CLEVELAND (AP) — Three women found alive after a decade in captivity endured lonely, dark lives inside a dingy home where they were raped and allowed outside only a handful of times in disguises while walking to a garage steps away, investigators say.

The 52-year-old former school bus driver accused of kidnapping and raping the women will make his first public appearance in court Thursday after emerging as the lone suspect.

While many questions remain about how Ariel Castro maintained such tight control over the women for so many years before one of them made a daring escape Monday, the horrors they suffered are beginning to come to light.

Police say the women were apparently bound by ropes and chains at times and were kept in different rooms. They suffered prolonged sexual and psychological abuse and had miscarriages, according to a city official briefed on the case.

Castro has been charged with four counts of kidnapping — covering the captives and the daughter born to one of them — and three counts of rape, against all three women.

The women and Castro have given lengthy statements to police that have helped build their case, saidDeputy Police Chief Ed Tomba.

None of the women, though, gave them any indication that Castro's two older brothers, who've been in custody since Monday, were involved, Tomba said. Prosecutors brought no charges against the brothers, citing a lack of evidence.

"Ariel kept everyone at a distance," Tomba said.

One thing that remains a mystery, he said, is how the women were kept in the house so long.

"As far as the circumstances inside the home and the control he may have had over those girls ... I think that's going to take us a long time to figure that out," he said.

The women, now in their 20s and 30s, vanished separately between 2002 and 2004. At the time, they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.

At a news conference, authorities would not discuss the circumstances of their kidnapping and captivity.

City Councilman Brian Cummins earlier said: "We know that the victims have confirmed miscarriages, but with who, how many and what conditions we don't know."

"It sounds pretty gruesome," he added.

They never saw a chance to escape over the last 10 years until this week when Amanda Berry broke through a door and ran to freedom, alerting police who rescued the other two women while Castro was away from the house.

In newly released police audio tapes, a 911 dispatcher notifies officers on Monday that she's just spoken to a woman who "says her name is Amanda Berry and that she had been kidnapped 10 years ago."

An officer on the recorded call says, "This might be for real."

After police arrive at the house, women can be heard crying in the background. Then an officer tells the dispatcher: "We found 'em. We found 'em."

Tomba said of Berry, "Something must have clicked and she saw an opportunity and she took that opportunity."

He said the women could remember being outside only twice during their entire time in captivity. "We were told they left the house and went into the garage in disguise," he said.

Also in the house was Berry's 6-year-old daughter. A paternity test on Castro was being done to establish whether he fathered the child.

While prosecutors announced charges against Castro, federal agents searched a vacant house near where the women had been held. Officials would only say their search was an attempt to get evidence in the case against Castro, but they refused to say what they found or what led them there.

Castro was in custody and couldn't be reached for comment. A brother-in-law has said the family was shocked after hearing about the women at the home.

Few people in Cleveland, outside the families of the women, thought there was any chance they were still alive.

Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, who is in her early 20s, were welcomed home Wednesday by jubilant crowds of loved ones and neighbors with balloons and banners. Family members hustled them inside, past hundreds of reporters and onlookers.

Neither woman spoke.

"This is the best Mother's Day I could ever have," said Nancy Ruiz, Gina's mother. She said she hugged her daughter and didn't want to let go.

Ruiz said she spent time with all three women after they were rescued. "There's no word to describe the beauty of just seeing them," she said.

DeJesus' father pumped his fist after arriving home with his daughter, and urged people across the country to watch over the children in their neighborhoods — including other people's kids.

"Too many kids these days come up missing, and we always ask this question: How come I didn't see what happened to that kid? Why? Because we chose not to," he said.

The third captive, Michelle Knight, 32, was reported in good condition at Metro Health Medical Center, which a day earlier had reported that all three victims had been released. There was no immediate explanation from the hospital.

The Associated Press does not usually identify people who may be victims of sexual assault, but the names of the women were widely circulated by their families, friends and law enforcement authorities for years during their disappearance.

