Raped, bound, chained: 10-year ordeal imposed by Ariel Castro

ARIEL CASTRO, owner of the Cleveland Ohio house where three women were rescued on Monday after a decade of incarceration, was due to appear at Cleveland Municipal Court today charged with four counts of kidnapping and three of rape. His brothers Pedro and Onil face no charges.

Four kidnapping charges: As well as the three women - Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32 – Castro is charged with kidnapping Berry's daughter, Jocelyn, who was conceived and born in captivity and is now six. Castro is said to have been co-operative with police and agreed to a paternity test to establish whether he is the father of Jocelyn. Some reports refer to Castro "confessing".

Three rape charges: Castro is charged with raping each of the three women. As The Week reported yesterday, rape charges were inevitable after reports emerged of multiple pregnancies and miscarriages among the kidnap victims. The BBC reports that one of the women became pregnant many times and suffered multiple miscarriages. Another woman was so badly beaten beaten when she became pregnant that she lost the baby. Yet when Amanda Berry was pregnant, Knight was forced to help her deliver her baby and was threatened with death if it did not survive.

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Two brothers not involved: It transpires that Pedro and Onil were with Ariel Castro when he was picked up by police at a local McDonalds restaurant following Amanda Berry's escape from the house on Monday. They were therefore taken in for questioning. But neither man lived at 2207 Seymour Avenue: Ariel Castro lived there alone with the three women and Jocelyn. "Ariel kept everyone at a distance," said Cleveland police captain Ed Tomba.

How the women were abducted: The three women were grabbed separately between 2002 and 2004 – and in each case they it began with them accepting the offer of a lift home from Ariel Castro, who would then drive them immediately to his home on Seymour Avenue. Captain Ed Tomba said yesterday that there was no evidence to support reports that any of the women knew Castro before their abduction.

How they were restrained: In each case, Castro initially kept the young women chained in the basement before allowing them to move upstairs and live unchained but behind locked doors, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Holes were cut in the doors to allow Castro to slide food through.

They were let outside only twice in ten years: Police say the three women were allowed outside only twice in the time they spent at 2207 Seymour Avenue – and on both occasions it was only for a walk to the garage and they were forced to wear disguises. The police have no evidence from the women to support neighbours' stories of spotting naked women in the garden.

Mind games: Castro would test the women by purposefully failing to lock a door. If they made an attempt to leave, he would beat them, according to various media sources. "He would play this little dangerous game," one police source told WOIO. "He would tell the women he was about to leave the home, and then he would wait and if one of them tried to open that door, he would go in and attack them."

Berry's daughter did leave the house: Castro took Amanda Berry's daughter, now six, on several visits outside the house. He would claim she was his girlfriend's daughter. But when they visited his mother, Lillian Rodriguez, Jocelyn would call her "grandmother". It has emerged that Berry gave birth to Jocelyn in a a small, inflatable swimming pool rigged up inside the house.

Victims reunited with their families: With police motorcycle escorts and under the glare of the world's TV cameras, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were both reunited with their families yesterday. Berry is staying with her sister, Beth Serrano, her mother having died of heart failure in 2006 at the age of 43. Serrano's house was decorated with balloons and banners. Michelle Knight remains in hospital: she was complaining of chest pains when she was rescued.

How DeJesus and Knight were found: Amanda Berry's escape from 2207 Seymour Avenue with the help of neighbour Charles Ramsey is well documented. Now details have emerged of how the other two victims were found. Police officers crawled through the broken front door with guns drawn. They went upstairs calling out that they were with the Cleveland police. One of the officers saw a pair of eyes peeking through a slightly-opened bedroom door. A source told local media: "The eyes belonged to Knight, who fled the room and leapt into the arms of one of the officers and repeatedly said ‘You saved me'. The officer choked back tears, and soon DeJesus entered... from another room."