Until now I hadn't found a big enough reason to join a neighborhood
watch. The neighborhood thefts didn't
get me, car chases ending on my street didn't get me, but this story got me! I looked at these people they
could live on my block, they could kidnap my kid. Especially the woman, I saw her and said to myself
"OMG she looks like a nice lady". Duh, of course she does, and
that's why you need to know what's going on in your neighborhood. Read this and run, don't walk to your local neighborhood watch meeting!
******
Disabled Mom And Child Allegedly Enslaved For Years, Threatened With 130-Pound Python
At
a press conference Tuesday, federal prosecutors and detectives from the Ashland
Police Department said a mother and her 6-year-old child were held
captive in a house for two years and subjected to beatings,
death threats, and reptile attacks.
Prosecutors have charged three people in connection
with a case of alleged "modern-day slavery" in Ashland, Ohio.At
a press conference Tuesday, federal prosecutors and detectives from the Ashland
Police Department said a mother and her 6-year-old child were held captive in a
house for two years and subjected to beatings,
death threats, and reptile attacks.
Officials at
the news conference broadcast by WKYC said
the captors "recruited the victims" to come live with them. The
mother — whose name has not been released — had "significant physical
vulnerabilities" and became disabled after a childhood injury
and functions at the level of a 13- or 14-year-old, officials said.
The mother received monthly public assistance payments.
The suspects allegedly took over the mother's government benefits cards and PIN
numbers and used the money for themselves, according to a press release from
the Department of Justice.
Police found out about the captivity after the mother was caught shoplifting a candy bar and
she asked to be taken to jail (which, as federal prosecutors pointed out, is
unusual).
Jordie Callahan, 26, Jessica Hunt, 31, and Daniel Brown,
33, were arrested and charged with forced labor on Monday, Cleveland news
station WKYC reports.
Federal officials said more charges are likely to come
later on in the investigation, which is still ongoing.
The mother and her child were allegedly starved, forced
to sleep on a cement floor in a padlocked room, clean the house, do laundry,
and do yard work, according
to 19 Action News reporter Scott Taylor. They were threatened
with a 130-pound python and other reptiles, prosecutors said.
The suspects also allegedly forced the mother to hit her
child, recorded it on video and said that if they ever tried to leave the video
would be shown to police.
The suspects also allegedly took money from the mother's
checking account and used her prescriptions. Callaham and Hunt allegedly
injured the mother on multiple occasions to obtain prescriptions for pain
medication such as Vicodin, according to the DOJ release.
Ohio was in the news recently for another case of people
being held captive in a house for years. Three young women were held captive
in a Cleveland house for about a decade after they were all
allegedly kidnapped from the same neighborhood at different times.
No comments:
Post a Comment