APRIL 21, 2003
I wake up at noon. I was up late listening to Eminem. Mom pushes my door open. “Mandy, I’m off. Love you!”
I started at Burger King a year ago when I turned 16. I need money because one day I’m going to go to college. Tomorrow is my birthday, and a few friends are coming over to celebrate.
My shift ends.
I see a van blocking the sidewalk ahead. Because I’m still on the phone to my sister, Beth, I’m not paying attention, but I notice the girl in the passenger seat.
I’m sure she used to work at Burger King. The driver — it must be her father — is looking at me and smiling.
“Hey, you need a ride home?” I can definitely remember seeing him before. Still talking to Beth I nod “yes”.
When he reaches over and opens the front passenger door, I notice she isn’t in the car anymore. “Where is your daughter?” I ask. I am alone in a car with a guy I don’t really know.
APRIL 25
He has moved me into the bedroom where he first raped me. It’s not pitch black like the basement, where I spent the first two nights. I have to lie sideways on the queen-size bed, because he has me chained to the radiator. The padlock on the chain around my stomach feels like a rock.
The chain is just long enough that I can use my “bathroom” — a plastic trash can.
He told me that he kept the light out of reach so that I couldn’t flip it on and off to attract the neighbours’ attention. He’s careful.
He keeps a radio blasting in the hallway. Nobody can hear me if I scream. Is that girl he called his roommate still here? Why isn’t she helping me?
APRIL 27
I’ve been gone six days. So far, he’s raped me at least 25 times.
He unlocks the chain and walks me downstairs. He turns on the news — my mom and Beth are on.
“It’s been a hard week,” mom tells the reporter, wiping her eyes. She’s on the couch where we used to cuddle up. I’m crying too, but glad people are looking for me.
“Your mom looks really upset,” he says. There’s no sympathy in his voice. He has an odd expression, and then I realise: he’s proud.
JUNE 3
I haven’t eaten in two days. When he finally gives me a sandwich, I keep the napkin. It has lots of white space where I can write. I’m keeping McDonald’s bags too, to write on the inside. It makes me feel closer to my family.
APRIL l4, 2004
There’s another girl missing: Gina DeJesus, a seventh grader. I wonder if he had anything to do with it. I know that the other girl is still here. He told me her name is Michelle.
He says her family is screwed up and they are paying him to give her a place to live. He keeps us apart.
Once when we were in the kitchen and he went into the other room, I whispered “My name is Amanda Berry.”
“I’ve seen you on the news,” she said.
APRIL 20
“Did you take that girl — Gina?” I ask.
“Stay out of my business,” he snaps. I hit a nerve.
“You told me if you ever got another girl, I could go home.” That makes him really mad.
“You better shut up,” he says. “I’ve gone this far, I don’t know what I’m capable of now.”
AUGUST
Being mad at him is getting me nothing but abuse. I’m hungry all the time, and he feeds them first. Maybe I should try being nicer. That’s going to be my new strategy.
OCTOBER 11
He is doing laundry and says we have to help, so I go to the basement with him, Gina and Michelle. They seem nice and it feels good to talk. We even laugh a little.
I have fantasies about prying open a window and jumping, or sticking a knife in his back.
But he weighs 180 pounds (81kg) and we’re tiny. The only thing we have in common is that we’re all petite with big breasts. I guess that’s his type.
MARCH 2, 2006
I flip on the TV. Breaking news: Louwana Miller, mother of Amanda Berry, has passed away from a heart attack.
I can barely breathe. People are saying my mom was never the same after I disappeared, that she died of a broken heart.
APRIL 22
Happy birthday to me. I’m 20.
I have a secret.
I missed my period, and I’m throwing up all the time. All this time and I’ve never gotten pregnant.
Then mom dies, and now I’m pretty sure I am. I think she sent this baby to give me a reason to fight.
MAY
I’ve been telling him I have the flu — he beat Michelle to make her miscarry. He comes into my room with a burger.
“No thanks,” I tell him. He looks at me suspiciously.
“Are you pregnant?” I feel the breath sucked out of my lungs.
“I think so.” I’m trying to read the expression on his face.
Finally he says: “We could always bring it to church right after it’s born, and leave it on the steps.”
