Buried Under the Maple: The Cleveland House of Horrors and Ariel Castro's Captives
Buried Under the Maple: The Cleveland House of Horrors and Ariel Castro's Captives
They were missing for more than a decade. They were only a few miles away.
In 2002, 2003, and 2004, three Cleveland girls-Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus-vanished on ordinary days, from ordinary streets. Behind the peeling siding of 2207 Seymour Avenue, a school-bus driver and neighborhood musician built a hidden prison that would hold them for eleven years.
Buried Under the Maple is a survivor-centered true-crime narrative that follows the case from the first disappearances to the day Amanda Berry kicked open a door and the world finally looked inside. With clear, compassionate storytelling, it traces the missed chances, the quiet heroism, and the systemic failures that let a predator hide in plain sight-and the courage that ended his reign.
Inside you'll find:
The lives Michelle, Amanda, and Gina were living before they were taken-and why some cases received attention while others were overlooked.
How Ariel Castro cultivated a mask of normalcy as a bus driver, bandmate, and neighbor while constructing a fortress of locks, chains, and control.
Daily life inside the house: the bonds the women formed, the small acts of defiance that kept them human, and the birth of Amanda's daughter, Jocelyn, in captivity.
The near-rescues that failed, the call that changed everything on May 6, 2013, and the rapid unraveling that followed.
Justice and aftermath: Castro's guilty plea and life-plus-1,000-years sentence, the demolition of the house, and the survivors' paths toward healing and advocacy.
More than a record of evil, this book honors resilience. It gives Michelle, Amanda, Gina-and Jocelyn-the space to be seen not as headlines, but as whole people whose strength outlasted a decade of darkness.
Perfect for readers of Hope, Finding Me, and The Lost Girls, this is a meticulously researched, empathetic account that refuses to sensationalize and never looks away.
Content note: Contains frank descriptions of kidnapping, abuse, and coercive control.
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