the totally insane true story behind the 1970s film and book Sybil

Have you seen Beyond the Black Rainbow, LL? It's very plot-lite in that it's mostly visual and works through a lot of 70s/80s sci-fi and horror tropes but it features an imprisoned girl and esoteric cultish types so I feel it's vaguely thread-relevant.

gonna read everything on Dan's list! In fact, he has even made me want to reread Hyperion which is no small feat considering how much I remember hating it. (tbf to Simmons, I read it while I was recovering from massive abdominal surgery at age 21 so he didn't rly get a fair hearing...)

i haven't seen BTBR yet -- i know i should. sometimes plot-lite works for me and other times it doesn't. i don't like movies that are basically tumblr photo shoots that go on for 2 hours, but this one sounds a little different?

i have also never read hyperion or even tried! +1 to you for even trying.

i was a book devourer then, like 20x faster than I am today

movies that are basically tumblr photo shoots that go on for 2 hours

thread needed!

I read Hyperion in a college science fiction class! I think that there's a second book that finishes a lot of the plot arcs, and then several other books I've been told are completely inessential.

That is a good list. I've never read Hyperion but I like Dan Simmons's other stuff.

Confession: I never finished Drood.

Me, neither. I got it out of the library and two weeks wasn't enough time to get through that monster. I'm going to get it on Kindle one of these days.

I never finished it on the Kindle! I just wasn't really into it at the time. Like many things, I think I appreciated the description of it more than the book (album/movie/experience/whatever) itself.

I never finished it either. Later I found it at a library sale for 50 cents.

hello ilx scandal enthusiasts -- is there a current discussion of the amanda barry/cleveland/hostage situation going down anywhere on ilx? i am hungry for news and i only have like 1 hr of computer time per day (not because i'm being held hostage in a boarded up rust belt house, thank goodness) i heard about it on the radio on my way into work and now i want updates.

LL, follow these folks on Twitter for the best updates I've seen:

https://twitter.com/ScottTaylor19
https://twitter.com/WEWS

Two years ago we had Antony Sowell, now we have a women-held-prisoner story, Cleveland really stepping it up on the crazy people front.

Jesus the updates on Scott Taylor's twitter from 2h ago to present...

thx! i heard about it on the radio on my way to work and thought that Onil was O'Neil (lol NEOH) and that Berry was Barry and the whole thing seemed really confusing

i feel kinda gross for being so interested but it's not exactly out of character, plus cleveland!

ok now that i've read scott taylor's updates whoa omg it's way more awful than i thought
so glad they got out
bad news for castros and bus drivers

the son of one the kidnappers wrote an article about Gina for the Plain Dealer, back in 2004 when she went missing

"Hey bro," Ramsey tells the 911 operator. "Check this out. I just came from McDonald's right? So I'm on my porch eating my little food, right? This broad is trying to break out the f-----g house next door to me, so there's a bunch of people on the street right now and s--t. So we're like, 'What's wrong, what's the problem?' She's like, 'This m--------r done kidnapped me and my daughter... She said her name is Linda Berry or some s--t. I don't know who the f--k that is, I just moved over here bro. You know what I mean?"

He then answers the 911 operator's questions about the woman, what she looks like, and what she's wearing.

Ramsey tells the operator an address which he says corresponds to Berry's location, not Ramsey's home address. "I'm smarter than that bro. I'm telling you were the crime was, not my house," he says.

"Are the people that she said did this, are they still in the house?" the 911 operator asks.

"I don't have a f-----g clue, bro. Like I said, I just came from McDonald's."

The operator then asks him to check whether Berry needs an ambulance.

"She needs everything. She's in a panic, bro. She's been kidnapped, so, you know, put yourself in her shoes."

