At the start of the day May 6, Charles Ramsey was just another guy. But that day, while now-famously eating some food from McDonald’s on his porch on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, he heard a woman’s yells from inside a house next door. That woman, Ramsey would later learn, was Amanda Berry,
by Ramsey’s neighbor Ariel Castro years earlier and held captive with Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. Ramsey helped kick a hole in the bottom of the door, allowing Berry to escape. That led to the
from Ramsey and the
police rescue of the remaining captives
, which also included Berry’s 6-year-old daughter. Ramsey’s role in the rescue and his colorful personality – showcased in myriad interviews that day and in the days that followed – made him a media sensation. Almost a year later, Ramsey is the first person connected to the ordeal to release a book, ‘Dead Giveaway,’ the title coming from a phrase Ramsey used in a
. Written with Randy Nyerges of Berea and carrying the lengthy subtitle ‘The Rescue, Hamburgers, White Folks and Instant Celebrity … What You Saw on TV Doesn’t Even Begin to Tell the Story …,’ the book covers a wide range of topics and much of his life.
The News-Herald sat down with Ramsey and Nyerges at the home of one of Ramsey’s friends in Cleveland to talk about the rescue, the book and the world’s perception of Ramsey. News-Herald: Charles, could you compare your life before May 6, 2013, and since then? Charles Ramsey: Before, you didn’t know me and nobody else did, except for the people I associate with. Now, you know me. And your sister (knows me). And your brother-in-law, your mechanic, your mailman. NH: What’s that like being known by everyone compared to not being known by everyone? Most of us can’t imagine. CR: A head rush that you can’t shake off, you know what I mean? Say you party all night, right? You wake up with that grogginess. You’re like, ‘I’m going to take some Advil or something.’ Say you take the Advil. And you keep taking the Advil. You can’t keep filling yourself with Advil, right? So you stop – you stop partying. But wait, you didn’t party at all, but the grogginess is still there. NH: It was a whirlwind day for you, as you cover in the first chapter of ‘Dead Giveaway.’ Is there a memory of something from that day that is the most vivid? CR: Yeah. I was standing next to Amanda Berry, and the detective from the second district police station says ‘Come here.’ I say, ‘What’s up?’ ‘You know who she is?’ ‘Linda Barry or something like that.’ He goes, ‘No. Close, but no. That’s Amanda Berry.’ She came up to me and told me the story about her. I says, ‘Well, that’s a good thing. She’s safe now.’ Then, Amanda says – the police asked her to get inside the ambulance – and she says, ‘No, there’s two more girls in that house, and I’m not leaving until they come out.’ And then you see Gina, but you kinda don’t because she’s covered with a blanket, but you see a girl shaking uncontrollably with two officers. And you see another … dainty person with two officers. NH: You became a celebrity for helping to free the three captive women next door to you, to be sure, but also because of the personality you exhibited in interviews around that time and even in the 911 call you made after helping free Amanda Berry. How do you think people perceive you in general, and is there anything you wish you’d done differently? CR: People will and always shall perceive me as a (expletive) psychopath. Which is cool. I like that. Now, would I do anything different? Probably not, because what I said (in the 911 call) and the police response coincided with one another. Anything different, somebody’s life might have got taken – like mine! NH: Can you guys talk a bit about the process of writing ‘Dead Giveaway’? What’s it like being an author, Charles? CR: I’m not an author because I didn’t go to literary school for that. So what I am, I’m a proud person of a product that in a 90-day time period satisfied one of the hardest book publishers I’ve ever met in my life. This book publisher told Randy, ‘If it ain’t right, you’re going to make it right – if this book don’t come out until 2030.’ Randy Nyerges: For about 90 days, Chuck was my second wife. And he’s been constantly apologizing to my wife for borrowing and abusing her husband till all hours of the night for a long period of the night. But we had to get this done quickly, and we had to get this done accurately, too. Usually if you go for speed or accuracy you sacrifice one for the sake of the other, but we couldn’t’ let that happen. Chuck was great. Every time I asked him a question, he would answer it, and he would answer it in his usual animated, thoroughly developed style. It was a very interesting experience, to say the least. NH: I wanted to talk about finding your voice in the book. We’ve all heard that 911 tape and seen clips, and you quote those verbatim, but then it’s a little cleaned up when you’re telling your story. CR: That’s because I’m a highly intelligent life form. NH: OK, so you guys didn’t have to work hard to find the right tone, because it’s a little rougher in spots, very real. CR: It’s supposed to. … They’re my words. RN: We wanted to make sure this book is genuinely Chuck’s. It’s his thoughts. It’s his words. It’s his ideas. If I were to put together a book that sounded more like a treatise for a law journal, it wouldn’t have worked. It wouldn’t have worked at all. It was important to be real. And sometimes reality involves things that are unpleasant. It involves things that are not nice. It involves stories that are unpleasant. CR: That’s why it’s called ‘reality.’ RN: It had to be Chuck being Chuck. If we tried anything else. If we tried to be nice and smooth and something that won’t offend the nice old ladies there at my mother’s facility, it wouldn’t have worked. It wouldn’t have been reality. People would have seen right through it. NH: What was it like having this venue to write about not just this event we all know you from but other aspects of your life? CR: This is a dream come true, bro. I don’t know how and when I was ever going to get the opportunity in a lifetime to be doing what I’m doing now. See, this book is my gift to my child. NH: You don’t hold back, going into your failures with higher education, the military and marriage. It seemed like you wanted to give the full picture of yourself, not just some cleaned-up version. Was that in the forefront of your mind the whole time? CR: Since day one of you knowing my name. If I wanted to cover up something, I wouldn’t be a belligerent buffoon with the 911 dispatcher, now would I? NH: Do you have much of an association with Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight? CR: Michelle I see from time to time, you know, downtown or wherever doing her thing. But the other two? No. NH: You’ve had a year now to think about Ariel Castro, this man who lived next door. Have your thoughts – and obviously I don’t think anyone suspected – but have your thoughts changed on maybe what you could have seen or how he was capable of this? CR: My thoughts are the same for a year. Now say I was there as much as people across the street – 40 years. They ain’t seen nothing either. … That man was good (at hiding what he was doing). NH: Randy, did you come away from the experience with a different perception of Chuck? RN: It’s been a real privilege to know him over these past 90 days. One thing I found out very quickly when I first began to talk to him is the man’s very smart. Chuck is a smart guy. He’ll sit here and talk about Egyptian history. He’ll talk about UFO theories. … He’ll have a conversation with you in German. Not bad for a guy who was kicked out of the ninth grade. NH: Did your perception of that day and that event change after spending 90 days with him? RN: Well, the more I got into the book, the more I just kept shaking my head as to how could something like this happen. This is, so far, the crime of the century, rivaling only what (convicted Cleveland serial killer) Anthony Sowell did. This is something that dragged on for 12 years, right in the middle of broad daylight, right in the middle of a busy street. NH: What does the future hold for Charles Ramsey? Are there things you want to do? CR: Go to Tibet. RN: (Correcting) Dubai. CR: And Tibet. NH: Just a place you want to see? CR: Because it’s on this planet. Book signings Charles Ramsey will sign copies of ‘Dead Giveaway’ ($14.95, Gray & Co.) at the following appearances: – May 4, 1 to 3 p.m., at Barnes & Noble Booksellers,
198 Crocker Park Blvd., Westlake
, Details: 440-250-9233. – May 9, 7 to 8 p.m., Barnes & Noble Booksellers.
. Details: 440-266-0212. – May 17, 1 to 3 p.m., Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Eton Collection,
28801 Chagrin Blvd., Woodmere Village
. Details: 216-765-7520.