Victim of Ariel Castro, Michelle Knight, reveals shocking new details about her decade inside House of Horrors

A YEAR after she was freed from more than a decade of captivity and abuse at the hands of Ariel Castro, Michelle Knight has revealed she fell pregnant to her kidnapper “five or four times”.

A YEAR after she was freed from more than a decade of captivity and abuse at the hands of Ariel Castro, Michelle Knight has revealed harrowing new details about her kidnapping.

In an interview with Sunday Night on Seven, Ms Knight opened up about the unspeakable abuse she suffered at the hands of Ariel Castro for 11 years.

MICHELLE KNIGHT: Behind the forgotten abductee

The now 33-year-old told guest reporter Savannah Guthrie about the rape and torture she was subjected to inside Castro’s House of Horror in Cleveland, Ohio where she was a prisoner with Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus.

Here is what Ms Knight revealed in the interview:

• She was strung up on a wire, bound by her feet and hands and chained to a pole in the basement. Castro silenced Knight by forcing her to wear a motorcycle helmet. “I passed out because the chains were so tight ... big filthy chains that he wrapped me in. I just passed out because the chains were so tight, you couldn’t breathe.”

• Castro modified his home, making it virtually impossibly to escape — homemade alarm systems, doors that only he could unlock from the outside, drapes covering secret stairwells, and chains in every bedroom.

• After months spent locked in the basement, Castro took Knight to a bedroom and chained her to a bed where he told her “this is where you’re going to spend the rest of your years.”

Ariel Castro makes a statement in the courtroom during his sentencing on August 1, 2013.

• Hopeless and alone in the dark, the mother-of-one said that she often contemplated suicide. “I just sat there and said ‘one day he’s going to treat me just really bad, I’m just going to down the alcohol that he gives me, and I’m going to go to the edge of the bed, because my chain was short and just fall and let it break my neck’.”

• Knight spoke about the bond she formed with fellow captive Gina DeJesus. “We shared everything together, we watched TV, we laughed together. We told each other jokes, we did stupid things just to make the time go by.”

• Knight fell pregnant “five or four times” to Castro. Each time, he would beat her until she miscarried. “It was tremendously painful.”

• Castro forced Knight to deliver Amanda Berry’s baby in 2006, telling her he would kill her if it died.

Undated file photo provided by the Cuyahoga County Jail of Ariel Castro.

• Knight believed Castro hated her the most. She refused to use his name during her captivity, simply calling him “dude”. “He wanted to break me and that’s something he couldn’t do ... because you can’t break someone who’s already broken. You can only make them stronger.”

• Castro often played mind games with the three women. “He would leave the door open, he would leave us in one room and he would be in another room and he would just peep in every so often to make sure that we’re not running out that door.”

• Knight weighed less than 38kg when she was finally free and taken to hospital in May, 2013. Her eyesight is now permanently damaged from living in the dark for so many years.

• Doctors and nurses hugged Knight repeatedly at the hospital and she was told ‘I love you’ for the very first time.

• Of her incredibly brave decision to speak in court, Knight said: “I wanted to show everybody that what he did didn’t define who I was, that he was my past and will remain my past ... I wanted to let him know that what he has done didn’t break me.”

Members of the FBI carry out the front door from the Cleveland home of Ariel Castro in May 2013.

• Knight “felt sad” when she learnt that Castro had committed suicide. “Even though he did something so horrible, you don’t have to fill your heart with hate ... I forgave him.”

Ms Knight disappeared on August 21, 2002, after leaving a cousin’s house. She was 21-years-old at the time. Castro, 53, was sentenced to life in prison, plus a thousand years. A month later, he hanged himself in prison.

Ms Knight released a memoir called Finding Me earlier this month, a year after her rescue from the House of Horror.

Michelle Knight speaks during the sentencing phase for Ariel Castro in a Cleveland courtroom.