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Michelle Knight has reportedly rejected all attempts by her mother for an emotional reunion after 11 years in captivity in the Cleveland horror house.
More than two months after she was rescued from Ariel Castro’s house, Michelle Knight, 32, has not yet spoken to her mother, according to Mail Online.
Michelle Knight has not replied to a single card or letter sent by her mother Barbara Knight and has even refused to see her 10-year-old sister, a family friend told the website.
Such is the gulf between mother and daughter that Barbara Knight had no idea Michelle had made a video for her first public appearance and statement about her ordeal.
Michelle Knight’s mother, who lives in South Florida, only found out when a family friend told her about the short video in which Michelle talks about going to “hell and back”.
The family friend said Barbara Knight is “very hurt” that her daughter has refused to see her – or even speak with her on the phone.
“Barbara is hurt. She is very hurt. All she wants to do is see and speak to her daughter. She wants her youngest daughter Katie to meet Michelle,” said the friend.
“She has sent lots of letters and cards. Presumably they are being given to Michelle but she has not had a single word from her. She has tried repeatedly to make contact, but has heard nothing back. It is very sad.
“It is hurting her. She is her mother and never gave up hope that she was alive.”
Michelle Knight, who went missing in 2002, is believed to have suffered most at the hands of her alleged kidnapper, 52-year-old Ariel Castro.
She was 21 when she was taken off the street in August 2002 and little was made of her disappearance.
Michelle Knight has rejected all attempts by her mother for an emotional reunion after 11 years in captivity in Ariel Castro’s house
Her family told police that she had run away after her young son was taken from her by the Ohio Department of Family Services.
As the oldest of the three girls held captive at Castro’s home in Cleveland, Ohio, for over a decade, Michelle Knight was repeatedly raped, according to authorities.
Court documents have revealed she fell pregnant several times but miscarried after being beaten and starved.
Michelle Knight was also forced to deliver Ariel Castro’s daughter by Amanda Berry – who also went missing in 2003 aged 17 on her way home from a part time job at a Burger King restaurant.
While Amanda Berry, now 27, and Gina DeJesus, now 23, had emotional reunions with their family in the days after being freed, Michelle Knight said she did not want to see her mother.
Barbara Knight flew from her home in Naples, Florida, to Cleveland in the hope of being reunited with her daughter, even going to the hospital where she was being cared for.
However, Michelle Knight refused to see her mother and told authorities to send her away.
“Barbara was very hurt. She had taken her 10-year-old daughter Katie to Cleveland so that she could meet her sister. After a week she had to send Katie back to Naples so she could go back to school,” the family friend said.
“All Barbara wants is to see Michelle. Yes, there were things that went on in the past but she wants to move on and move forward.”
The family friend said Barbara Knight had also been hurt by accusations made by other family members that she was a bad mother.
She came in for public criticism after she revealed in May that she did not have a photo of her daughter Michelle.
“Barbara knows the truth and as a friend for over nine years I know she is not a bad mother.”
“When Michelle went missing she was upset about having her child taken into care. Barbara doesn’t talk about that and what went on, but I can tell you she is a great mother,” the friend said.
The friend also revealed that Barbara Knight had turned down several big money offers from TV networks to talk about her daughter.
“Barbara is not interested in money. All she wants is to be reunited with her daughter. When she is ready to talk it will be on her terms,” the friend said.
Michelle Knight spoke in a halting voice in the video released by a Cleveland-based public relations firm primarily so they could thanks family and supporters.
She said in the video that she is building a “brand new life”.
“I may have been through hell and back, but I am strong enough to walk through hell with a smile on my face and my head held high,” Michelle Knight said, reading from a prepared statement.
“I will not let the situation define who I am. I will define the situation. I don’t want to be consumed by hatred.”
Kathy Joseph, Michelle Knight’s attorney, said in a statement that the three women wanted to “say thank you to people from Cleveland and across the world, now that two months have passed”.
Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus could come face to face with their alleged captor next month when he stands trial on 139 counts of rape, 177 counts of kidnapping, seven counts of gross s***al imposition, three counts of felonious assault and one count of possession of criminal tools, to which Ariel Castro has pleaded not guilty.
Longest-held Cleveland kidnap victim Michelle Knight suffered such severe beatings while locked inside the house of horrors that she will require facial reconstruction surgery, her family said.
Michelle Knight, 32, was released from hospital on Friday, five days after she and two other victims Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, 23, along with Amanda’s six-year-old daughter were rescued following a decade held captive in the dungeon-like home.
