Cleveland kidnapping: why did it take a decade to find them?

Questions raised by discovery of three young women kept hostage inside a house in Ohio for ten years

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THE RESCUE of three kidnap victims from a house in Cleveland, Ohio after a decade in captivity raises questions about how the young women could be held against their will without the police and community solving the case. A brief press conference in Cleveland today threw little light on their ordeal and why they could not be rescued before.

How were they discovered? When Ariel Castro, one of three brothers arrested, went out to eat at a local McDonalds yesterday afternoon, Amanda Berry started screaming from behind the locked front door at 2207 Seymour Avenue: "Help me get out! I've been here a long time!" Nextdoor neighbour Charles Ramsey heard her cries and with another man kicked in the door. Berry crawled out, bringing a girl aged four or five with her. Police were called and found two other women, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight.

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