US police look for clues to decade-long abductions

CLEVELAND: Police plan to question three brothers on Wednesday over the disappearance of three young women who were found alive in a quiet home in the US state of Ohio after around a decade of captivity.

Neighbours have expressed shock that the young women — long feared dead — could have been held for so many years in an unassuming home belonging to a man who never raised any suspicions in the working class neighborhood.

Three brothers have been arrested in Cleveland after one of the captives managed to alert a neighbor, who broke down the door to free her and the six-yearold daughter she apparently bore as a prisoner.

Police responding to a desperate 911 emergency call found two more women in the modest detached home with American and Puerto Rican flags on the porch. The three women had gone missing in separate incidents around 10 years ago.

Police, reporters and local residents have descended on Seymour Avenue, where officers sealed off the property with barriers and crime scene tape.

The women — Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32 — were freed on Monday night and examined at a local hospital before being released to their families, who staged joyous homecoming parties.

Cleveland police spokeswoman Jennifer Ciaccia told CNN that officers plan to interview the suspects on yesterday and that they should be brought before a judge to face charges later in the day.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. This investigation will take a very long time,” she said, refusing to comment on reports that the women had been chained up in the house, beaten and had lost multiple pregnancies.

Berry’s grandmother Fern Gentry spoke to the once-missing teen by phone from Tennessee in a call broadcast by a local ABC News affiliate.

“I’m glad to have you back,” Gentry said.

“I’m glad to be back,” Berry said, in the first publicly released recording of her voice since the panicked 911 call after her escape.

“I thought you were gone,” the grandmother said. “Nope, I’m here.” Police confirmed that Berry has a six-year- old daughter, Jocelyn, apparently born while she was in captivity. A picture was released showing Berry smiling with her sister and daughter at the hospital.

“She looks great — happy, healthy and ate a popsicle last night,” Cleveland Police Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said about the little girl. “Seeing her mother made her smile,” he said, according to ABC News. — AFP