Amanda Berry and her fellow captives Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight are enjoying their first weekend of freedom after escaping the clutches of brutal Ariel Castro.
Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, are set to become overnight millionaires by telling their harrowing stories from the Cleveland horror house.
Oprah Winfrey is said to have offered Amanda Berry $300,000 to do her first interview.
A source close to Gina DeJesus claimed she was so traumatized that she was unable to sleep in a bedroom.
“She was locked in a room for so long that she is now sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the living room,” the source said.
“She can’t stand the idea of being in a small room. She walks around the garden. She is beautifying herself, doing her nails and hair and experimenting with make-up. She’s been catching up on everything, reading women’s magazines, trying to figure out what she has missed and who the Kardashians are.”
Michelle Knight, 32, has been dubbed “the forgotten victim” because her disappearance was never taken seriously by police. She vanished in 2002 aged 20 after her young son was taken into care.
The source revealed that she refused to see family members, including her mother, after her release, preferring to stay at the DeJesus family home.
When Amanda Berry had her daughter Jocelyn, which DNA tests have confirmed was fathered by Ariel Castro, she was given “favored” status by her captor, the source added.
“Castro referred to Amanda as his girlfriend and showered affection on Jocelyn. When they were rescued, Jocelyn was crying for her daddy. She is confused and doesn’t understand what is going on.”
Ariel Castro’s daughter Angie said that he showed her a photograph of a child she now believes was Jocelyn in February. Amanda Berry’s mother Louwana died aged 48 while her daughter was imprisoned. She went to her grave believing she had spoken to her daughter’s kidnapper.
After Amanda Berry had been missing for three days, the story was covered on a news bulletin, after which she received a phone call from a man who told her Amanda was with him.
In a TV interview Louwana Berry gave after the call in 2002, she said: “So I’m begging him to let me speak with her, just to let me know if she’s there. And he hesitated and said, <<I’ll have her home in a few days>>. I kept begging for him to let me speak with her. And he hung up.”
Cleveland police refused to say whether Ariel Castro had confessed to making the call, saying: “We don’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
