Held captive for 11 years in Ariel Castro's homemade prison, Michelle Knight was finally able to escape on May 6, 2013.
Lily Rose LeeMichelle Knight, who now goes by the name Lily Rose Lee.
On August 22, 2002, at just 21 years old, Michelle Knight vanished from the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. For about 11 years, Knight was held captive in the home of her kidnapper Ariel Castro, along with two other young abducted victims, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry.
It was only in 2013 that all three victims were able to escape, after Berry noticed that Castro had left one of his heavily secured doors unlocked. Berry used this opportunity to break free, ask a neighbor to use a phone, and alert authorities to the situation so that Knight and DeJesus could also be freed.
The world would soon learn of the horrors that Knight, DeJesus, and Berry faced — years of physical beatings, brutal rapes, and emotional torment behind locked doors. Of the three victims, Michelle Knight was held in captivity the longest, and she endured some of the most horrific injuries.
Michelle Knight’s Life Before Her Disappearance
Born on April 23, 1981, Michelle Knight grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She spent most of her childhood on the city’s West Side, where some of her earliest memories were made in a house on West 60th Street.
As a young girl, she reportedly loved helping her mother in the vegetable garden. She was purportedly fascinated by fire engines and, after a visit to a local fire station, she dreamed of becoming a firefighter.
Family PhotoMichelle Knight in a family photo from 1999, taken before her disappearance in 2002.
She also developed a deep love for animals. After assisting her mother with delivering their Shih Tzu’s litter of puppies, Knight began considering becoming a veterinarian someday. At school, she was said to have enjoyed art class, and she was a bright and hopeful teenager with big dreams.
But her life was far from perfect. According to Knight herself, her early years were marred with abuse, including sexual abuse by a male relative, which deeply traumatized her and affected her sense of self-worth.
She grew up in poverty, often acting as a caretaker of her siblings, and at age 14, she briefly ran away from home. When she was 17, she told the police that she had been assaulted at school, but she felt ignored by the cops.
Soon afterward, she became pregnant and decided to drop out of school. She was 18 years old when she gave birth to her son Joey.
Tragedy struck again when her mother’s abusive boyfriend severely injured Joey when he was a toddler. The incident led to Knight losing custody of her young son, which left her desperate to get him back.
On August 22, 2002, she set out for a meeting with a social worker to discuss the custody of her son, hoping for a chance to reunite with him. She never made it there. Instead, she was lured into the car of Ariel Castro — a man who would keep her prisoner in his home for the next 11 years.
Cleveland Department of Public SafetyAriel Castro, pictured after his arrest for the kidnapping and rape of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.
Lured Into Ariel Castro’s House Of Horrors
Michelle Knight was Ariel Castro’s first kidnapping victim, abducted in an incredibly vulnerable state. While she was trying to make her way to the social worker, she realized that she was running late and panicked. She asked people in a convenience store for help getting to the appointment, but no one knew where to direct her. That’s when Castro approached.
He overheard her and offered her a ride. Knight quickly recognized him as the father of a younger girl who went to her school. “I looked at him, and said, ‘I think I know you — your daughter’s name is Emily, right?'” Knight later recalled. “And he was like, ‘It’s a small world after all.'”
Knight added, “He didn’t strike me as a bad person at first.”
A flyer taped to his car advertised puppies for sale, and she told him that Joey, her son, loved puppies. Trusting Castro, she got into the vehicle, unaware of the trap she had just stepped into. Instead of taking her to the appointment, Castro drove in the opposite direction, luring her to his home with a promise that he had a puppy for her son at his house.
THD3/Wikimedia CommonsAriel Castro’s home in Cleveland, where he imprisoned Michelle Knight and his other victims.
Once they arrived at his Seymour Avenue home, he led her to an upstairs room, claiming the puppies were there. As soon as she stepped inside the room, he shut the door behind her — and her imprisonment began.
