>>> thanks, chris, and thanks to you for tuning in. tonight's lead, home at last in an amazing and emotional scene today, two of the freed women came home. amanda berry arrived at the house to flowers, balloons, and cheers. her sister fought back tears.
>> we appreciate all you have done for us throughout the past ten years. please respect our privacy until we are ready to make our statements and thank you.
>>> it was a gripping and deeply moving scene when gina day dejesus spoke about never giving up.
>> i want to thank everybody that believed even when i said she was alive and believed and i want to thank them. even the ones that doubted, i still want to thank them the most. because they are the ones that made me stronger, the ones that made me feel the most that my daughter was out there.
>> but as the family's celebrated the return of their loved ones , we're also learning details of what happened inside the house of and this was stunning. they never left the property in ten years. they were allowed outside only two times. the first attempted escape was monday when amanda got out. police report the house was in disarray and the fbi took over 200 items from the home. moments ago, the cleveland police read the charges.
>> i just signed criminal complaints charging ariel castro .
>> four kidnapped victims are gina , amanda , michelle , and the young child . and the victims of the rape are gina , amanda , and michelle .
>> ten years inside the house . what an amazing story. joining me now live from the scene is msnbc's craig melvin. craig ?
>> craig , tell us what you can tell -- what have we learned today? it's been an eventful day. what have we learned down there today?
>> reporter: we've been sifting through this police report . it's about a dozen pages, reverend al. i'm going to read a snippet from this for our viewers at home. this details what was going on inside the two-story house of horrors behind me for the past decade. this is based on the three initial conversations with the women being held captive as told to police earlier today. they told us how the arrested male ariel castro was able to get them into his vehicle initially. victim one, michelle , said that she was in the area of west 106th street when ariel offered her a ride home and took her to his house . amanda berry walking home from the burger king where she worked on west 110th street and lorraine. that's when ariel offered her a ride home. this is after he said that his son worked at the same burger king and, of course, keep in mind he does not have a son. gina dejesus, he used his daughter to lure gina into the car.
>> wow.
>> so he offered rides to all three of the women to get all three of the young girls to come back to the house . michelle at one point during the initial conversation with police told police that at least five times she was pregnant with the arrested male ariel and when he found out that she was pregnant, she stated that he would make her abort the baby. she then stated that he starved her for at least two weeks, then repeatedly punched her in the stomach until she miscarried.
>> this is all in the police report , craig ?
>> reporter: it's all in the police report and reverend al, you should know and your viewers should know that we are not sharing because they are perhaps too graphic for cable news in the evening around dinnertime. it paints a chillingly disturbing picture of what was happening behind me.
>> craig , you're telling me that one of the victims says she was pregnant five times, yet he would punch her to miscarriage the baby, they never were even brought out to have abort the baby, there was no medical attention , he did all of this himself and they never left the house , according to this police report ?
>> according to the report. in fact, none of the three women have seen a doctor in the decade. the 6-year-old, the little girl -- we'll talk about that in a second, who was born at the house , she's never seen a doctor. at one point shortly after her birth she was in some sort of distress, medical distress. according to the police report , that is when the 52-year-old said, quote, if the baby dies, i'll kill you. michelle then stated that the child -- the child 's name, stopped breathing at one point, she breathed into her child 's mouth to keep her alive. now, the baby, by the way -- go ahead.
>> reporter: wow. you're telling me, even the child was born there with no medical attention , she went through a delivery with no medical attention and threatened to kill her, the mother, if the child died and when the child stopped breathing she breathed into the child to keep the child alive all in the house , never any medical attention , never brought anyone out even an assumed name to the hospital or anything in that nature, according to the police report ?
>> according to the police report , no. the women haven't seen a doctor, the baby hasn't seen a doctor. michelle actually delivered amanda 's baby in the house in a plastic baby pool so it would be easier to clean up.
>> reporter: now, am i hearing you right, craig , that you say he used his own daughter to lure one of them into the car and to take them captive?
