CHARDON, Ohio – One of the three women held captive in a U.S. home for about a decade told a crowd she has been able to forgive her kidnapper and find peace in her life.
Michelle Knight, who was kidnapped in August 2002 when she was 21, said she realizes now that Ariel Castro had a disease, and therapy has taught her that what he did hadn’t been his fault, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.
Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus broke out of the house in May 2013 after suffering years of torture. Knight said it wasn’t until about a year and a half after her rescue from Castro’s home that she reached a breakthrough.
“I was able to say his name, Ariel Castro,” the 33-year-old Knight said. “I was able to forgive him.”
Knight made the comments during an interview conducted by a radio host on Sunday at Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin High School in Ohio.
Castro pleaded guilty to a long list of charges and committed suicide in prison in September 2013.
“I felt very appalled by it, but I understood,” Knight said of Castro’s prison suicide. “I don’t condone what he did.”
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