CLEVELAND, OH, September 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Michelle Knight, one of three abduction victims held for ten years in Ariel Castro's Cleveland basement, was regularly raped by Castro and got pregnant five times. Then Castro would punch and starve her until she miscarried each baby.
“I couldn't emphasize enough how much pain it was,” said Knight, who since being freed two years ago has changed her name. “Every day was pure torture: what he did, how he did it or where he did it.”
The 34-year-old victim recently had her left arm tattooed with five roses, each covered with blood.
“Every rose is for every abortion that I had in the house,” Knight told Newsweek.
Knight's tattoos tell her story. She has a brown teddy bear with red hearts, which she drew during her captivity; a baby “too beautiful for this Earth”; a “protection dragon” around her right wrist; and a face on her calf, made of clock pieces, butterfly wings, and bone.
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She explained: “[The calf] tattoo represents my life from the past and my life in the future. It says, 'My heart is not chained to my situation.'”
Knight said in May that she was finally “looking forward to happiness, a future, a life I never had.”
Since she escaped Castro's home, Knight has become an advocate for abuse victims. In May, she debuted an original song, titled “Survivor.”
“I want people to know that I'm not just a story they threw on TV,” she told Newsweek. “I'm a person … that wants to be heard and wants their story to be out there.”
Knight has one son, whom she birthed while in high school. She never considered having an abortion. “Having my son was one of my happiest memories in my life,” she says of Joey, who is now 16. “Just seeing his little 10 fingers and toes, and seeing how beautiful he was. He's a gift.”
Knight dedicates much of her time now to helping other survivors. This year, she spoke at the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, the Northeast Ohio Amber Alert Committee, and the Purple Project Foster Care Youth Conference. “I love helping people and seeing the smile on their face even when they feel down,” she says. “It lets me know that I'm worth something.”
In July 2013, Castro pleaded guilty to 937 criminal counts, including rape and kidnapping. Knight, alongside Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, had escaped his house in May of that year. The Cleveland bus driver was sentenced to life in prison plus 1,000 years, but he killed himself one month into his sentence.