Cleveland Case Evokes Previous Kidnappings

The rescue of three women from a house in Cleveland, Ohio, is the latest in a series of high-profile cases involving females being held captive for several years.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight had apparently been at the suburban property since they vanished around a decade ago.

Jaycee Dugard was found on August 26, 2009, 18 years after she was kidnapped aged 11 in California.

She had been seized by Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy while on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe in June 1991.

Miss Dugard was kept in a hidden backyard behind Garrido's house, and had two children with him.

She was rescued after Garrido's parole officers became suspicious. The Garridos were jailed for life.

Reacting to the escape of the Cleveland trio, she said in in a statement on Tuesday: "These individuals need the opportunity to heal and connect back in the world. This isn't who they are. It is only what happened to them.

"The human spirit is resilient. More than ever this reaffirms we should never give up hope."

Elizabeth Smart was 14 when she was taken from the bedroom of her home in Utah in June 2002 and repeatedly raped by a self-styled prophet during nine months of captivity.

Miss Smart was rescued in March 2003 less than 20 miles from her home. Her abductor, Brian David Mitchell, was jailed for life in 2011.

Austrian Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil in March 1998.

He held her captive in the cellar of a house in Strasshof, just outside Vienna for eight years before she managed to escape in 2006.

Priklopil committed suicide on the night that Miss Kampusch escaped by throwing himself under a train.

Elisabeth Fritzl was imprisoned and raped over a period of 24 years by her father Josef Fritzl, who kept her in the cellar of the family home at Amstetten, 60 miles west of Vienna. She bore him seven children.

The case came to light in April 2008 when one of the children became ill and was taken to hospital.

Josef Fritzl was jailed in 2009 for life - a sentence carrying a minimum term of 15 years in Austria.

He was found guilty of murder for the death of one of Elisabeth's babies, as well as incest, sequestration, grievous assault and 3,000 instances of rape.

In Italy in June 2008, Maria Monaco, 47, was set free after being locked in by her family for 18 years.

Police found her living in "horrendous hygiene conditions" in a rural home outside Santa Maria Capua Vetere, north of Naples.

She had been held since 1990 when her family learned she was pregnant and she refused to divulge the name of the father.

An unidentified nine-year-old Japanese schoolgirl was snatched in November 1990 and spent nine years trapped on the second floor of her abductor's home in Kashiwazaki, north of Tokyo.

She was freed aged 19, in January 2000, after health officials were called to the house by the man's mother.

The kidnapper was in 2003 sentenced to 14 years in prison.