Michelle Knight - Missing

[LadyBlue]

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) -

When Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were found, a lesser known woman was also found with them. Mention Gina or Amanda's name in Cleveland, and chances are someone knows who you're talking about, but Michelle Knight remains a mystery.

We do know that she disappeared on August 23rd, 2002 from W. 106th and Lorain, the same area as Gina and Amanda.

Unlike the other 2 girls, Michelle was an adult, 21-years-old when she went missing.

There was no mention of Michelle on any websites we searched, from F.B.I. websites to the Ohio Attorney General's website.

We know that at the time she disappeared, she lived at a house on Walnut Avenue. The police report said she suffered from a mental condition. She was also the mother of a young child, who was taken by Social Services.

Investigative reporter Carl Monday talked with a family member of Michelle who said that Michelle's mother let the family years ago, abandoning Michelle's younger brother in a dumpster.

Her brother, who was a twin, said he and his sister were products of an abusive home.

That brother, Freddie, went to the hospital Monday to see his sister.
www.19actionnews.com/story/22184761/questions-still-remain-about-michelle-knights-disappearance

[LadyBlue]

Michelle Knight's 'normal teenage life,' plagued by troubles in years before disappearance

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The day after learning that Michelle Knight was one of three women rescued from a decade of captivity in a Seymour Avenue home, her mother said she hopes her now 32-year-old daughter will be able to resume her interrupted life.

Contacted by phone at her home in Florida, Barbara Knight said she has had limited contact with Cleveland police since the news broke Monday night and is still relying on media reports for updates on her daughter's condition.

And she said she finds it hard to believe that the woman discovered in the home of suspect Ariel Castro, 52, is really Michelle, having had her hopes dashed in the past by false reports.

Barbara Knight said she hopes she and her daughter will reunite -- and that she can atone for the role she played in her daughter's troubled life leading up to her disappearance on Aug. 23, 2002.

Michelle Knight lived most of her life on the city's West Side, with many of her happiest childhood days spent in a house on West 60th Street, her mother said.

There, she helped her mother work in her vegetable garden and loved to feed apples to the neighbor's pet pony.

Michelle became fascinated with the fire engines that occasionally raced down her street en route to emergencies, and after a tour of the local fire station, set her heart on one day becoming a firefighter herself, her mother said.

But Michelle loved animals too, and after she helped her mother deliver the family Shih Tzu's litter of puppies, she decided that becoming a veterinarian might be a better fit, Barbara Knight recalled.

Michelle had many friends and seemed to enjoy school, especially art class, where she developed a talent for sketching, Knight said.

But trouble began when Michelle was 17 years old and told her mother that she had been the victim of an assault at school. Knight said her daughter reported the incident to police but felt that her story was not taken seriously.

Soon afterward, Knight became pregnant and decided to drop out of school. She dreamed of eventually completing her education to provide her son a better life.

But Barbara Knight said that among her own greatest regrets was becoming involved with an abusive man, whom, she believes, injured her toddler grandson -- spurring a chain of events that led Michelle to lose custody of the child.

She vanished not long afterward, on a day when she was scheduled for a court appearance in the custody case, Barbara Knight said.

The Cleveland police's missing-person report detailing Michelle Knight's disappearance is brief, stating that she had a mental condition and frequently was confused by her surroundings. She was last seen at a cousin's house near West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue, the report states.

It also noted that she answers to the nickname "Shorty."
www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/michelle_knight_plagued_by_tro.html#incart_river_default#incart_maj-story-1

[LadyBlue]

Michelle Knight: The Story You Don’t Know
fox8.com/2013/05/07/michelle-knight-the-story-you-dont-know/

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