She was held captive, raped and tortured for 11 years — now her body tells the tale

Michelle Knight lost 11 years of her life to a nightmare. Two years later, her body tells the tale.

Knight spent those years trapped in the Cleveland home of Ariel Castro. Since then, she’s changed her name to Lily Rose Lee, and, true to that name, has five roses tattooed on her body. They’re not just there because she likes roses. Each rose represents a baby she was forced to miscarry due to abuse and starvation, she told Newsweek.

It’s been more than two years since her rescue, and Lee is now an advocate for victims, and her body is now covered in tattoos. On her right shoulder, a brown bear with red hearts that she designed while in captivity. On her chest, a baby and the words “Too beautiful for this Earth.” On her right calf, a large face, part skeleton, that she said represents that her “heart is not chained to my situation.”

She only refers to Castro as “the dude.” Her treatment at Castro’s hands was so brutal, prosecutor Timothy McGinty said, “no one went through what [she] went through, barring the Korean or Vietnam prisoners, and they didn’t go through it as long.”

Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts of rape, kidnapping and aggravated murder for the abduction and abuse of Knight and two other women. He was sentenced to life without parole plus 1,000 years and just one month into that sentence, he took his own life.

(H/t IJReview)