Amber Berry hugs her sister Beth Serrano after being reunited in a Cleveland hospital Monday May 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Family Handout courtesy WOIO-TV)
Amber Berry hugs her sister Beth Serrano after being reunited in a Cleveland hospital Monday May 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Family Handout courtesy WOIO-TV)
These undated handout photos provided by the FBI show Amanda Berry, left, and Georgina "Gina" Dejesus. Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath said he thinks Berry, DeJesus and Michelle Knight were tied up at the house and held there since they were in their teens or early 20s. Berry and the two other women who went missing a decade ago were found on Monday, May 6, 2013 elating family members and friends who'd longed to see them again. (AP Photo/FBI)
Neighbor Charles Ramsey speaks to media near the home on the 2200 block of Seymour Avenue, where three missing women were rescued in Cleveland, on Monday, May 6, 2013. Cheering crowds gathered on the street where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight, who went missing about a decade ago and were found earlier in the day. (AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Scott Shaw)
This image provided by the FBI shows an undated photo of Amanda Berry. The voice of the long-missing woman was frantic and breathless, choking back tears. "Help me. I'm Amanda Berry," she told a 911 dispatcher. "I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm, I'm here, I'm free now." Those words led police to a house near downtown Cleveland where Berry and two other women who went missing a decade ago were found on Monday, elating family members and friends who'd longed to see them again. (AP Photo/FBI)
This image provided by the FBI shows an undated photo of Georgina "Gina" Dejesus. Police Chief Michael McGrath said he thinks Amanda Berry, DeJesus and Michelle Knight were tied up at the house and held there since they were in their teens or early 20s. Berry and the two other women who went missing a decade ago were found on Monday, May 6, 2013 elating family members and friends who'd longed to see them again. (AP Photo/FBI)
CLEVELAND (AP) ? The woman's voice was frantic and breathless, and she was choking back tears. "Help me. I'm Amanda Berry," she told a 911 dispatcher. "I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm, I'm here, I'm free now."
Those words led police to a house near downtown Cleveland where Berry and two other women who vanished about a decade ago were found Monday, exhilarating law enforcement authorities, family members and friends who had longed to see them again.
Police Chief Michael McGrath said Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were apparently held captive in the house since they were in their teens or early 20s.
Authorities later arrested three brothers, ages 50 to 54. One of them, former school bus driver Ariel Castro, owned the home, situated in a neighborhood dotted with boarded-up older homes. No immediate charges were brought against them.
A 6-year-old girl also was found in the home, and Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said Tuesday that the child is believed to be Berry's daughter. He declined to say who the father was or where the child was born.
Authorities would not whether the women were restrained inside the house or if any of them had been sexually assaulted. Police said they were trying to be delicate in their questioning of the women, given the trauma they endured.
Investigators also said they had no records of any tips or calls about criminal activity at the house in the years after the victims vanished. They said they had no records of code violations or fire department calls either.
The women appeared to be in good health and were taken to a hospital to be evaluated and reunited with relatives. A photo released by Berry's family showed her smiling with an arm around her sister. All three were released from Metro Health Medical Center on Tuesday morning. Police said they were taken to an undisclosed location in the suburbs.
A sign outside the home of DeJesus' parents read "Welcome Home Gina."
Her aunt Sandra Ruiz told reporters that she was able to see all three. She asked that the family be given space.
"Those girls, those women are so strong," she said. "What we've done in 10 years is nothing compared to what those women have done in 10 years to survive."
Investigators celebrated the news almost as much as the families.
"For Amanda's family, for Gina's family, for Michelle's family, prayers have finally been answered. The nightmare is over," said Stephen Anthony, head of the FBI office in Cleveland. "These three young ladies have provided us with the ultimate definition of survival and perseverance. The healing can now begin."
He added: "Words can't describe the emotions being felt by all. Yes, law enforcement professionals do cry."
The disappearances of Berry and DeJesus never left the minds of police. Investigators twice dug up backyards looking for Berry and continued to receive tips about the two every few months, even in recent years. But few leads ever came in about Knight, who was the first of the three to disappear, in August 2002.
Neighbor Juan Perez told NBC's "Today" show that he rarely saw Castro or anyone else at the house.
"I thought the home was vacant. I thought he probably had another property and he would just come and check and see if everything is OK," Perez said. "I didn't even know anybody lived there."
The women's escape and rescue began with a frenzied cry for help.
A neighbor, Charles Ramsey, told WEWS-TV he heard screaming Monday and saw Berry, whom he didn't recognize, at a door that would open only enough to fit a hand through. He said she was trying desperately to get outside and pleaded for help to reach police.
"I heard screaming," he said. "I'm eating my McDonald's. I come outside. I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of a house."
Neighbor Anna Tejeda was sitting on her porch with friends when they heard someone across the street kicking a door and yelling. Tejeda said one of her friends went over and told Berry how to kick the screen out of the bottom of the door, which allowed her to crawl out.
Tejeda said Berry, dressed in pajamas and old sandals, was nervous and crying.
At first Tejeda said she didn't want to believe who the young woman was. "You're not Amanda Berry," she insisted. "Amanda Berry is dead."
But when Berry told her she had been kidnapped and held captive, Tejeda said, she gave the young woman a telephone to call police, who arrived within minutes and then took the other women from the house.
In her 911 call Monday, Berry declared: "I'm Amanda Berry. I've been on the news for the last 10 years."
Police said Knight disappeared in 2002 at age 20 and is 32 now. Berry, now 27, disappeared at age 16 on April 21, 2003, when she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. About a year later, DeJesus vanished at age 14 on her way home from school.
They were found just a few miles from where they disappeared.
Police identified the three suspects as Ariel Castro, 52; Pedro Castro, 54; and Onil Castro, 50.
Attempts to reach Ariel Castro in jail were unsuccessful. There was no public phone listing for the home, which was being searched by dozens of police officers and sheriff's deputies.
Police did go to the house twice in the past 15 years, officials said.
In 2000, before the women vanished, Ariel Castro reported a fight in the street, but no arrests were made, Public Safety Director Martin Flask said.
In 2004, officers went to the home after child welfare officials alerted them that Ariel Castro, a school bus driver, had apparently left a child unattended on a bus, Flask said. No one answered the door, according to Flask. At some point in the investigation, police talked to Castro and determined there was no criminal intent, he said.
The women's loved ones said they hadn't given up hope of seeing them again.
Berry's cousin Tasheena Mitchell told The Plain Dealer newspaper: "I'm going to hold her, and I'm going to squeeze her and I probably won't let her go."
Berry's mother, Louwana Miller, who had been hospitalized for months with pancreatitis and other ailments, died in 2006. She had spent the previous three years looking for her daughter, whose disappearance took a toll as her health steadily deteriorated, family and friends said.
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Associated Press writer Kantele Franko in Columbus contributed to this report.
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