CLEVELAND– Cynthia Conner spent Tuesday night the same way she’d spent Monday evening: standing in the middle of Seymour Avenue, gazing at a white house with red trim.
She watched law officials enter and leave the home. She stood with dozens of other spectators, craning to see past yellow police tape and rows of video cameras from national and local media. Time didn’t seem to matter; neither did the need for a good nights sleep before rising for work.
Conner and her neighbors milled around, trading rumors and asking questions: how could they have missed three women in plain sight?
On Monday, that home revealed its true purpose. It was the prison that held Amanda Berry, Georgina “Gina” DeJesus and Michelle Knight. The three women had been missing for years. Neighbors had held rallies, staged vigils and organized searches. But nothing broke – until Berry’s screams alerted neighbors who kicked in a door and helped her escape. The street filled with folks rejoicing that the missing women had been found alive. Three brothers were arrested: Ariel Castro, 52; Pedro Castro, 54; and Onil Castro, 50. Ariel Castro owned the home where the women were captive.
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The women were taken to a local hospital and released to ecstatic families. Law enforcement officials went back to search 2207 Seymour Avenue, where the women were held in bondage for a decade.
Conner lives on Wade Avenue, a block away. Last July, police tape appeared on her street. Authorities dug up a yard looking for Berry’s corpse. But the tip was bogus and the case went cold – until Monday.
She had just come home from work when she saw the commotion.
“My cousin called me. ‘They found Gina, this time it’s for real,’ “ Conner said. “I threw my car in park, and ran over.”
When she arrived, she ran into Manuel Ortega, a friend who lives on the west side of Seymour. He’d heard the news from his baby’s mother.
“She said, ‘Something’s going on on Seymour’,” Ortega said on Tuesday. “It took me about three minutes to get here.”
Conner and Ortega joined the throng who filled the street, cheering as the women emerged from the house.
Media usually ‘shrugs’ when working class, minority girls go missing
Their rescue has captivated a media that usually shrugs when minorities or working class women go missing. Such neglect inspired Natalie Wilson to help create the Black & Missing Foundation in 2008. The organization advocates with media and law enforcement for families whose relatives are missing. Black & Missing Foundation featured Dejesus’ photo on their website. Now, that snapshot is marked “found.”
When Wilson and her sister-in-law, Derrica Wilson established the non-profit, FBI figures showed people of color comprised 30 percent of all missing persons. The figure has risen to 40 percent, Natalie Wilson said.
“Our kids are being classified as runaways,” Wilson said. “When you’re classified as a runaway, you do not get any media attention at all, and you do not receive an Amber Alert.”
Ironically, that situation dogged Michelle Knight, the third woman released with Berry and Dejesus. Knight was 20 when she disappeared in 2002. Her family said police concluded she’d left because she’d lost custody of her son.
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When it came to Berry and Dejesus, the community never forgot, Conner said.
“We continued to investigate,” Conner said. “We wanted to bring awareness (to say) ‘You are not lost.’ “
Annual vigils became a ritual; in fact, one occurred on April 21. That date marked the 10th anniversary of Berry’s disappearance. She was abducted while returning from work in 2003, the day before she turned 17. In April 2004, Dejesus failed to return home from junior high school. Her school was in the same neighborhood where Berry vanished. Thus, the two women became linked.
Castro’s behavior ‘might have been noticed in a suburban area’
Their disappearances became a local cause célèbre, helping unite a city divided by geography and race. Cleveland straddles the Cuyahoga River. Traditionally African Americans and whites have lived east of that landmark, while whites and Hispanics have lived west. When the girls went missing, people flowed across town to help search for them.
“We had the rainbow coalition: Black, Brown, Hispanic; Muslims, Christians,” said activist Khalid Samad. Samad, an African American, heads Peace In The Hood, an anti-violence organization that has long advocated for crime victims. “We kept (the missing women) in the media. We kept it fresh in everybody’s mind by doing the rallies, by going out and searching. It was a collaborative effort.”
He said class trumps race and ethnicity in such cases. Dejesus, who is Hispanic, attended school with African Americans and Whites. Although Blacks are moving into the neighborhoods that had been White and Hispanic, the residents are solidly urban and working class. And Samad thinks that’s why neighbors didn’t raise an eyebrow at the decrepit house where the women were imprisoned.
“I think Castro embedded himself in the area so he would not be detected,” Samad said. “Because the way the house is set up, he’s got all the windows covered with plastic. If he were in a suburban area, he would have been challenged about that.”
But Conner said Castro was overlooked because he blended in. For example, Particleboard covers the windows at 2211 Seymour Ave, next to Castro’s house. Both homes are in foreclosure.
And Castro, like most neighbors rarely used the front door.
“We’re all working a nine to five,” Conner said. “Getting off from work, you park and go in the back door; that’s normal for us.”
Another normal is plastic-covered windows. But the aim isn’t secrecy; it’s warmth.
“We have plastic over the doors and windows, couches against the door, to keep (the room) insulated,” Conner said.
And Castro belonged to a well-respected family. His uncle ran a store just blocks away. Samad said he helped search for Berry and Dejesus. Conner said Castro participated in neighborhood activities.
In fact, Conner’s father worked with Castro; both men were school bus drivers.
“We had barbecues, gatherings on this street. We’re a tight knit community,” she said.
Nevertheless, three women were prisoners right under their noses. That knowledge tempers the joy of their escape.
Standing on a warm spring night, at the end of the block they thought they knew so well, Conner and the others asked themselves: how could they not have known?
Afi-Odelia Scruggs is a freelance writer based in Cleveland. Find her online at www.aoscruggs.com.