“When she was severely beaten, he beat her so badly in the face that she has to have facial reconstruction and she’s lost hearing in one ear,” Michelle’s grandmother, Deborah Knight, told CBS.
Michelle Knight suffered such severe beatings while locked inside the house of horrors that she will require facial reconstruction surgery
Michelle Knight told police that her alleged captor, Ariel Castro, repeatedly raped her and caused her to miscarry at least five times over the years by starving her and punching her in the stomach.
The news of her condition comes after it was revealed that Gina DeJesus’ family is planning to “adopt” Michelle Knight and look after her as their daughter because of Knight’s fractious relationship with her own family.
According to a friend of Felix and Nancy DeJesus, Michelle Knight initially rejected a meeting with her own mother, Barbara Knight, though it is unclear whether they have since met in the days since she was released from hospital.
Lupe Collins, a neighbor who helped the DeJesus family look for Gina since she disappeared in 2004, said Nancy DeJesus told her in a phone call on Thursday that she and her husband are trying to convince Michelle Knight, now 32, to stay with them.
“She was Georgina’s sister for ten years in that house and she’s still her sister now,” Lupe Collins said.
“They’re going to take her in as their own family member and help her.
“Michelle doesn’t want to go back to her own family because they abused her before she was kidnapped and they only want the money now.”
Michelle Knight was taken to DeJesus’s house after she was released from hospital.
Michelle Knight has finally been released from hospital and is staying at the home of fellow captive Gina DeJesus after she refused to see her mother.
Michelle Knight, 32, became the third and final victim to leave the hospital where she was being treated for the physical and mental abuse she endured over ten years allegedly at the hands of Ariel Castro in Cleveland, who is accused of routinely beating and raping his three victims.
The hospital said Michelle Knight is in good spirits and grateful for the fund created to aid the victims.
Michelle Knight has refused to see her mother Barbara, choosing instead to stay with her fellow captive Gina DeJesus.
A family friend who talked to Nancy DeJesus said the DeJesus family is taking Michelle Knight in because she says Gina is her only family left in Cleveland.
The hospital statement said: “Michelle Knight is in good spirits and would like the community to know that she is extremely grateful for the outpouring of flowers and gifts.
“She is especially thankful for the Cleveland Courage Fund. She asks that everyone please continue to respect her privacy at this time.”
Michelle Knight’s mother is believed to have hired a lawyer in order to try and get access to her daughter.
Attorney Jay Milano told WKYC: “Barbara just wants to be a part of the healing process.”
Michelle Knight has finally been released from hospital and is staying at the home of fellow captive Gina DeJesus after she refused to see her mother
Barbara Knight flew in from Florida on Tuesday night after learning about her daughter’s rescue on the news and claimed she never gave up hope Michelle was still alive.
She said she wanted to bring her back to Naples with her once she was released from hospital.
Michelle Knight was the first of the three victims to be abducted. She was last seen at a cousin’s house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue in Cleveland in 2002.
But her disappearance did not receive much publicity as she was classed as a runaway and her name was taken off the missing person’s database just 15 months later.
Michelle Knight’s twin brother yesterday recalled his shock at seeing her alive for the first time in more than a decade.
“When I saw her, she was white as a ghost,” Freddie Knight, 32, told The New York Post.
“But she told me, <<Come over here and give me a hug. It’s been ages!>>.
“She was happy to see me. It was emotional. She even recognized me – even though it had been 11 years.”
Freddie Knight also said he was afraid that his sister would become the “forgotten kidnap victim” as so much more attention was placed on Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus.
He also said that she would not have a home to go to when she was released from hospital – unlike the other two victims.
Freddie Knight himself, who says he was kicked out of his mother’s house 18 years ago when he was just 14, didn’t even know his sister was gone until he saw the news on TV.
He was among the first of her family members to see her after her rescue.
“She’s really weak. She’s just trying to cope with everything right now.
“She didn’t talk much. When she’s ready, she will tell me but I don’t want to bring it up until then. She’s really traumatized right now.”
Barbara Knight has contended all week that police did not do enough to try and find her daughter.
The police department’s policy on investigating missing adults at the time states that an officer must go and see if a missing person has been found, then inform the FBI within two hours so the person can be removed from the National Crime Information Center database.
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Cleveland captive Michelle Knight was removed from the missing person’s database just 15 months after she was reported missing in 2002, it emerged today.
Police removed her name after repeated attempts to contact her mother to verify the-then 22-year-old was still missing failed.
