Three women held captive in a run-down home for a decade kept diaries documenting the horrific physical and sexual abuse they suffered, it has emerged.

The entries speak of sexual abuse, of being locked in a dark room and of dreams of some day escaping and being reunited with their families.

The women – Michelle Knight, 32, Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, 23 – also reflected on being chained to a wall and of being held like “prisoners of war,” according to court documents.

The women’s kidnapper, Ariel Castro, lured one of them into his Cleveland home with the promise of a puppy for her son and later locked all of them in a vehicle in his garage for three days when someone visited him, prosecutors said.

Castro repeatedly starved and beat one of the victims each time she became pregnant, forcing her to miscarry five times.

One of the women broke free in May and called for help, frantically telling an emergency dispatcher: “I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years, and I’m here. I’m free now.”

Castro claimed he did not have an exit strategy from his complicated double life and finally gave the women a chance to escape by leaving a door unlocked, they said in a court document.

Prosecutor Tim McGinty said in a sentencing statement that Castro, who chained his captives by their ankles and fed them only one meal a day, “admits his disgusting and inhuman conduct” but “remains remorseless for his actions”.

Castro has pleaded guilty to 937 charges, including kidnapping, rape, assault and aggravated murder. He will be sentenced later.

The former bus driver agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole in a plea deal that will see him escape the death penalty.

While his guilty plea spared his victims from having to testify, more details of their ordeal are expected to be revealed when prosecutors present evidence of their abuse.

It is unlikely Castro’s victims will attend the hearing.

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