CLEVELAND -- A spokesman for Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus thanked the community and law enforcement Sunday morning, and pleaded for privacy while the women recover from years of captivity in a Cleveland home. 
 
 The women will not be speaking publicly or with reporters while criminal proceedings against their accused captor, Ariel Castro, are ongoing, said attorney Jim Wooley, of the Jones Day law firm, who read a statement on behalf of Berry, Knight, DeJesus and their families. 
 
 Wooley asked the public to give the women “time, space and privacy,” and he read three short statements attributed to them. 
 
 “Thank you so much for everything you’re doing and continue to do. I am so happy to be home with my family,” Berry is quoted as saying. 
 
 DeJesus said, “I’m so happy to be home and want to thank everybody for all your prayers. I just want time now to be with my family.” 
 
 And Knight said, “Thank you to everyone for your support and good wishes. I am healthy, happy and safe and will reach out to family, friends and supporters in good time.” 
 
 (See the entire statement in the Document Cloud below. Mobile users can read it here.) 
 
 Wooley said the women are “very grateful for the tireless efforts of numerous law enforcement officials” with the Cleveland Police Department, Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office, FBI and the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office. The women endured years of confinement in Castro’s Seymour Avenue home, at first chained in the basement before he kept them, unchained, in locked upstairs rooms, investigators said. 
 
 Castro, a 52-year-old unemployed former school bus driver, is charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape and is being held on an $8 million bond. 
 
 Berry, 27, and her 6-year-old daughter, born in captivity, and DeJesus, 23, returned to their families’ homes amid cheering crowds Wednesday. Knight, 32, is staying at an undisclosed location. The women and child escaped last Monday, after Berry and two neighbors broke through a locked front door at the Seymour house. 
 
 Knight was 21 when she was reported missing Aug. 23, 2002. She was last seen at a cousin’s house at West 106th Street and Lorain Avenue. Berry was 16 when she disappeared April 21, 2003, the day before her 17th birthday. She had told her sister she was getting a ride home from her job at Burger King at West 110th Street and Lorain Avenue. DeJesus was 14 when she failed to come home from Wilbur Wright school April 2, 2004. 
 
 Wooley said that the women “will not be speaking with any representatives of the media at this time . . . [while] there is a pending criminal investigation and prosecution” and they are “witnesses and victims in that proceeding.” 
 
 And, “most importantly, Ms. Berry, Ms. DeJesus and Ms. Knight have asked — in fact, have pleaded — for privacy at this time so that they can continue to heal and reconnect with their families,” Wooley said. “Give them the time, the space and the privacy so that they can continue to get stronger.” 
 
 Wooley asked that those interested in donating money to the women do so through “legitimate entities,” such as the Cleveland Courage Fund set up by three Cleveland City Council members. Donations can be made at the Cleveland Foundation website; any KeyBank branch; or the Cleveland Foundation, 1422 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115. 
 
 Also Sunday morning, CNN aired an excerpt from an interview with Ariel Castro’s two brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, who were initially arrested along with Ariel but were not charged in the case. Pedro and Onil Castro told CNN reporter Martin Savidge that they knew nothing about the women being held at his brother’s home. 
 
 “The people out there that know me, they know that Onil Castro is not that person. Has nothing to do with that. Would not even think of something like that,” Onil Castro said. 
 
 “I could never even think of doing anything like that,” Pedro Castro said. “If I knew my brother was doing this, in a minute I would call the cops because that ain’t right. If I knew, I would have reported it, brother or no brother.” 
 
 CNN said it would release additional material from the interview today, including a “strange rule” that Ariel Castro insisted his brothers follow when in his house. 
 
 Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty will present the case against Ariel Castro to a grand jury, which will consider aggravated murder charges that carry the death penalty “for each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies” during the women’s captivity, McGinty said. 
 
 To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: djmiller@plaind.com, 216-999-4852 ||||| Police have yet to charge the three brothers accused in Cleveland's most high-profile kidnapping case in years. 
 
