my radio, my fan. How could they have told him those things? Maybe they didn’t. Maybe he was spying on us. I go to their door and ask them why they talked. They claim they didn’t. They say he knows things about them that I must have told him, so they’re mad at me. I don’t know what to believe, so I don’t believe anyone. I’m done trusting anybody in this house. The only person I can rely on is me.