Who is Amanda Berry? Ohio woman who spent a decade in captivity now helps US Marshals find missing children
Amanda Berry is using her experience of spending a decade in captivity to encourage members of the US Marshals Service to relentlessly pursue investigating missing children.
"You can be that person, the one my mom needed, the one there fighting alongside her, the one who never gave up," Berry, who was abducted as a teenager in 2003, said in a video message to service members. "Thank you to the US Marshals, task force members, and all of their partners. I hope you never give up. My mom and I never did."
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Berry was one of three women held by Ariel Castro until she managed to escape in 2013. The survivor, who now covers missing person cases for Fox-affiliated station WJW in Cleveland, recounted her harrowing ordeal in the new video, hoping to motivate law enforcement officers.
"I could have easily fallen through the cracks if it wasn’t for my mom, who spent day and night trying to get law enforcement to take my case seriously," she continued. "But not everyone has a mom as persistent as mine. So please, that’s where you come in. I need you to think of every single case as if it’s your own child."
Amanda Berry, who escaped captivity in 2013 more than a decade after she was kidnapped, is partnering with the U.S. Marshals Service to help find missing children and bring them home: https://t.co/pbDepleAq4
— U.S. Marshals (@USMarshalsHQ) March 11, 2021
This comes after the agency's roaring success with "Operation Safety Net" last year, when Marshals were able to successfully track down and recover dozens of missing children in Ohio. Authorities said at least 20% of the children were human trafficking victims. The operation successfully recovered 35 missing and endangered children between the ages of 13 and 18, and was lauded by Gov Mike DeWine in September.
“I definitely hope that they know that miracles can happen,” Berry told “Good Morning America." “I know it’s not always easy to you know, years after year, some parents have to go through waiting for their child to come home, but hopefully they take it more seriously, that I am involved. I hope that I’m a beacon of hope for them.”
The US Marshals Service created a permanent squad in northern Ohio following the success of Operation Safety Net.
“One of the biggest reasons Operation Safety net was a success was Amanda Berry,” US Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio Pete Elliott said, as quoted by ABC News. “She is a great example for Cleveland, Ohio, where you fight and you never quit and that’s what she does. We’re doing this all over the country and we’re gonna try to bring back every single kid that we can, together with Amanda Berry.”
Berry was 16 when she was kidnapped in 2003. Castro then went on to abduct Michelle Knight, 20 at the time, and Gina DeJesus, then 14, between 2002 and 2004. According to Fox News, the abductor beat and starved one of the victims until she miscarried multiple times. Holding them captive, he raped and abused them until Berry broke free in 2013 and alerted authorities.
In 2016, Castro was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole along with 1,000 years as part of a plea deal that avoided the death penalty. However, he later committed suicide in his jail cell.