Ariel Castro used the promise of a puppy to lure Michelle Knight into the Cleveland home where he held her hostage for 11 years, CNN's Martin Savidge reports.
"He tells me, 'Just come in for a little while. The puppies are upstairs. You can take one home to your son,'" Knight said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on the syndicated "Dr. Phil" talk show.
But she soon realized there were no puppies inside Castro's home. And it wasn't long, Knight said, before he trapped her in an upstairs room and tied her up with an extension cord. From there, he took her down into the basement about 24 hours later, she said.
It was the beginning of more than a decade of torture, rape, starvation and beatings for Knight. The hope of seeing her son again, she said, inspired her fight to survive.
"I want my son to know me as a victor, not a victim," Knight told host Dr. Phil McGraw. "And I wanted him to know that I survived, loving him. His love got me through."
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