Three Women Rescued After Being Kidnapped and Held Captive For Over A Decade

three women held captive found after 10 years photo credit: usatoday

What Is This World Coming To? Authorities have arrested three men today, who were responsible for the abducting and captivity of three women for over a decade. Two of the victims were identified as , Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight are believed to  have been abducted over a decade ago- the third victim is believed to be the daughter of one of the victims, whom was actually fathered by one of the three men that are suspected of committing this foul act of kidnapping.  This is, by far, one of the most disturbing cases ever to be broadcasted.

photo's credit: usatoday

CNN reports,

"She was just walking around and naked," Samoylicz said. "We thought that was weird. We thought it was funny at first, and then we thought that was weird, so we called the cops. They thought we was playing, joking, they didn't believe us."

She said she had also seen tarps covering the backyard.

Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said his sister got a bad vibe from the house and asked him not to let the children play unsupervised nearby. He said he heard yelling in the house in November 2011 and called police to investigate, but they left after no one answered the door.

Neighbors reported seeing the 6-year-old who left the home with Berry out playing sometimes at a neighborhood park. Lugo said he saw Castro at the park Sunday with a little girl and asked who she was: "He said it was his girlfriend's daughter."

But authorities never had any indications that the women were being held in the home or that anything suspicious was going on there, Cleveland Public Safety Director Martin Flask said. Neighbors had not provided any tips, he added.

Police had visited the home twice, authorities said Tuesday, once after Ariel Castro called about a fight in the street and another time to investigate Castro on an unrelated incident involving a child who had been left on a school bus.

Investigators also plan to inspect other properties possibly owned by Castro, according to Tomba. They haven't yet interviewed the women in detail to learn about their abductions and decade in captivity, he added.

"Our first and foremost concern was their mental well-being," he said.

Finally free

Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland on April 21, 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday. DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, on April 2, 2004. She was 14.

Michelle Knight vanished on August 22, 2002, and her family reported her missing the next day, Flask said. She was 21.

Little was known about Knight's case Tuesday. Her mother now lives in Naples, Florida, and was contacted by Cleveland police late Monday, a neighbor, Sheldon Gofberg, told CNN.

The three women and the child were released Tuesday from the hospital where they had been taken for evaluations, a spokeswoman said. Tomba said all four appeared to be in good condition, if in need of a good meal.

While amazing, such discoveries are more common now, said John D. Ryan, CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

"To us at the National Center, this is not something that we find shocking any more," he said. "The fact is, we have seen more and more long term missing cases end up in the victim being rescued many years after their original abduction."

The most widely reported such incident in recent years was that of Jaycee Dugard, who was freed in 2009 after 18 years of captivity behind the home of a California couple. Dugard released a statement Tuesday saying the women who broke free in Cleveland "need the opportunity to heal.

Neighborhood watch has slowly deminished; however, this case along with so many other abduction cases, have proven that every neighborhood should have some type of surveillance. These types of incident would be non-existent if people would've have just paid more attention to their surroundings. It seems that this house had been reported on numerous occasions for unusual activity, and the police would visit. However, the police were too easy to allude; as the suspects would just not answer the door. The police should definitely be held accountable for some of the blame here because, they never followed up on the suspicions that were reported even after they visited and vacated the premises.