Amanda Berry (The Plain Dealer /Landov)
Charles Ramsey (The Plain Dealer /Landov)
FREE! Cellphone footage taken by a Cleveland passer-by shows Amanda Berry (left) carrying daughter Jocelyn as neighbor Charles Ramsey helps her escape from the house where she was held hostage. (
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CLEVELAND — Dramatic cell-phone video emerged yesterday, showing cops busting down the door of accused kidnapper-rapist Ariel Castro’s house of horrors, leading to the rescue of three brutalized women.
Officers could be seen ramming Castro’s door one week ago today, ending a decade of sadistic confinement for Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.
Jasmina Baldrich’s iPhone also captured a grainy image of Berry clutching her little girl, Jocelyn, as she’s led away by good-Samaritan neighbor Charles Ramsey. It was the 27-year-old Berry’s first taste of freedom in a decade.
Baldrich and pal Ashley Colón were in their car, believing they were being pulled over by cops — when officers were actually speeding past them to Castro’s home.
The women overheard Berry saying, “I’m Amanda Berry.” The name, they say, registered instantly.
“We knew like that,” Colón told WEWS-TV, snapping her fingers. “We both got goose bumps at the same time. We were shocked, we could not believe it.”
Castro’s brothers, Pedro and Onil, were initially arrested, too, when the women were freed last week. The two siblings were not charged in connection with the heinous crimes pinned on Ariel.
Now the two Castro brothers want to have a relationship as uncles to Berry’s born-in-captivity 6-year-old child, a relative of theirs told The Post yesterday.
“The brothers want to get their message out,” said the siblings’ brother-in-law, Juan Alicea. “First, how bad they feel for those three young girls and their newly known niece. It’s our blood. She’s our family.”
Ariel Castro allegedly raped the women — and Berry had his baby in a plastic pool.
Pedro, Onil and the rest of Castro’s family know they might not be welcomed by Berry’s relatives.
“We’re not going to be insensitive, so we’ll not in any shape or form be upset if she or her mother doesn’t want to see us,’’ Alicea said.
Pedro and Onil were initially held on outstanding misdemeanors before being cleared of any roles in the abductions.
The brothers fear their lives are ruined because of their ties to America’s most notorious accused rapist and sadist. Knight was so badly beaten in her years locked up, she’ll need facial-reconstruction surgery, her grandmother Deborah Knight told CBS.
“It’s going to haunt me down because people going to think, ‘Yeah, Pedro got something to do with this’ and Pedro don’t have nothing to do with this,” Pedro Castro told CNN in the brothers’ first public comments. “If I knew, I would have reported it, brother or no brother.”
Onil Castro added, “And the people out there that know me, they know that Onil Castro is not that person and has nothing to do with that.”
The three women asked for privacy Sunday, saying through an attorney that while they are grateful for overwhelming support, they also need time to heal.
Berry, DeJesus and Knight remain in seclusion, releasing their first statements since they were found May 6 when Berry escaped and told a 911 dispatcher, “I’m free now.”
They thanked law enforcement and said they were grateful for the support of family and the community.
“I am so happy to be home, and I want to thank everybody for all your prayers,” DeJesus said in a statement read by an attorney. “I just want time now to be with my family.”
After nearly a decade of being away, the three women need time to reconnect with their families, said attorney Jim Wooley.
Knight, who was the first to disappear and the last of the three released from the hospital, thanked everyone for their support and good wishes in her statement.
“I am healthy, happy and safe and will reach out to family, friends and supporters in good time.”
Berry added: “Thank you so much for everything you’re doing and continue to do. I am so happy to be home with my family.”
The attorney said none of the women will do any media interviews until the criminal case against Castro is over. He also asked that they be given privacy.
“Give them the time, the space, and the privacy so that they can continue to get stronger,” Wooley said.
With David K. Li in New York