Girl Free After Being Held For 2 Years As Sex Slave Downstate
WASHINGTON PARK, Ill. (CBS) -- A 17-year old girl is free and safe, after escaping from an East St. Louis area home where she was allegedly held captive for more than two years.
As WBBM Newsradio's Bernie Tafoya reports, the girl was 15 when she was taken from St. Louis. After escaping, she told police she had been held as a sex slave, and that she was raped almost daily.
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She even had a child by the alleged kidnapper-rapist, she told police.
Police on Thursday raided the home in the 1400 block of Kingshighway in the downstate town of Washington Park. They took a 24-year-old man and his mother into custody, and recovered the teenager's baby.
Neighbor Lakeitha Smith told reporters she never noticed anything unusual.
"I didn't see no strange activities going on or nothing like that, but it's kind of messed up that the girl was held hostage like that," Smith said.
Several other neighbors told CBS affiliate KMOV-TV that the suspected rapist was known in the neighborhood by his street name, "Psycho." But neighbors also told the station that they all seemed like a "pleasant family," and that the victim would come talk to neighbors.
Police say the suspect and his mother forced the victim to lie about her name to cover up her real identity when she gave birth to her captor's child, KMOV reported.
The girl said she had tried to escape many times before, but that her kidnapper would chase her down and force her back at gunpoint.
