A spokesman for families of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus pleaded for privacy while the women recover from their long abduction, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Despite numerous interview requests, the women will not be speaking publicly while the criminal case against their accused captor, Ariel Castro, progresses, said attorney Jim Wooley. The women asked for “time, space and privacy” while they get stronger.
The women endured years of confinement in Ariel Castro’s Seymour Avenue home, at first chained in the basement before he placed them, unchained, in locked upstairs rooms, investigators said. Castro, an unemployed former school bus driver, is charged with kidnapping and rape in connection with the abductions. CNN broadcast an interview with Ariel Castro’s two brothers, Pedro and Onil, who were initially arrested along with Ariel but were not charged in the case. Pedro and Onil Castro insisted they knew nothing about their brother’s abduction of the three women.