Robin Roberts Interviews Two of the Cleveland Kidnapping Survivors
LatestLast night, a special edition of ABC News’ 20/20 aired featuring Cleveland kidnapping survivors Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, who just marked the two-year anniversary of their escape.
The interview was released in tandem with the duo’s book, Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland, co-written with Washington Post journalists Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan. The focus is so trained on DeJesus and Berry that you almost forget there was a third victim, Michelle Knight: she was the first to be kidnapped, in 2002, and possibly treated the worst of the three captives (she was, among other things, subjected to five forced miscarriages). Knight released her own book in 2014, and has done her own press. Roberts touched on her absence with Berry, who said, “We don’t really keep in touch, but I wish her the best.”
The special incorporates interviews with Berry and DeJesus, family members, and law enforcement officials to recreate their story: how they were kidnapped, what life was like in captivity, how they escaped, what life is like now. It is set up, in typical 20/20 fashion, to be sensational, a bit schmaltzy. Bleak, but not gritty. Robin Roberts cries. Both Berry and DeJesus are soft-spoken and quick to smile; there are several shots of one of the women tracing a stencil that says “Hope.”