>> yes. according to the report, he used his own daughter to lure gina into his car. gina is the same young girl that went to the same school -- went to the same school as his daughter. he few this family.
>> reporter: wow.
>> in fact, we talked to a gentleman earlier that was with the city of cleveland at the time and told us the 54-year-old who has been charged here, at one point he was helping look for the missing girls. he was part of the search party.
>> reporter: of girls that he had in fact abducted. let's bring in noted criminologist casey jordan . is there any way to explain a mind that can do such a thing?
>> not in the terms that you and i can understand it. as more details come out, we'll understand the depth of this. we learned the two brothers who were initially arrested have been released. they happened to be with him when he was arrested but it looks like he acted 100% alone over the past 11 years.
>> how can one man hold three women in three different rooms for ten years?
>> well, two things, physical isolation and social isolation as well as a certain amount of psychological isolation from his family. remember, almost nobody ever went into the house . we only have a few reports that people went in and never beyond the living room . most important would be the way that the women were treated when initially abducted, probably beaten, raped so that even if they were in the house , they would be so brainwashed that even if they heard a noise upstairs or thought there were visitors, they would be in fear for their lives and their family's life and never cry out. this is the sort of isolation that would lead them to be prisoners in their mind, not just physically chained to the basement.
>> just a minute. craig , there's activity i'm hearing at the house ?
>> yes, reverend. i'm going to step out of the way. first of all, this first house -- this is new to us today. until today we had not seen members of the fbi evidence team going into this house . but you can see white clean suits, as they are called, going into that house . there's also been a canine walking around the house as well. we are still at this point trying to figure out how this house is connected to the investigation. we did hear during the news conference, law enforcement did say that this is a continuation of the search to secure evidence but it's that third house down there, that white house , that's the primary house . that is where castro allegedly kept those three women . we have seen over the past 30 minutes members of the fbi evidence team actually taking bags of evidence from the house . that's the first time that we've seen that today. again, it appears as though the investigation here at the scene is also ongoing.
>> reporter: now, let's bring in cleveland 's city councilman brian cummings . councilman, you've actually been with the -- some of the family today as the victims have been coming home ?
>> yes, myself was at the dejesus' family home when she arrived. a huge welcome home from the community and her family.
>> what was it like there? this is unimaginable i'm sure to those in the neighborhood and to the family members. try to describe as best you can the mood and the feeling there with the people that are family and friends and neighbors of this young lady missing ten years.
>> it was incredible. first of all, you know, both the families have been having vigils during this ten-year period. so there's a lot of community members, police for the second district here, there's been a lot of people involved in supporting the family for this whole decade. so they were all there today. probably over 200 people there today. it was very emotional. it was a little chaotic. we're dealing with highly charged emotions. we're dealing with the family members and tried to keep it at a minimum in terms of who had contact with gina . i did not speak with her. we were being very respectful of that and family members gave some speeches to the community as we did as well. but very emotional, as you can imagine.
>> from the family members, did you develop any kind of profile of the type of person gina was before all of this? what could you share with our viewers about gina or family members that you talked to or what you learned about gina from them.
>> well, obviously very head strong and strong woman . even when she was abducted, you know, the reports at the time from the family, obviously other than disbelief was that she was a very strong-willed young woman and i don't think the ten years has diminished that. that's strengthened her. obviously they needed that. all of these women feeded that to get through this ordeal. it's really quite unbelievable. that aspect of inner strength and there's a lot of faith within this community as well. their prayers have been answered. they are just ecstatic. family members have had growing concern about what the process from this point on is, the physical and the mental duress that they were held under, what it's going to take for them to overcome that. but they are very confident in the support that they've received from the community and i think they feel that they are going to be okay with the help of the community.
>> now, let me come back to you, stacy -- casey , i'm sorry. casey jordan . the conditions in the house , listen to this. the police chief and others telling us about the conditions in the house . listen to this.
