Cops had near-miss with Cleveland kidnap suspect in 2004 A general view of the exterior of the house where three women who had disappeared approximately ten years ago were found alive on May 7, 2013, in Cleveland, Ohio. Amanda Berry, who went missing in 2003, Gina DeJesus, who went missing in 2004, and Michele Knight, who went missing in 2002, were all found alive in the same house. / Getty Images For more than a decade, police and other law enforcement in and around Cleveland chased countless leads looking for missing persons Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. Little did they know how close they came, just before the last of three alleged kidnappings by at least one man and his brothers. Knight had gone missing in 2002. Berry had gone missing in April of 2003. DeJesus went missing in April of 2004. Three young women held captive for a decade now free In January 2004, police went to the home of current prime suspect Ariel Castro and knocked on his door, according to Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba. The police did not approach Castro's home to ask about missing girls, however. Castro was a school bus driver, and had left a child on his bus when he returned it to the depot. Officials wanted to know why. "He was interviewed extensively for this complaint," Tomba said. He was a bus driver who left a kid on a bus, went to a lunch break and found the young man. When pressed at a news conference Tuesday as to why little came of the incident, Tomba said there had never been a hint of suspicion about Castro until after the women were freed. There were no other complaints against him or the house, no city code violations. "Our policies have been revamped over the few years," Tomba said. I can tell you as part of this division for 28 years the amount of effort (around these missing persons cases), I've never seen it before. Every lead was followed up. We had vigils, we dug up backyards. In January, a prison inmate was sentenced to 4-1/2 years after admitting he provided a false burial tip in the disappearance of Berry. Last summer, the inmate tipped authorities to look for Berry's remains in a Cleveland lot. Two men arrested for questioning in the disappearance of DeJesus in 2004 were released from the city jail in 2006 after officers didn't find her body during a search of the men's house. Investigators confiscated 19 pieces of evidence during their search but declined to comment on the significance of the items at the time. Ultimately, police attribute the conclusion of this case the Berry herself. "Amanda Berry is the real hero," said Tomba. She is the one that got this rolling.