Barbara Knight said that police did not do enough to try and find her daughter and did not give it the same attention as Amanda Berry’s case or Gina DeJesus because they thought she was a runaway.
The police department’s policy on investigating missing adults at the time states that an officer must go and see if a missing person has been found, then inform the FBI within two hours so the person can be removed from the National Crime Information Center database.
Kym Pasqualini, a national advocate for missing adults, told The Plain Dealer that the removal of Michelle Knight’s name and description from the database helped the case fall through the cracks.
However, even after she was removed from the database, police reports show that officers continued to inquire about her whereabouts several times afterwards and successfully verified she was still missing in May 2003 after finally reaching her mother.
On Wednesday, two days after their escape from the house on Seymour Avenue, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry were released from the hospital and reunited with their families.
Michelle Knight remains in the hospital.
Michelle Knight was removed from the missing person’s database just 15 months after she was reported missing in 2002
It also emerged yesterday that Michelle Knight was gang-raped and impregnated in junior high – a year before she suffered more than ten years of abuse under a kidnapper.
Her great-aunt, Deborah Knight, told the New York Daily News on Thursday that three male classmates grabbed Michelle at school and raped her.
Deborah Knight told the paper that if that wasn’t enough of a hardship, she later found out that she was pregnant as a result of that attack – and later had a son she named Joey.
The boy was placed in foster care shortly after he was born.
Michelle Knight’s twin brother Freddie told the paper that when he saw his long-lost sister, she asked him for a hug.
He added: “She was so freaking happy. I gave her a hug, but I couldn’t give her a bear hug because of all the things that happened to her.”
Relatives told the Daily News that Michelle is looking forward to being reunited with her son, now 13, after she leaves the hospital.
It was revealed earlier this week that Michelle Knight is reportedly suffering hearing loss and facial bone damage after years of vicious beatings to her head.
Michelle Knight’s mother Barbara, 50, said she never gave up hope and will now be able to introduce Michelle to the half sister she has never met, 10-year-old Katie, who was born after she disappeared.
On Wednesday, Barbara Knight told to the Today show about how she had never given up hope that her daughter was alive – but that she was led to believe the woman, then in her 20s, had fled.
“Certain people said she didn’t want nothing to do with me but still in my heart I thought no, because I knew my Michelle,” Barbara Knight said.
“They figured she just left because of the baby and everything.
“[Police] told me if she breaks the law or they spot her, they’ll let me know – but nothing happened.”
Barbara Knight, who said she filed a missing persons report after Michelle vanished and continued to search for her, said her sons have been reunited with Michelle but she has not yet seen her.
“I just wish that my daughter would reach out and let me know that she’s there… She’s probably angry at the world because she thought she would never be found but thank God that somebody did,” she said.
“I don’t want her to think that I forgot about her… Hopefully whatever happened between us, if something did – I hope it heals because I really want to take her back to Florida with me.”
But Barbara Knight said that she knew little about what had happened to Michelle since she last saw her as she has not spoken with detectives.
“There was a detective who called me but he just said it was my daughter,” she said, adding that she missed his call and that he had left work when she called back.
“I didn’t get a hold of anyone.”
Instead, she only knows the details from watching news reports.
While the stories of missing Cleveland girls Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, who were also found on Monday, have remained high-profile cases over the last decade, little was known of Michelle Knight.
While family appeals for Gina and Amanda have been frequent and well-publicized over the past ten years, her case appears to have been long forgotten.
Michelle Knight was in her early 20’s when she was last seen on August 23, 2002, at her cousin’s house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue.
Barbara Knight said she would often put up fliers around Cleveland’s West Side and even after moving away she would return to continue the search on her own as police were little help.
The mother previously told The Plain Dealer that Michelle vanished shortly after she was scheduled for a court appearance in the custody case of her son.
She told the paper that Michelle had become involved with an abusive man whom she thinks injured her toddler grandson, eventually leading her daughter to lose the boy.
Barbara Knight told The Plain Dealer she believes she once saw her daughter walking with an older man at a shopping mall several years ago.
When the woman trailed behind her companion, he would grab her by the arm and pull her along, she said.
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Michelle Knight, one of the three women freed from a decade of imprisonment in a Cleveland home, is reportedly suffering hearing loss and facial bone damage after years of vicious beatings to her head, it has emerged.
Michelle Knight, now 32, who vanished in 2002, was found at a Cleveland home on Monday with two other women and a six-year-old girl – but she has not yet contacted her mother for a reunion.
The first details about Michelle Knight are emerging as images of her have finally been released. They show her as a teenager before she was kidnapped – at a time when she endured an often troubled relationship with her family.