The “Forgotten” Missing Person
Inside Ariel Castro’s house, Michelle Knight endured nightmare after nightmare. She was raped, starved, chained up, and beaten. Castro’s abuse was relentless, and to make things worse, few people were looking for Knight. It seemed as though the world had quickly forgotten her.
Her family filed a missing person’s report, but the police used limited resources to search for her. Some of her own relatives believed that she had disappeared of her own accord because she was upset over losing the custody of Joey, and authorities seemed to agree. Though Michelle Knight’s mother insisted that she would never cut all contact, she was still removed from the National Crime Information Center database after just 15 months.
For more than a decade, Knight remained in captivity. But she wasn’t alone in the homemade prison for long. Castro went on to abduct two other victims, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. Unlike the cases of Berry (who was 16 when she was abducted) and DeJesus (who was 14 when she was kidnapped), Knight’s disappearance received little media attention.
Personal PhotosAriel Castro’s three victims: Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.
As the first victim, Knight often served as a source of support for Berry and DeJesus. She comforted them and did whatever she could to help them survive. On Christmas Day in 2006, she even assisted Berry in giving birth to her daughter Jocelyn, a child fathered by their kidnapper.
Meanwhile, Castro seemed to focus most of his cruelty on Knight. She became pregnant five times, but she was forbidden from giving birth. Each time Knight became pregnant, Castro beat her until she miscarried.
Michelle Knight’s Incredible Escape — And Life After Captivity
During her time in Ariel Castro’s house, Michelle Knight suffered near-constant abuse. He raped her frequently, punched and kicked her, and tied her up with chains and ropes. He sometimes starved her for days at a time.
Castro also played mind games to control his victims. But Knight refused to lose hope. She sang to herself, stood her ground when Castro taunted her about the lack of media attention she was getting in comparison to Berry and DeJesus, and held onto the belief that she would be free one day.
Finally, on May 6, 2013, Berry saw that Castro had left one of his heavily secured doors unlocked and took the rare opportunity to break free from the home with her daughter. Berry alerted a neighbor, who allowed her to use a phone to call 911. Soon, Knight and DeJesus would be freed as well. Later, at the hospital, the now-32-year-old Knight underwent extensive medical treatments after years of enduring horrific injuries and periods of starvation.
Meanwhile, Castro was promptly arrested and charged with numerous counts of rape, kidnapping, and murder (due to his violent terminations of Knight’s pregnancies). He pled guilty to 937 charges and was sentenced to life in prison plus 1,000 years for his brutal crimes.
Knight stood before him at his sentencing and said, “You took 11 years of my life away and I have got it back.” She refused to let him have the last word.
On August 7, 2013, just six days after Knight delivered her statement, Castro’s home was torn down. She watched the demolition, handing out yellow balloons to neighbors as a tribute to missing children everywhere.
Castro took his own life behind bars just one month after his sentencing.
Getty ImagesMichelle Knight at Ariel Castro’s sentencing in 2013.
Knight later changed her name to Lily Rose Lee, according to NBC News, and began a journey of healing. She also wrote a memoir, Finding Me, to tell her story on her own terms and to emphasize the power of the human spirit.
Though her son had been adopted by another family during her captivity, she found a new purpose in helping survivors of abuse. Now happily married, she works with rescue animals and is a motivational speaker. Through her nonprofit, Lily’s Ray of Hope, she helps others find healing after trauma.
But while Berry and DeJesus are still close today, Knight is no longer in touch with either of them. DeJesus believes that this might have something to do with Castro’s mind games, as he reportedly pitted Knight and Berry against each other. Some experts have also suggested that Knight might be avoiding any potential triggers that remind her of her imprisonment. But as Knight herself put it: “I’m letting them go their own way and they’re letting me go my way. In the end, I hope that we get back together again.”
After learning about Michelle Knight, read about Elisabeth Fritzl, the “girl in the basement” who was imprisoned by her own father for 24 years. Then, discover more incredible survival stories of people who cheated death.
