Updated 2:35 pm ET
Three women missing for about a decade are free today, and police are crediting the bravery of one of them?Amanda Berry, now 27?for escaping the captors and seeking help.
?The real hero here is Amanda,? assistant Cleveland police chief Ed Tomba told reporters at a news conference Wednesday morning. ?She got this rolling.?
Shortly before 6 p.m. ET Monday, Tomba said, Berry was able to break out of the home in Cleveland's west side neighborhood where she apparently had been held for the past 10 years. She was reported missing on April 21, 2003, after vanishing on the way home from her job at a local Burger King.
After she called 911, police responded to the home at 5:52 p.m. Two other women, Gina DeJesus, who had been missing since 2004, when she was 14, and Michelle Knight, who had been missing since 2002 when she was 20, were found inside.
Berry escaped the house along with a 6-year old girl. Police would not say who the father of the child was, but confirmed that the girl is Berry?s daughter.
While police would not comment publicly on whether the women had been abused or raped while held captive, several publications quote police sources as saying the women had been forced to have sex with their captors, resulting in multiple pregnancies.
Police have arrested three brothers in connection to the case: Ariel Castro, 52, the owner of the home, and brothers Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50. They have not been charged. Tomba said the men were taken into custody about 6:30 p.m. and will be charged within 36 hours.
The stories of Berry and DeJesus have captivated the city of Cleveland for a decade. They have been the subject of numerous vigils and city searches. Police have followed leads over the years, including digging up two backyards seeking their remains. On Monday, crowds gathered in the neighborhood where they were found and at the hospital where they were taken later.
?Our prayers have finally been answered?this nightmare is over,? said Stephen Anthony, special agent in charge of the Cleveland office of the FBI.
While much has been written about Berry and DeJesus, and the efforts to find them, not much has been written about Michelle Knight. "She has been the focus of very few tips," Tomba said.
Knight was last seen on Aug. 22, 2002. Police say she was 20 years old at the time and went missing from the same neighborhood as Berry and DeJesus.
Police said all three women appeared healthy, other than needing a good meal. They were taken to a Cleveland hospital, where they were reunited with their families?a scene police described as "chaotic."
According to public records, Ariel Castro has owned the home where the kidnapped women were found since 1992. Records also show Castro has at least one adult son and a grown daughter living two to three hours from Cleveland.
Several media outlets also report that a younger daughter, Emily Castro, is in an Indiana prison for slashing the throat of her then-11-month-old daughter in 2008. Indiana prison records confirm Emily Castro is currently serving 25 years for attempted murder.
Photos on a Facebook page show the man believed to be Castro?s son visiting Emily Castro in prison earlier this year.
?A Father's Love for his Children is like none other,? reads a comment on the photo from a man who identifies himself as Ariel Castro on Facebook.
Police said that officers had been called to Castro's home twice but nothing had come of the calls.
In March 2000, Castro reported a fight in the street, and in January 2004, officials from Children and Family Services went to the home to investigate an incident related to his employment as a bus driver. Castro, then a bus driver for the Cleveland schools, had gone to lunch after running his route, despite having one more child still on the bus.
Police say they investigated that incident, but felt there was no criminal wrong-doing and the matter was dropped.
?He was interviewed extensively due to that investigation,? Tomba said.
Mayor Frank Jackson said housing and building records also have been reviewed and no reports of violations were found.
An American flag and a Puerto Rican flag hung outside the front door of the house Tuesday. The Puerto Rican flag bothered Lucy Delgado, a nearby resident with family living in the largely Puerto Rican neighborhood.
"It doesn't deserve to be there," Delgado said of the flag. "This is like, oh my God crazy stuff like this should never happen here."
Delgado described the community as tight knit. "Everybody knows each others business," she said.
Police declined to provide specific details about the home where the women were kept or its condition upon their arrival on Monday. They said the home is an active crime scene and detectives were processing it through the night.
Asked if they believe the kidnappings were part of a larger operation, police officials said they were looking into every possible angle. It appears that Berry, DeJesus and Knight were the only victims.
Click image to see more photos. (AP/FBI)
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