Cleveland Kidnap Victim Michelle Knight 'Deaf in One Ear' After Beatings

Cleveland kidnap victim Michelle Knight was left deaf in one ear and will need facial reconstruction surgery after years of beatings at the hands of her captor, her family said.

Knight, 32, was the first of the three women to be abducted, and on Saturday 11 May became the last to be discharged from hospital, five days after she was freed from the "house of horrors" owned by suspect Ariel Castro.

The three other survivors, Gina DeJesus, 23, Amanda Berry, 27, and Berry's six-year-old daughter, left hospital earlier in the week.

"When she was severely beaten, he beat her so badly in the face that she has to have facial reconstruction and she's lost hearing in one ear," Knight's grandmother, Deborah Knight, told US network CBS.

Knight told police that her alleged captor, Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver, repeatedly raped her and caused her to miscarry at least five times over the years by starving her and punching her in the stomach.

Following her discharge, it was revealed that the family of Knight's fellow victim Gina DeJesus plan to "adopt" her as their daughter, due to Knight's fractious relationship with her own family.

"She was Georgina's sister for ten years in that house and she's still her sister now," said Lupe Collins, a neighbour of the DeJesus family.

Knight was taken to DeJesus's house after she was released from hospital. Two days ago, Gina walked back into her home as hundreds of neighbours and wellwishers cheered.

But for Knight, there was no fanfare. Deborah Knight and her brother Freddie said they had no idea where Knight could stay when she was released from the hospital.

"I don't know where she'll go," she said from her dilapidated house on Cleveland's West Side.

Ariel Castro faces a possible death sentence after being charged with numerous counts of rape and abduction, and is likely to face further charges of causing the deaths of unborn children.