Cleveland Kidnapping Survivors Update: Michelle Knight Still Deals With the Effect of Her Abduction
Five years after successfully escaping her captor Ariel Castro, Cleveland kidnapping survivor Michelle Knight admitted that she still feels the trauma that she experienced when she and two other women were locked in his home.
Speaking with NBC's Megyn Kelly Today, Knight admitted that there are certain things that make her remember her stay inside Castro's home.
"I do have triggers. Certain smells. Light fixtures with chain pulls," Knight, now 37-years-old and who now goes by Lily Rose Lee, stated.
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According to the kidnap victim, she tends to feel uncomfortable whenever she smells the scent of Old Spice and Tommy Hilfiger cologne since those were Castro's usual scents. She also tends to feel sick whenever she smells bacon grease.
"One of the meals he made for us was hot dogs, rice and eggs, all cooked in bacon grease and all served together in a bowl," she also stated. "I get a nauseous feeling when I smell that," Knight added.
Aside from Knight, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry were also locked up inside Castro's house in a residential area in Cleveland after being abducted. Knight was 21 years old when she was kidnapped by Castro in 2002 after leaving the house of her cousin, while Berry disappeared in 2003 a day before her 17th birthday. On the other hand, DeJesus went missing in 2004 at the age of 14.
The three women experienced repeated beatings and rape while locked up and chained. Knight revealed that she got pregnant five times, but it always ended in miscarriage since he normally beats her badly. Berry also got pregnant but managed to give birth to a daughter in 2006. In 2013, Berry and her daughter managed to escape with the help of the neighbors. This paved the way for the rescue of Knight and DeJesus.
Radar Online also reported that Knight gave more details about her life after escaping Castro's home in her new book titled "Life After Darkness: Finding Healing and Happiness After the Cleveland Kidnappings." According to the former abduction victim, she relied on drinking lots of alcohol when she came out of captivity and behaved like a party animal.
She also recalled that she would hang out at different karaoke bars during that time, where she met some of the friends that she has up to this moment. However, she began to realize that her drinking is starting to become a problem since she drank too much with or without her friends.
The heavy drinking continued until she wrote her first book in 2014 titled "Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed."
"I was drinking too much, eating too much junk food, sleeping badly, if at all, feeling lonely in the middle of crowds, and in general going down an unhealthy and unhappy path. I knew it too – I couldn't not know it," she also wrote in her new book.
However, Knight eventually found her happiness and married a man named Miguel Antonio Rodriguez. She also travels in different parts of the world as a public speaker.
Meanwhile, People reported that Berry used her fame for helping the families of missing people on Northeast Ohio to locate their loved ones through her 30-second daily news segment that is being aired on Fox 8 on Cleveland.
DeJesus, on the other hand, is having a low-key life with her family in the suburbs of Cleveland.
Their abductor ended his own life in September 2013 while still in prison just a month into his life sentence.