She had given birth to a son who was later taken into the custody of child services, and authorities suggested to her mother that she may have fled following the upset from the ordeal.
Her mother, Barbara Knight, left her home in Naples, Florida, on Tuesday to head to Cleveland to see Michelle but they have not yet been reunited, she told the Today show.
Barbara Knight, 50, said she never gave up hope and will now be able to introduce Michelle to the half sister she has never met, 10-year-old Katie, who was born after she disappeared.
Katie was with her mother as they left for the airport on Tuesday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Barbara Knight spoke to the Today show about how she had never given up hope that her daughter was alive – but that she was led to believe the woman, then in her 20s, had fled.
“Certain people said she didn’t want nothing to do with me but still in my heart I thought no, because I knew my Michelle,” she said.
“They figured she just left because of the baby and everything.
“[Police] told me if she breaks the law or they spot her, they’ll let me know – but nothing happened.”
Barbara Knight, who said she filed a missing persons report after Michelle vanished and continued to search for her, said her sons have been reunited with Michelle but she has not yet seen her.
“I don’t want her to think that I forgot about her,” Barbara Knight said.
“Hopefully whatever happened between us, if something did – I hope it heals because I really want to take her back to Florida with me.”
Michelle Knight vanished in 2002 but she was never registered as missing on the Ohio Missing Persons website
Sources told Fox 8 that Michelle Knight appears to have facial bone damage from her horrific treatment.
But Barbara Knight said that she knew little about what had happened to Michelle since she last saw her as she has not spoken with detectives, she said.
“There was a detective who called me but he just said it was my daughter,” she said, adding that she missed his call and that he had left work when she called back.
“I didn’t get a hold of anyone.”
Instead, she only knows the details from watching news reports.
While the stories of missing Cleveland girls Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, who were also found on Monday, have remained high-profile cases over the last decade, little is known of Michelle Knight.
While family appeals for Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry have been frequent and well-publicized over the past ten years, her case appears to have been long forgotten.
Now believed to be aged around 32, Michelle Knight was in her early twenties when she was last seen on August 23, 2002, at her cousin’s house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue.
Barbara Knight said she would often put up fliers around Cleveland’s West Side and even after moving away she would return to continue the search on her own as police were little help.
Michelle Knight’s grandmother, Deborah Knight, said the family, after speaking with police and social workers, had accepted that she likely left on her own free will.
They believed Michelle Knight was angry that her son had been taken into custody.
Barbara Knight previously told The Plain Dealer that her daughter vanished shortly after she was scheduled for a court appearance in the custody case of her son.
The mother told the paper that Michelle Knight had become involved with an abusive man whom she thinks injured her toddler grandson, eventually leading Michelle to lose the boy.
Michelle Knight had him as a teenager; her mother said that she had been assaulted at school but it was never taken seriously by police. She then fell pregnant soon after and dropped out of school.
Michelle Knight was never registered as missing on the Ohio Missing Persons website.
Barbara Knight told The Plain Dealer she believes she once saw her daughter walking with an older man at a shopping mall several years ago. When the woman trailed behind her companion, he would grab her by the arm and pull her along, she said.
The mother was “calmly” looking forward to the reunion according to neighbors in Naples, where she lives with her second husband Tom Hudson and members of his family.
“It’s an emotional time for them,” said Sheldon Gofberg who lives across the street from the family’s house in the southwest Florida town.
“They didn’t get any sleep last night.”
Sheldon Gofberg said neighbors had no idea that Barbara Knight was the mother of a missing girl and that she appeared to have her hands full looking after Katie and helping with Tom Hudson’s two children, Julian, 16, and his sister Alex, 8.
“They’re a friendly family, Tom would do anything to help you, give you the shirt off his back,” Sheldon Gofberg said.
Despite the turmoil, Tom Hudson kept a commitment with Sheldon Gofberg to take him to a Home Depot.
“We were in the car driving and Tom said, <<You know those three girls they found in the house in Cleveland? One of them was Barbara’s daughter>>. I was astounded,” Sheldon Gofberg said.
“I said, <<She’s got to be pretty emotional?>> and he said, <<Not really because we’ve been waiting to hear back from the FBI>>.”
The family had refused to talk to reporters and TV crews waiting outside their home, sending the teenage boy Julian, who was wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet, outside to ask them to leave.
After 10 years being held against their will, the three women – Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight – were finally freed after neighbor Charles Ramsey, heard screaming from the house and helped them escape through a door.
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