"We'll send the police out," the operator responds.

xp - like an editorial?

no, he interviewed the DeJesus family. it was an article for a journalism class he was taking at Bowling Green.

wtf

it was about how the neighborhood had changed since her disappearance

that is really bizarre

do you have some kind of link brownie? the plain dealer archives don't seem to go back that far

when did they find all of those dead prostitutes in cleveland? that was awful.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22437074

don't have the actual article. lol at the BBC tho, "Plain Press"

What's secondarily breaking my heart is a little article about how other family's of kidnapped girls are now hopeful that their children will be found. :( I mean, the odds are so strongly against it, you know?

xp - hey at least there's a lol to be had here right?

xpost the actual article is linked in the BBC one. I thought it was the plain dealer but there really is a Plain Press

BBC 1
Brownie 0

I also hope Michelle Knight gets some serious $$$ in a civil lawsuit against the Cleveland PD. http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/michelle_knight_plagued_by_tro.html

I'm finding that entire article incredibly upsetting, so fair warning to anybody feeling touchy today.

Cleveland -3
AGAIN

Amanda Berry's mother, who died while she was in captivity, went on the Montel Williams show in 2004 to talk to walking shitpile Sylvia Browne, who told her her daughter was dead:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/07/sylvia-browne-amanda-berry-cleveland

ty brownie

it's interesting that after 10 years amanda seemed very clear about her identity and the complete fucked up horribleness of her situation, unlike jaycee dugard and some other people who've been kept like this.

interesting and hopeful and positive i guess (i hope)

motherfucker! this is crazy

like

holy shit

hey bro, check this out

I haven't read any updates on the Cleveland story since yesterday, was kinda hoping this thread would keep rolling along?

the racism thread is obv only covering one aspect of the story, am still v interested in how all of this shakes out.

This story is so horrible, because I can't imagine what these women must have gone through for ten years. I hope they are able to recover or at least find some peace now that they are free.

I'm not sure what the best source of information is either -- is there anything published that is reliable & comprehensive with everything we know so far? Phil D, man on the street, help us out?

I read yesterday about how one of the mothers hadn't been able to get any information on finally seeing her daughter again...and my heart went out to her, but I was also kind of jarred by the thought of, how the hell does the daughter even process what's happened...I mean who the hell knows what this guy has been telling them all this time, and the stories of horrible abuse going around it's just...god so much heavy shit will have to go down, for the families and for these girls

That was Michelle Knight. When she first disappeared, the police concluded she had just skipped town and stopped the investigation. The article I liked a few posts up mentions that she would get really depressed watching the news coverage of the police's search for Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus because she didn't understand why nobody was looking for her. :(

Small story on Ashley Summers - another girl who vanished from that neighborhood in 2007

The Websleuths board has been finding even more disappearances that have similar characteristics.

Wish I could be more helpful but I'm actually following this all from afar right now - I'm on the west coast for work so I'm just following the usual ppl in my twitter stream and checking Cleveland.com. It is strange and cringeworthy that hey! Everyone here is talking about Cleveland! Because of our crazy woman abducting weirdos.

i also read that knight's mother probably SAW HER a few years after her disappearance - she saw her lagging behind a guy, who then grabbed her roughly by the arm, she called out her name but the girl didn't respond.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ariel Castro, now charged with abducting Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, offered each of the women rides on separate occasions to lure them into a nearly decade-long nightmare of captivity.

A police source with access to the initial police report filed by the first responding officers said Castro tempted Berry, who was last seen wearing a Burger King uniform, with a ride to her home.

Castro, 52, told Berry that he had a son who worked at Burger King, the source said. When Berry entered Castro's vehicle, the accused abductor took her straight to his home on Seymour Avenue.

DeJesus, who was a friend of Castro's daughter, told police that Castro offered to give her a ride to see his daughter at the Seymour Avenue home, the source revealed, adding that Castro also offered Knight a ride when she was abducted.

The 6-year-old daughter of Amanda Berry was born in a small inflatable swimming pool inside the home during the time Berry and two other women were held in captivity.

Castro forced Knight to deliver the baby. He threatened to kill Knight if the baby did not survive the birth, the source said.

The three women were raped and beaten during their captivity, the source said.
Knight complained of chest pains when police found her and DeJesus inside the home, according to the initial police report, which has not been released.

christ what a nightmare

Trailer seems relevant to thread: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/thehunt/

uh, the original intent and not the recent ohio horribleness

looks pretty good! i love witch hunts.