 All three men - Ariel Castro, Onil Castro and Pedro Castro - remain in police custody. Although the usual protocol between the Cleveland Division of Police and the Cleveland Municipal Court is that detectives file charges within 36 hours, Administrative Judge Ronald B. Adrine has extended the charging period in this case to 48 hours, which is within the federal mandate for charging time. 
 
 Meantime, more details are emerging about the lives of three women held captive in a west side Cleveland house for years. 
 
 According to 19 Action News Reporter Lydia Esparra, Gina DeJesus knew the man suspected of kidnapping her and holding her captive for nearly 10 years. 
 
 Family members tell Esparra that Ariel Castro was a relative of DeJesus' best friend, possibly her father. 
 
 He's also been to at least two vigils for the missing girls. 
 
 Amanda Berry and her daughter Jocelyn, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were found in a house on Seymour Avenue Monday afternoon. Berry was heard by a neighbor screaming for help. The neighbor, Charles Ramsey, helped free Berry and a young girl, 6, believed to be Berry's daughter. 
 
 Berry then called 911 begging for help. 
 
 "Help me, I'm Amanda Berry. I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for ten years and I'm here. I'm free now." 
 
 Officers arrived to the scene within two minutes of getting the call, and recovered Berry and the little girl. DeJesus and Knight then came out of the home. 
 
 Berry went missing in 2003 a day shy of her 17th birthday. DeJesus disappeared as she walked home from school in 2004 at the age of 14. Knight went missing in 2002 at the age of 20. 
 
 "Words cannot describe the emotion," said FBI Special Agent Stephen Anthony. "Yes, law enforcement officers do cry." 
 
 "Prayers have been answered," he added. "The nightmare is finally over and the healing can begin." 
 
 Multiple sources confirm two of the women were often held in the basement, and one woman in a room upstairs. Law enforcement sources have told 19 Action News that one of the rooms had chains hanging from the ceiling. 
 
 Reporter Ed Gallek also learned that one woman told police she had gotten pregnant more than once, but her captor beat her and she ended up losing the babies. 
 
 Former CMSD school bus driver Ariel Castro, 52, and his brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, are in police custody. Charges are forthcoming. 
 
 Police were called to Castro's west side home two times - once in 2000 for a fight in the street and again in 2004 after Castro inadvertently left a child on his school bus. Nothing criminal came of that investigation. 
 
 "Amanda Berry is the real hero," said Deputy Chief Ed Tomba. "She is the one that got this rolling. Without her, none of us would be here today." 
 
 Neighbors on Seymour have been captivated by the story unfolding before their eyes. 
 
 "Unless they built some sort of dungeon I cannot believe someone did not notice something," one neighbor said. 
 
 Maria Castro Montes is only too sorry that the accused kidnappers are her cousins, who she says have shamed the family name, "Our pain is minimal compared to the pain of those girls." 
 
 Media from around the world have come to tell the story as well. 
 
 
 
 The Cleveland Branch of the FBI wants people to call 216-522-1400 to provide any tips relative to this investigation. 
 
 For more click on the links below: 
 
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– One reason it took the women in the Cleveland kidnapping case so long to escape to the world just outside their door? Ariel Castro would "test" them for just such a scenario, reports CNN. According to a law enforcement source, he would pretend to leave the house then return suddenly to check if any of the women had moved, punishing them if they had. Even though the women watched the search efforts and vigils held for them on TV, they eventually "succumbed [to] their reality," says the source. Additionally, Berry's child, Jocelyn, was not told Michelle Knight's or Gina DeJesus' real names, in case she mentioned them when Castro took her out of the house, WKYC reports. When Berry did make her brave escape, she was afraid to break the locked storm door open in case this was another "test." A police report details their rescuers' arrival on the scene: "As we neared the top of the steps, Officer Espada hollered out, 'Cleveland Police,' at which time ... Knight ran and threw herself into (Officer) Espada's arms," says the report. "We then asked if there was anyone else upstairs with her, when (DeJesus) came out of the bedroom." WKYC notes that a public fund has been set up to provide services for the women. Castro, who has been formally charged, is due in court today.