>> confirmation that they were bound and there were chains and ropes in the home.
>> were these women ever allowed outdoors, to your knowledge?
>> very rarely. they were released out in the backyard once in a while .
>> chains, ropes.
>> yes.
>> very rarely let out of the house . maybe in the backyard once in a while .
>> which is why everybody is so shocked that no one in the surrounding area, none of the neighbors could know about this. but even the reports from neighbors saw the little girl playing in the backyard. ariel castro said, this is my girlfriend's daughter. nothing that would really raise suspicion to the point of calling police . people have relatives over, people have family over. there was nothing noticed. as far as we know, no neighbors have reported screams on the outside. again, it's the psychological syndrome, the stockholm syndrome . what would make that one young woman on monday break from that psychological bond . did she wake up and say, i've got to get out of here?
>> that is amazing that after all of this stockholm syndrome , she reached out and someone was there, i don't care what they say about him, that helped her do that and was able to assist in this escape.
>> yeah.
>> it's an amazing store zee it story.
>> it is. and people will get involved. to think that charles ramsey and angel cordora helped her out. it could have gone another way if nobody responded to her screams.
>> craig , you were at the press conference today. tell us about the aspect that we heard around this.
>> you know, one of the things that i think was most interesting out of that news conference, reverend al, is that the three castro brothers who were charged, ariel castro , the ring leader , the mastermind, if you will, and then his two brothers, onil and pedro castro , initially the thinking was that all three of them would be charged with rape and kidnapping. we found out at the news conference -- at the beginning in fact -- that it would just be the 52-year-old castro . it would just be ariel castro charged with kidnapping and rape and the other two would not be charged with anything. there's misdemeanor bench warrants that they are going to take up tomorrow. what you have here, according to the police , you have in addition to the three women living in that house , two brothers, at least according to the police , had no idea what was going on and that is something that hopefully over the next few days we start to hear a little bit more about precisely how that was something that was able to happen.
>> councilman, how does one understand that this could go for ten years, with police and others, how is this explainable to the average person watching this?
>> well, frankly i don't know if it is. i will tell you a little bit about the physical site, though, that the backyard of this property actually backs out to a commercial property . so for those asking why nobody would have seen the backyard, it backs out to a commercial parking lot . so you don't have a lot of physical activity out there with people. also, the property just to the west of the house , as we saw in the shot, would be that greenhouse. that property and the property next to it is vacant. now, i took over this ward three years ago and we inventoried those properties. in that three-years that i've been in this ward, these properties are on our inventory but the back of the property and west side of the property were not in view to anyone. and that could potentially explain the unique circumstances relative to no one being able to really catch this.
>> can i jump in? i have a quick question for the councilman. is that okay?
>> go ahead.
>> really quickly, how can we explain the disconnect from what we're hearing from the neighbors and what the police are saying about 911 calls made to police ? i'm sure you've heard the disconnect. a number of neighbors have said i did see something and said something. i picked up the phone and called the cops. one neighbor said the cops came, bc banged on the door and left.
>> reporter: so many people when they call 911, when they call the general dispatch number, too often they think it's a one-way call and it's done. so people don't follow up. frankly, part of the challenge is that if they don't see a cop car come after they've called, a lot of times -- and we have over 30-plus neighborhood groups. if the police car -- if you don't view a police car coming for a complaint, you have every ability to dispatch and confirm, what's going on? where are you?
>> so you're saying it's a good chance neighbors may have called the police .
>> reporter: neighbors may have called the police and police may have responded and that is something that we work on all the time relative to the relationship. too often when someone calls the police , they think it's a one-way call. this is a problem we deal with consistently, calls about loud noise, parties, abusive issues and the police don't respond within ten minutes, half an hour.
>> we'll be following this because, casey , police are saying they didn't get a lot of these calls. a lot of this we're going to have to sort through. craig melvin, brian cummings , casey jordan , thank you for joining us tonight. more out of cleveland when we come back. [ male
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