Cleveland Kidnapping Survivors: Where Are They Now?

Editor's Note: This story was originally published on May 6, 2018, the five-year anniversary of the rescue of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight from a Cleveland home where they'd been held captive for more than a decade. Inside the dilapidated home, the trio was chained, tortured and raped by Ariel Castro, who later died by suicide after being sentenced for his crimes. This story was updated around the 10th anniversary of their rescue.

In 2013, kidnapping victim Amanda Berry miraculously escaped from a boarded-up Cleveland home after nearly a decade of captivity and called 911.

"Help me. I'm Amanda Berry," she told the dispatcher. "I've been kidnapped and missing for 10 years. I am here. I am free now."

Within minutes, Cleveland Police also discovered Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who had been chained, tortured and abused along with Berry for almost a decade. Their captor, Ariel Castro, was convicted of kidnapping and raping the three women and sentenced to life in prison. A month later, he was found hanging by a bedsheet inside his cell, dead by suicide.

Since then, the three women have gone their separate ways and continue to heal from the decade-long trauma.

Here is everything to know about Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight 10 years after their rescue.

Michelle Knight

Knight — who now goes by the name Lily Rose Lee — released her second memoir, Life After Darkness, in 2018. Her first memoir, Finding Me, was a New York Times best seller in 2014. In Life After Darkness, she opened up about her trauma, depression and relationships.

"The whole world had heard the story of how I had been damaged by a filthy older man," she wrote in her book, which was excerpted exclusively in the May 2018 issue of PEOPLE. "Who would ever want me after that?"

But through mutual friends on Facebook, she eventually found love and married Miguel Rodriguez, a medical courier, on May 6, 2016 — the third anniversary of Knight's freedom from Castro's house.

She has since traveled the globe as a public speaker and launched her foundation Lily's Ray of Hope, supporting women and girls who are victims of domestic violence, human trafficking and child abuse. She partnered with specialty coffee maker 3-19 Co. to showcase her artwork and raise money for her foundation, which provides resources for women to restart their lives.

Knight also has been involved with fostering rescue animals.

"God put me on this earth for a purpose. And I believe the purpose was to help animals and humans connect in a special way," Knight told PEOPLE on May 6, 2022, the ninth anniversary of their escape. "They mimic and feel everything that you're going through. So, when you're sad, and you're distraught, they come up, they give you kisses, they show you how beautiful life can truly be."

In March 2023, Knight told PEOPLE that she would be hosting "Tragedy to Triumph: An Evening with Michelle Knight," a dinner and raffle to raise money for her nonprofit group, Unleashed Animal Rescue, on May 6, 2023 — the 10th anniversary of her rescue.

"Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to take care of animals — especially with my traumatic past with my childhood and what I went through in the house of horrors. I endured watching countless, sweet, precious animals being abused by Ariel Castro. They were starved, beaten and left for dead," Knight exclusively tells PEOPLE. "So I am standing up and being a voice for these precious animals. I found that when I was helping animals, in return, animals were helping me."

Amanda Berry

Over the years, Berry has turned her attention to spotlighting missing people in Northeast Ohio. When she was inside her captor Castro's home, he reportedly let her watch news segments of people searching for her.

Berry started hosting a daily news segment on Cleveland's Fox 8 because she wanted missing people to know the public was still looking for them.

"I hope we get [the faces of] missing people out there and get people looking at them a second time, a third time and looking at their name," Berry told PEOPLE in 2019. "It's kind of the small things that makes a big difference."

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In April 2015, Berry partnered with DeJesus, sharing their story in Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland, co-written with Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan.

She is also raising the daughter she delivered while inside Castro's home.

"I'm so proud of how much she's grown as a person," Berry told local TV station Fox8 of her then-adolescent child. "She's very caring. And a lot of kids her age are not like that, and I find that she is."

Five years later, Berry still works with Fox8's "Missing" segment and focuses on her family life, having found love after worrying she never would again.

"I never thought I was going to be able to trust and love somebody," Berry told Fox8. "This is my first real boyfriend. I know it sounds crazy at the age of 36, but I'm just so happy. It's nice to have a normal life sometimes. You know, I know I'll never truly have a normal life and I'm kind of coming to grips with that. It's ok. As long as I make the best out of it that I can."

Her daughter, Jocelyn, celebrated her 16th birthday in 2023 — the same age Berry was when she was captured — with a large sweet 16, something Berry "always wanted to do."

Berry told Fox8 that her focus for her daughter is "normalcy," and supporting her in everything she wants to do.

"I hope she has a great life and does everything she wants to," Berry said. "I tell her all the time, 'Everything I do, I do for you. I want you to have a good life. I want you to grow up and do what you want in life.' She can do whatever she wants."

Gina DeJesus

DeJesus, the youngest of the group, has been quietly enjoying life with her tight-knit family in the suburbs of Cleveland, a source told PEOPLE.

She joined forces with the Northeast Ohio Amber Alert Committee. Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy, who works with the group, told Fox8 that DeJesus plans to help survivors and their family members.

"She's such an asset to the team," Majoy told the local station in 2018. "Anywhere in our eight-county area, we will send a victims' advocate specialist along with Gina to meet with the family and provide them support services."

DeJesus told the station that she wanted to help people in her community, "just to give back and to help," as they assisted her when she came home.

In 2018, DeJesus launched the nonprofit Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children and Adults (a.k.a. Cleveland Family) to help families left waiting after loved ones have been abducted.

"I want to help families because my family didn't have anything. They didn't get help," DeJesus told PEOPLE in 2018. "My parents didn't have people actually helping them do the flyers and stuff. We could actually help other families with all of that instead of them worrying and freaking out."

While the nonprofit was still in the early stages in 2018, five years later the center is a full-fledged operation, with DeJesus' parents sitting on the Board of Directors. The center has been successful in helping families with missing children, working with 58 families in 2022.

DeJesus and her family also travel around the country to train law enforcement on how to engage with the families of those missing.

"It's like she brings that one message of hope that, you know what? There's a chance," Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy, who works with DeJesus through the Missing Center, told Fox8. "She just brings that electric charge with her and nobody else can do that."

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