Fugitive In Sex Slave Case Surrenders

One of two brothers accused of kidnapping two teenage prostitutes and keeping them as sex slaves has surrendered to authorities after 15 years as a fugitive.

Vance Roberts, 52, turned himself in at the Washington County Jail in September after he and his brother, Paul Jackson, skipped out on their bail during a pre-trial hearing in February 1991, authorities said this week.

Roberts will go on trial on the original charges next week. Jackson, 36, remains at large.

"I could not believe it. I figured we'd find him in another country," said Sgt. Bruce Parks of the Hillsboro Police Department. Parks, who investigated the case in 1990, said Roberts won't talk to investigators or reveal his brother's whereabouts.

Parks said Roberts and Jackson searched for young prostitutes, kidnapped them, kept them in chains and sexually assaulted them at a house in Hillsboro. Parks said the brothers outfitted their house with steel bars on the inside and a bed with straps and handcuffs.

In June 1990, a 16-year-old girl slipped out of the handcuffs when the brothers weren't looking and jumped through a window, Parks said. After running to a nearby house, she told police the brothers had grabbed her off a street the day before and forced her to be their sex slave.

When police searched the house, they found the restraints and photos of other girls in bondage. A Portland police officer recognized one of the photos of a prostitute who had reported being kidnapped in 1988. After she was held and assaulted for a week, the men dropped her off in northeast Portland, Parks said.

The brothers were arrested and released after bail was reduced.

After they fled, each was indicted on charges of rape, kidnap, sodomy, sexual abuse, drug possession and unlawful sexual penetration.