First pictures of Michelle Knight before she was kidnapped as it's revealed she has 'hearing damage and facial injuries from years of beatings'
- Michelle vanished on August 23, 2002 near her cousin's Cleveland home
- Michelle had lost custody of her baby son before she vanished and authorities suggested she left of her own free will after the ordeal
- Her mother Barbara Knight has traveled to Cleveland but she has not yet been reunited with her daughter
By Steve Robson and Lydia Warren
|
Michelle Knight, one of the three Ohio women freed from a decade of imprisonment, is reportedly suffering hearing loss and facial bone damage after years of vicious beatings to her head, it has emerged.
The 32-year-old, who vanished in 2002, was found at a Cleveland home on Monday with two other women and a six-year-old girl - but she has not yet contacted her mother for a reunion.
The first details about Michelle are emerging as images of her have finally been released. They show her as a teenager before she was kidnapped - at a time when she endured an often troubled relationship with her family.
She had given birth to a son who was later taken into the custody of child services, and authorities suggested to her mother that she may have fled following the upset from the ordeal.
Scroll down for video
First pictures: Michelle Knight, who is now 32, is pictured as a teenager before her disappearance in 2002
Barbara Knight left her home in Naples, Florida, on Tuesday to head to Cleveland to see Michelle but the mother and daughter have not yet been reunited, she told the Today show.
Barbara, 50, said she never gave up hope and will now be able to introduce Michelle to the half sister she has never met, 10-year-old Katie, who was born after she disappeared.
Katie was with her mother as they left for the airport on Tuesday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Barbara spoke to the Today show about how she had never given up hope that her daughter was alive - but that she was led to believe the woman, then in her 20s, had fled.
'Certain people said she didn't want
nothing to do with me but still in my heart I thought no, because I knew
my Michelle,' she said. 'They figured she just left because of
the baby and everything.
No contact: Michelle's mother Barbara, pictured, said she has not yet been reunited with her daughter
Troubled: She told Savannah Guthrie some people told her Michelle had wanted nothing to do with her
'[Police] told me if she breaks the law or they spot her, they'll let me know - but nothing happened.'
Barbara, who said she filed a missing persons report after Michelle vanished and continued to search for her, said her sons have been reunited with Michelle but she has not yet seen her.
'I just wish that my daughter would reach out and let me know that she's there... She's probably angry at the world because she thought she would never be found but thank God that somebody did,' she said.
'I don't want her to think that I forgot about her... Hopefully whatever happened between us, if something did - I hope it heals because I really want to take her back to Florida with me.'
Sources told Fox 8 that Michelle appears to have facial bone damage from her horrific treatment.
But Barbara said that she knew little about what had happened to Michelle since she last saw her as she has not spoken with detectives, she said.
'There was a detective who called me but he just said it was my daughter,' she said, adding that she missed his call and that he had left work when she called back. 'I didn't get a hold of anyone.'
Family: Barbara Knight's 10-year-old daughter is seen outside their home in Florida before they leave for Ohio
En route to Ohio: None of the Knight family spoke to reporters before they were driven off at speed in a white car with New York license plates
Instead, she only knows the details from watching news reports.
While the stories of missing Cleveland girls Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, who were also found on Monday, have remained high-profile cases over the last decade, little is known of Michelle.
While family appeals for Gina and Amanda have been frequent and well-publicized over the past ten years, her case appears to have been long forgotten.
Now believed to be aged around 32, Michelle was in her early twenties when she was last seen on August 23, 2002, at her cousin's house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue.
Mrs
Knight said she would often put up fliers around Cleveland's West Side
and even after moving away she would return to continue the search on
her own as police were little help.
Michelle Knight's grandmother, Deborah Knight, said the family, after speaking with police and social workers, had accepted that she likely left on her own free will.
They believed she was angry that her son had been taken into custody.
High-profile: The missing person cases of Amanda Berry, left, and Gina DeJesus, right, were well-known to people in Cleveland - but the disappearance of Michelle Knight drew little attention
Found: The women were found at this home in Cleveland on Monday after Berry managed to escape
Barbara Knight previously told The Plain Dealer that Michelle vanished shortly after she was scheduled for a court appearance in the custody case of her son.
