Amazing article with indepth recap of the rescue of Amanda,Gina and Michelle.

If this is not allowed in it's own thread I apologize profusely for it. This is an AMAZING article and gives a lot of insight as to what happened the night they were rescued.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Evenings like this are as good as it gets on Seymour Avenue.

Goldilocks temperatures are perfect for a bike ride or for sitting out on the porch with friends. Perhaps a neighbor will fire up the grill. The smell of barbecue and the beats of salsa music soon might trickle out on to this short side street in one of Cleveland's many working-poor communities. It's mid-spring. The sun won't fade for at least another couple of hours.

For a few moments, everything is pleasant. Then comes the horrifying cry for help.

What happens over the next half-hour becomes worldwide news. Neighbors and police officers free three missing women and a child from years of abuse. Police arrest the accused abductor a half-mile away at a fast-food restaurant.

Subtract any element. Would Amanda Berry and her 6-year-old daughter, born a prisoner, have escaped Ariel Castro's lair? How about Gina DeJesus? Would we ever have known about Michelle Knight? She was the first of the three to vanish. But while Berry and DeJesus were the subjects of extensive investigations, Knight's case quickly was forgotten.

In these tense and emotional minutes of Monday, May 6 is the story of how bravery and swift action ended a decade-long nightmare. The heroes are the neighbors, the police officers and the women. Berry especially. Tonight, after 10 years, two weeks and one day of cruel incarceration inside Ariel Castro's Seymour Avenue home, she summons her courage.

'You can't be Amanda. Amanda is dead.'

Aurora Marti drags her green plastic chair -- the one with the Cleveland Indians cushion -- across the narrow driveway to Altagracia Tejeda's small, stone patio next door. Angel Cordero, a friend from nearby, is on the porch.

MORE HERE: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/30_minutes_that_ended_a_decade.html

 

The little girl was wearing a black wig when Amanda B brought her out of the house. Strange.

 

probably the same black wig that AC used to have on the mannequin (sp?) he terrorized his ex wife wife (RIP lady) and the one the girls were forced to wear when in disguise and being taken from the home to the garage.

Maybe she was playing dress up with it. I wonder what that little darlin's life was like in that house. Her concept of normal must be terribly skewed.

 

I just find it odd that police just left that wig behind.

 

They probably never knew it was there, and anyway it's not a particularly important piece of evidence.

 

This looks like the two women, who were sitting on their green plastic chairs.

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Notice that their windows are not all boarded up and they don't have padlocks on their front doors...The same neighborhood???

Just asking...

Boarded windows for 10 years? No one answers the door ever?

I guess to each his own...

 

Yeah, me too.

 

The house on the left, 2210 was the house that Amanda Berry called 911 from.

Yes, boarded up windows on an occupied structure, should be a red flag that something is wrong. Even in very high crime areas, people tend to put bars on their windows, not boards.

 

Not a single inch of light entered that house. His kids visited. Not one of them mentioned the boarded windows...They all said that yes, there were padlocks and they were not allowed into certain areas of the house. It all sounds very strange to me.

moo

 

I wonder if there was some city code violation with all the windows being boarded up in an occupied home.

 

I've wondered the same thing. It seems like this would have grabbed the attention of city inspectors? Especially after seeing how neat and tidy the neighbors are. Seems like Castro's house would have stood out like a sore thumb. Not trying to be ironic here, but IMO, all exits, including windows, should have reasonable access out. What if there's a fire and the doors are blocked by smoke?

 

In the pictures of the house it doesn't appear that the windows are boarded up.

 

Look at this view from August 2009. All the windows except the attic are covered in some silver reflective stuff. Hard to say whats on the other side of that. But the neighbors said that no light came out of the house at night. Also note that this image was taken in the middle of summer, and none of the windows are open.

 

I'm guess the windows were boarded from the inside, behind the reflective material. Other than the one window on the side of the house that was boarded over with plywood, there was nothing apparent to catch the eye of the city inspector.

 

I think so. Also if the windows weren't boarded from the inside. Amanda Berry could have just smashed the front window, to escape. She wouldn't have had to get help kicking down the door.

 

But if the front floor windows were boarded up from the inside, wouldn't guests to the house say something about that in their interviews. All that I ever heard mentioned was that there were like seven padlocks/dead bolts on the front door.

A rear neighbor did say something about the windows being boarded up in the back. I believe the women lived in two bedrooms in the back.

 

It looks like just the upstairs windows are covered. Visitors never went up there.

 

I think they all knew he was weird. They just didn't believe that he would actually have women imprisoned in his house. If you had a weird relative who had all the windows in his house boarded up, would you really want to ask him why? Especially if he had violent tendencies and didn't seem to want talk about it.

 

Look again. The front window is coved with sheets of plastic. Again if the window was not boarded up, why would Amanda Berry not have just smashed the window and climbed out?

Reports are that the women never saw daylight, and neighbors reported that the only light that came from the house was the front porch light. Thats a sign that the windows were sealed up.