JULY
I fainted in the hall, and he left me lying there. When I came to, I saw him zipping up his pants and leaving Gina and Michelle’s room. I’m angry that he’s having sex with them, but I don’t understand why I feel this way.
I want to kill him, but I also want to be with him. God, what’s wrong with me?
CHRISTMAS DAY
The pains started hours ago. I don’t want to die here. He wants me to have the baby in my room where it would be hard for anybody to hear me screaming.
The contractions have really started now, and the pains are sharper.
“Be quiet!” he shouts. I push, and the baby slips out.
“It’s a girl,” he says, smiling. He cradles her in his arms, wraps her in a towel and hands her to me. I can’t believe her little face. I stare into her eyes. She’s all I can see.
He wants me and the baby to get into the tub with him. He’s washing her tiny body.
The look in his eyes — he’s so in love with this little girl already.
I don’t think he had been completely sure, right up to today, that he’d let me keep this baby.
I crawl into bed with her. As he fastens the chain around my ankle, I think about my daughter being born into this prison, and who her father is.
“She needs diapers,” I tell him.
He leaves the room and comes back with scissors and a handful of old white athletic socks. He trims the top off and then cuts two little holes in the toe for her legs.
We slip her into it, and that’s her first diaper. I want him to feel invested in her — that will keep her safe.
JUNE 2009
It’s close to midnight. He just left our room and didn’t chain me. Maybe since Jocelyn was still up he didn’t want her to see. She’s two and a half now and starting to ask questions.
“What’s that?” she asked the other day when the blanket I had covering my chains slipped off. “It’s my bracelet,” I said, as casually as I could. I turn off the light and snuggle up with my baby.
It’s been six years since I have been able to fall asleep without being shackled.
FEBRUARY 9, 2011
He wakes me up.
“I want to tell you why you’re in this situation,” he says. “I have a sexual addiction.”
He tells me when he was young he got hooked on porn, obsessed by it, and that he was molested by a neighbour.
“I’ve never told anybody,” he adds. “I just wanted you to understand.”
I’ve never seen him this emotional. He seems depressed and says he’s getting headaches from the stress of leading this double life.
“Sometimes I don’t even have feelings,” he says.
“I think I’m cold-hearted.”
I have known that for years, but it’s odd hearing him admit it.
APRIL 22, 2013
Today I turn 27 and feel nothing but anger. I never finished school.
I haven’t talked on a telephone since I was 16.
I have spoken to only four people in 10 years. I wonder what it’s like to send a text or an email or use an iPad — all the stuff I see on TV.
I hate him for sealing me off from the world, especially today, another lost birthday.
I have changed so much. If I get out of here, I’ll never look up at the sky, walk down a street, or wade in a lake without thinking how lucky I am.
I know everything can disappear in a second.
FOOTNOTE: On May 6, 2013, Berry saw that Castro failed to lock the home’s “big inside door”, although the exterior storm door was bolted. She screamed for help when she saw neighbours through the screen.
Angel Cordero responded to the screaming but spoke little English. Another neighbour, Charles Ramsey, came to the house’s front door. A hole was kicked through the bottom of the door, and Berry crawled through, carrying her daughter. Once released, she ran to a nearby house and called 911.
“Help me, I’m Amanda Berry ... I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years. And I’m here. I’m free now.”
Police arrived shortly afterwards, stormed the house and freed Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.
Ariel Castro was arrested shortly afterwards, charged with kidnapping and rape. Murder charges, relating to his role in the termination of one of captive’s pregnancies, were added later.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 1000 years in prison.
After a month of his sentence, he was found hanging by his bedsheet in his cell. He was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.
Taken from Hope: A Memoir of Survival by Amanda Berry & Gina DeJesus
Copyright © Bantam Press 2015
Reprinted by Permission of Random House Australia
All Rights Reserved
RRP $35.00 by Bantam Press. Available now from bookstores and online retailers
Buy Hope: a Memoir of Survival by Amanda Berry and Gina De Jesus for $29.95 including delivery.
Buy online at heraldsun.com.au/shop, call 1300 306 107 from 10am Monday or post a cheque to Book Offers: P.O. Box 14730 Melbourne Vic 8001. Please allow 14 days for delivery.
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