The mother told the paper that she had become involved with an abusive man whom she thinks injured her toddler grandson, eventually leading Michelle to lose the boy.
Michelle had him as a teenager; her mother said that she had been assaulted at school but it was never taken seriously by police. She then fell pregnant soon after and dropped out of school.
Michelle was never registered as missing on the Ohio Missing Persons website.
Mrs Knight told The Plain Dealer she believes she once saw her daughter walking with an older man at a shopping mall several years ago. When the woman trailed behind her companion, he would grab her by the arm and pull her along, she said.
Brothers: From left, Ariel, Onil and Pedro have all been arrested in connection with the abduction of Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight almost ten years ago
Barbara was 'calmly' looking forward to the reunion according to neighbors in Naples, where she lives with her second husband Tom Hudson and members of his family.
'It's an emotional time for them,' said Sheldon Gofberg who lives across the street from the family's house in the southwest Florida town. 'They didn’t get any sleep last night.'
Mr Gofberg said neighbours had no idea that Barbara was the mother of a missing girl and that she appeared to have her hands full looking after Katie and helping with Tom's two children, Julian, 16, and his sister Alex, 8.
'They're a friendly family, Tom would do anything to help you, give you the shirt off his back,' Mr Gofberg said.
Despite the turmoil, Tom kept a commitment with Mr Gofberg to take him to a Home Depot.
'We were in the car driving and Tom said, "You know those three girls they found in the house in Cleveland? One of them was Barbara’s daughter." I was astounded,' he said.
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were found at this house in Cleveland, Ohio
Hero: Neighbour Charles Ramsey tells reporters of the moment he rescued the three women from the house
'I said, "She's got to be pretty emotional?" and he said, "Not really because we’ve been waiting to hear back from the FBI".'
The family had refused to talk to reporters and TV crews waiting outside their home, sending the teenage boy Julian, who was wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet, outside to ask them to leave.
After 10 years being held against their will, the three women were finally freed after neighbor Charles Ramsey, heard screaming from the house and helped them escape through a door.
When Amanda fled the home and ran across the street to call police, she was holding the hand of a young girl.
'Help me I'm Amanda Berry...I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for ten years and I'm here. I'm free now,' Berry is heard saying in the call to police that has been publicly released.
-
'My mother would be so proud of me': Prince Harry pays...
-
EXCLUSIVE: How Cleveland 'kidnapper' told his wife what to...
-
Terrifying moment a pod of 20 killer whales follows boat of...
-
Texas congressman's re-election campaign will give away a...
-
First pictures of Michelle Knight before she was kidnapped...
-
EXCLUSIVE: Kidnapping victims can't be left alone because...
-
'Happy abduction day': Cleveland victims reveal how Ariel...
-
Seven cyber hackers 'caught stealing $45 million in 10 hours...
-
Just vantastic! Head-turning campervan opens up to reveal...
-
British Olympic champion killed after sailboat capsizes...
-
EXCLUSIVE PICTURES INSIDE THE CLEVELAND KIDNAP HOUSE: Son of...
-
Ariel Castro claims he was abused by his parents as a child...
This woman absolutely disgusts me. Her daughter was so distraught over the loss of her son, and than did not show up for the court hearing! This woman than files a police report and accepts when the cops tell her that she probably deliberately disappeared. She didn't think that it was suspicious that her daughter, who was so distraught over the fact that her child was taken away from her, then disappears at the time when she should appear in court to fight for him? She seems to have chosen her boyfriends over her daughter. If this woman believed that the 'abusive man' had harmed her grandson, why not strongly stand by her daughter and grandson and go against the 'abusive man'? I live in Cleveland, Ohio and often heard about the disappearance of Amanda Berry and Gina Dejesus. Their parents were determined to keep their faces in the media and on telephone poles. I never heard of Michelle Knight. Her mother is pathetic.
- Gina , Cleveland, United States, 10/5/2013 03:52
Report abuse