Michelle Knight faced the man who kidnapped her and held her in captivity for 11 years on Thursday.
A visibly upset Knight read her statement aloud in the courtroom. At times, she spoke directly to Ariel Castro, telling him the death penalty would be too good for him.
Her statement, in part:
I would like to tell you what 11 years was like for me. I missed my son every day. I wondered if i was ever going to see him again. He was only two and a half years old when I was taken. I look inside my heart and I see my son. I cried every night. I was so alone. I worried about what would happen to me and the other girls every day. Days never got shorter. Days turned into nights, nights turned into days. The years turned into eternity. I knew nobody cared about me. He told me that my family didn't care.
To Castro, she said:
Ariel Castro, I remember all the times that you came home talking about what everyone else did wrong and act like you weren't doing the same. You took 11 years of my life away and I have got it back. I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all this that happened but you will face hell for eternity. From this moment on, I won't let you define me or affect who I am. I will live on, you will die a little every day as you think about the 11 years and atrocities you inflicted on us. What does God think of you hypocritically going to church every Sunday, coming home to torture us?
She finished her statement by saying she felt stronger. "I'm finally being heard and it's liberating," she said.
CORRECTION: An earlier headline on this story misspelled Ariel Castro's last name.