Cleveland Abduction premieres May 2 at 8/7CT on Lifetime.
What It’s Based On: The shocking discovery that former school bus driver Ariel Castro held three women hostage in his suburban Cleveland home for more than a decade, fathering a child with one.
Lifetime of a Lesson: Truth is stranger (and scarier) than fiction.
This stunning survivor story is told from the perspective of 21-year-old single mom Michelle Knight (Taryn Manning), who was abducted by Ariel Castro (Breaking Bad‘s Raymond Cruz) in 2002. Castro later added naive teens Amanda Berry (Samantha Droke) and Gina DeJesus (Katie Sarife) to his house of horrors. Physically and mentally brutalized, the three women forged a familial bond — with Knight as their leader — that helped them survive until their rescue in May 2013.
Making a telefilm about three terrorized young women’s real, horrific, decade-plus captivity is a nervy thing to attempt, even if the project is based on the memoir of the first and oldest of the victims.
And fair warning: Lifetime’s Cleveland Abduction — which unflinchingly chronicles the physical and mental brutality Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus suffered at the hands of Cleveland bus driver Ariel Castro — is not for the faint of heart. Repeat. Not.
But it is also, amazingly, not exploitive of the women or their ordeal. Orange Is the New Black star Taryn Manning (unrecognizable in dishwater hair and Coke-bottle glasses) is pure heart and grit as the resilient Knight, a 21-year-old devoted single mother when she was lured into Castro’s home and spending the next 11 years marking her son’s birthdays with paper numbers pinned to the wall and trying to keep hope alive that she’d someday see him again.
Using each other’s insecurities as weapons, Castro and Knight — both abused and neglected as children — engaged in a cat-and-mouse war of wits that nearly cost Knight her life, even as she managed to forge a family unit with the other two women and Berry’s daughter by Castro. As their captor, Major Crimes and Breaking Bad star Raymond Cruz infuses flickers of humanity into an otherwise despicable man who ultimately proved his own undoing.
If you can stomach the brutality, this survivor story is well worth a watch to fully understand the enormity of what these brave young women endured and the power of their faith that they would somehow survive it.
Cleveland Abduction premieres May 2 at 8/7CT on Lifetime.
Photos ©2015 Bob Mahoney/Lifetime
I have been a victim of violent sexual abuse for over a 15 year period. He held me captive at night while he drugged, raped, his forte with me was urethra penetration, restrained, solicited and filmed me. His control continued throughout the day with manipulation and illusion. I can’t get anything done locally for lack of hard evidence. I need someone to monitor his ventures, catch him in the act and ultimately incarceration. He needs to be off of the streets. He practices the art of sadomasochism on unwilling and unknowing victims. He is in the lead, he answers to know one. Lots of followers tho. Can you put me in touch with someone who could help me write of book of my life with a serial sadist?? I know my predator. Went to school with my predator. My rape advocate says that I’m advanced in my healing from the types of rapes, duration and hideousness of the crimes. I believe I am too after many years of hard work and dedication and practicing not to be afraid anymore I remain free again. Perhaps the victims of Castro’s plight could get me in touch with someone who could help me??