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Three women held captive in a dungeon for a decade gave birth to five babies during the ordeal.

Gina DeJesus, 23, Michelle Knight, 30, and Amanda Berry, 26 , and her six-year-old daughter fled the house in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ariel Castro, 52, and his two brothers have been arrested.

Frantic Amanda choked back tears as she told police “I’m free” after she escaped the dungeon.

Amanda fled the hell-hole thanks to a hero neighbour before her dramatic 911 call ended the victims’ ordeal .

It had been feared that Amanda and the other captives – Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight – had been murdered.

After escaping the house on Monday just three miles from where they each went missing between 2002 and 2004, they named their captor as 52-year-old Ariel Castro, who tonight was in custody with his two brothers.

The women, who were aged between 14 and 22 when they disappeared, spent today in hospital before being given the all-clear by doctors and returning to their overwhelmed families.

Amanda, now 26, was joined by her six-year-old daughter – who she gave birth to during the years in the dungeon – as she hugged her weeping relatives.

Her older sister, Beth Serrano – who said she had never given up the search – could hardly control her emotions as she hugged Amanda.

And Amanda’s cousin Tasheena Mitchell said: “I’m going to hold her, and squeeze her and I probably won’t let her go.”

Gina’s aunt Sandra Ruiz said outside the family home: “If you don’t believe in miracles, I suggest you think again.”

Chilling details began to emerge tonight of how the victims were held captive in a basement dungeon.

Police sources said suspect Ariel Castro kept Michelle, Amanda and Gina tied up with chains and tape at the home in Cleveland, Ohio.

The insider said they were kept in different rooms and were possibly untied at different times.

Officers also revealed the three women had “multiple” pregnancies.

There was evidence of as many as five children being born while the women were held hostage.

One of the victims suffered as many as three miscarriages because she was so malnourished.

Reports also told how the women were beaten so badly they lost other babies.

Police were today seen examining dug up areas in the back garden.

Amanda, who went missing a day before her 17th birthday in 2003, was hailed a hero by police for raising the alarm and alerting authorities to the two other women at the home.

Her screams inside the home had alerted neighbour Charles Ramsey who was walking past.

Restaurant pot-washer Charles saw Amanda behind a locked screen door.

He kicked the bottom of the door in and Amanda crawled through carrying her daughter.

Panicking Amanda then made the dramatic call to police from another neighbour’s phone before police arrived minutes later and found Gina, now 23, and Michelle, 32.

Charles said: “I heard screaming, I’m eating my McDonald’s, I come outside and I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of the house.

“I go on the porch and she says ‘Help me get out. I’ve been in here a long time’.”

Charles added: “I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms.

“I’ve been here a year. I barbecue with this dude [Castro], we eat ribs and whatnot and listen to salsa music.

“Not a clue that that girl was in that house or that anyone else was in there.

“He’s somebody who you look at and then you look away because he’s just doing normal stuff.

“You got to have some big testicles to pull this one off because we see this guy every day.”

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In Amanda’s desperate call to police she said: “Help me I’m Amanda Berry...

"I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for 10 years and I’m here. I’m free now.”

She begged the operator to send officers to the home, adding: “OK, are they on their way right now? I need them now.”

The operator replied that a car would be dispatched as soon as one was available and Amanda said: “No, I need them now before he gets back.”

The 911 operator said: “All right. We’re sending them, OK?”

And frantic Amanda said: “OK. I mean, like, right now. I need them now before he gets back.”

The 911 worker asked what her captor had been wearing and Amanda said: “I don’t know cause he’s not here right now.

"That’s how we got away.”

911 call: Warning strong language

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After the dramatic rescue FBI Special Agent Steve Anthony said: “The nightmare is over.

"These three young ladies have provided us with the ultimate definition of survival and perseverance.”

“Words can’t describe the emotions being felt by all.”

He added: “Yes, law enforcement professionals do cry.”

It was revealed today that the authorities had visited the house in Seymour Avenue in 2004 after former school bus driver Castro accidently left a child on a bus.

But when they got no answer, officials from the Children and Family Services Department left and never went back.

Amanda had disappeared after she rang her sister to say she was getting a lift home from her part-time job at the nearby Burger King.

She never arrived home. At first police considered Amanda to be a runaway.

But then the FBI began to investigate the case as a kidnapping.

Later police said someone used Amanda’s mobile phone a week after she disappeared to contact her mum and claim her daughter would be fine and would return in a few days.

Her desperate mum, Louwana Miller, who suffered pancreatitis and other ailments, kept her room just as her Mandy had left it.

But the worry for her missing daughter weighed heavily and three years after the disappearance she died still not knowing what happened to her beloved daughter.

In 2004, a year after Amanda disappeared, Gina DeJesus went missing on the way home from school. She was 14 at the time.

Mum Nancy Ruiz told how she had given her daughter $1.25 to get the bus because it was cold but added that her little girl would walk home and spend the money on sweets.

When she didn’t arrive home from Wilbur Park Middle School, where she was a seventh grader in special education classes, the alarm was raised.

But two years earlier, there had been no hunt for Michelle Knight.

She was 18 when she disappeared.

It is reported that the police and social services tried to convince her family she had run off in August 2002 after having her son taken into care.

She was not listed on the Ohio Missing Persons website.

Only her family carried on the search with mum Barbara refusing to believe she would leave without even a phone call.

She papered Cleveland’s West Side with leaflets bearing her daughter’s picture and even after moving to Florida, would return to search on her own before being reunited today with Michelle.

The girl’s families were overjoyed at finally having them home tonight.

It was reported that Castro had been to at least two vigils for the missing girls.

Isreal Lugo, who lives three doors down from Castro, claimed that neighbours had called police to the property on several occasions.

He said: “About two years some one called the police saying they had seen someone inside the property banging on a window.

"The police showed up but they couldn’t get a response so they just thought it was a hoax.”

After being freed, the relieved women were taken to MetroHealth Medical Centre, reportedly suffering from severe dehydration and slightly malnourished.

Investigators are also looking into what may have happened to a fourth girl – 14-year-old Ashley Summers.

In April 2009, the FBI said the cases of Amanda, Gina, and Ashley who went missing in July 2007 may be the work of just one man after they went missing within half a mile of each other.

Police sources at the time said they thought that the girls may have been snatched and forced into prostitution.

Ashley is still missing.

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