Ariel Castro was involved with two women and he had several children, but that was not what he wanted. He wanted female captives. Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were young women when they were abducted and imprisoned by this self-described sexual predator.

Castro assaulted the women repeatedly over a decade. They got pregnant, and he forced miscarriages. He fed them birthday cake on the anniversaries of their abductions. Meals consisted of once-daily sandwiches and orange juice from McDonald's. The rooms they were held in were unsanitary and infested with insects. The women supported each other throughout their terrible ordeal.

Meanwhile, their families plastered Cleveland with missing posters of their daughters. They spoke to the media, which the women watched on TV, and prayed for their safe return. The parents held vigils on the anniversaries of the girls' disappearances. One mother died years  after a psychic on The Montel Williams Show told her that her daughter was dead. 

The Lost Girls: the True Story of the Cleveland Abductions and the Incredible Rescue of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus by John Glatt, 2015

• Books about kidnapping
• Books about Stockholm Syndrome
• John Glatt's web site
• Michelle Knight's book, Finding Me
• Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus' book, Hope