Castro was accused of twice breaking the nose of his children's mother, knocking out a tooth, dislocating each shoulder and threatening to kill her and her daughters, according to a 2005 domestic-violence filing in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court.

The filing for a protective order by Grimilda Figueroa also said that Castro frequently abducted her daughters and kept them from her. Figueroa died in April 2012 after a battle with cancer.

Figueroa's father, Ismail Figueroa, said Wednesday that Castro would regularly lock his daughter inside a second-floor apartment in the house where they lived when they were first together.

Later, when they moved a few blocks to the house Castro purchased — the house from which, years later, the women would escape — he kept a close eye on her and refused to let people come inside to visit her or even let her pick up their children from school, said Angel Villanueva, who is married to Grimilda Figueroa's sister.

Grimilda was "not allowed to go nowhere," said Villanueva. No matter where she wanted to go, "it had to be with him."

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Associated Press writers Andrew Welsh-Huggins and Mike Householder and freelance reporter John Coyne in Cleveland; Mitch Stacy in Columbus; Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; John Seewer in Toledo; and news researchers Rhonda Shafner and Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.

OTTAWA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities on Wednesday identified two men and a woman found slain on an eastern Kansas farm and continued searching for the woman's 18-month-old daughter, who was last seen at the same property where the bodies were discovered.

Franklin County Sheriff Jeffrey Richards said at a news conference Wednesday that law enforcement officials were questioning a person of interest they located in Emporia, about 50 miles southwest of the Ottawa farm where the bodies were found earlier this week. Richards said no charges had been filed in the case.

He said authorities also found a vehicle related to the investigation late Tuesday in Emporia, but would not say if the man they were questioning had been driving it.

The victims were identified as Kaylie Bailey, 21, of Olathe; Andrew A. Stout, 30, of Ottawa, and Steven E. White, 31, of Ottawa. Richards didn't say how the victims were killed.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation said it is seeking the public's help in locating Bailey's 18-month-old daughter, Lana Leigh Bailey, who was reported missing with her mother on Friday. Richards said the mother and baby were both last seen at the Ottawa farm, but did not say when.

The first body was found in the farm's garage Monday by friends of Stout's, who had gone to check on his pets because they had not heard from him for several days. They called police after finding Bailey's body in the garage under a tarp.

Authorities then launched a full search with the help of several neighboring law enforcement agencies and found the other two bodies. Cadaver dogs were also brought in Tuesday to search the vast rural property, but no other bodies were found.

Kaylie Bailey's grandmother, Wilma Pettijohn, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday that Kaylie and Lana Bailey lived with her and her husband, Andy Pettijohn, in Olathe. She said when authorities told the family Wednesday they had identified Kaylie Bailey's body, they also said they had no information about the missing baby.

"We don't know if the man who took the car took her with him or where she is now. ... But they didn't find Lana," Pettijohn said.

She said the family has been "kind of preparing for the last day or two" for the news that Kaylie Bailey was among the three killed at the farm. Friends of Bailey's have said she and Stout had a relationship and that on the day she disappeared, she had planned to drop her daughter off with Stout for the day.

Pettijohn described Lana as "cheerful and playful, strong-minded" and said the child's mother was a "very sweet girl," though she could be "somewhat naive maybe in the people she associated with sometimes."

"She liked for people around her to get along, not fuss or say hateful things," Pettijohn said of Bailey. "Just really loving and caring that way. She thought the world of her baby. She loved her dearly."

Pettijohn said the family has a variety of nicknames for the missing baby, from "sunshine" to "sweetheart or darling or lovely little adjectives." She said the family is hopeful the baby will be returned to them.

"Everything in the house reminds us of her," Pettijohn said. "It's just a lot of pain between here and OK."

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Associated Press writer Bill Draper contributed to this report from Kansas City, Mo.