Free The Lost Girls by John Glatt

disappearance.
    Ariel Castro was now in possession of Amanda’s cell phone, and was carefully listening to every message left for her by her worried mother, sister and boyfriend. Every day he would listen to their increasingly frantic calls. In time, he would even erase the messages to make room for new ones.
    A few nights after she arrived, Amanda Berry tried to escape. But Ariel Castro easily overpowered her, holding her down as he taped her legs and mouth, savagely raping her again. Then he chained her back to the pole, placed a motorcycle helmet on her head and left her in the dark basement.
    The next day he brought Amanda upstairs to the bathroom, where he raped her again, before bringing her into a bedroom and chaining her bound and gagged to a heater.
    From now on, Ariel Castro would freely sexually assault Amanda whenever he felt like it.

9
“I HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER”
    On Monday April 28, one week after Amanda Berry went missing, Cleveland’s WEWS-5 led off its ten o’clock news with the story. A tearful Louwana Miller appeared on camera, pleading for any information to find her daughter.
    “It’s been a whole week and it’s getting harder,” she sobbed. “Somewhere between home and [Burger King] something happened. Nobody can figure it out.”
    A reporter called it “a mystery” and Cleveland police were completely baffled.
    “Her sister is posting Amanda’s picture,” said the reporter. “She fears the worst but hopes for the best.”
    Then, as Amanda’s face came up on screen, Beth Serrano appealed for her to come home, if she was watching.
    “I’m hoping she’s out there somewhere,” said Beth. “I mean, I don’t care. Just come home. I hope nothing happened to her [and] maybe somebody’s got her, drugged her or something. Just bring her home.”
    Ariel Castro watched the newscast from his living room at 2207 Seymour Avenue. A few minutes later, he picked up Amanda’s silver cell phone and dialed Louwana Miller’s number on speed dial.
    “I have your daughter,” he told her. “She’s healthy and okay.” But when Louwana asked to speak to Amanda, he rang off. Two minutes later he called back.
    “He said Mandy was going to be his wife,” Louwana recalled in 2005. “He wanted to marry her. Mandy wanted to be with him. And then he hung up and that’s the last I heard.”
    After dialing Amanda’s number and leaving several messages, Louwana called FBI Special Agent Robert Hawk, who was leading the investigation. Hawk believed it might be a hoax and Amanda was part of it, as the caller had said she was fine and would be home in a couple of days.
    Michelle Knight was also watching the news bulletin that night, with more than a little interest. Earlier, Ariel Castro had burst into her bedroom, where she was still chained, and turned on the television.
    “If you watch the news tonight,” he told her cryptically, “you might find there’s a tragedy in Cleveland.”
    The moment she saw Amanda’s face on the television screen, she realized that “the Dude,” as she now called him, had kept his word and kidnapped another girl.
    “The reason why he turned on the TV,” Michelle said later, “is that he wanted me to know that there was another girl in the house.”
    But it would be several weeks before her captor brought a young blond girl, wearing a pair of boy’s pajamas, into Michelle’s room. Beforehand, Castro told Michelle to put a blanket over her naked body and hide the chains. Although he introduced the girl as his brother’s girlfriend, Michelle immediately recognized her from the television news. She was embarrassed for Amanda to see the filthy conditions she was imprisoned in. The floor was covered with rotten sandwiches and pizza slices and it stank of urine.
    “There were flies flying around the room,” Michelle said. “It was pretty disgusting.”
    But as soon as Amanda saw Michelle she smiled warmly.
    “I think she was happy to see there was another person