In Atlanta, an estimated 200 girls are sold as sex slaves each month, but the darkness that fuels the sex trafficking industry can be found everywhere.
Today I ran across two stories in the Indianapolis Star that prove that sad point.
In the first, a man was visiting his ex-wife and her boyfriend, which doesn't sound like a good idea. Turns out he was able to play the role of hero when he rescued a caged woman being held as a sex slave.
The man, Ronald Higgs, should have known something was awry when his ex-wife's trailer had no running water or food. The boyfriend, Ricky Roy House Jr., left to go fetch some vittles, and when he did, the ex-wife, Kendra Tooley, told her husband "I've got a girl in the cage. I can't get her out until Ricky is back."
For some reason, Higgs did not immediately call 911 and await the arrival of law enforcement in Posey County, a rural area near Evansville, Indiana.
Instead, he waited around and when the boyfriend returned that Thursday evening he brought out a 30-year-old woman wearing nothing but a T-shirt and two ropes, one around her neck and one around her waist.
Once again, Higgs did not immediately pick up a phone and call police or simply get the hell out of there.
Instead, he waited around and on Friday went behind a "curtain" and found a cage in the trailer his wife lived in with her boyfriend. That night, the woman "cried" to him.
On Saturday, after what had have been two days of creepiness, Higgs, instead of calling the police, offered House $100 to take the woman off his hands.
House rejected the offer and said "she hasn't had the baby yet."
A fist fight occurred, and House held a shotgun to Higgs' face, but the shotgun, like the trailer's refrigerator, was empty. Higgs was able to get the woman out of there before House loaded the weapon.
House, 37, and Tooley, 44, were arrested Sunday and face rape, kidnapping and other charges.
House told investigators he was holding the woman captive and raping her so he and Tooley could have a child together.
The woman, in another report , said she lived nearby and was visiting when House knocked her out and put her in a dog cage.
The Star's story is lengthy and detailed and worth reading, but makes me think the human gene pool could use a little chlorine.
In the second disturbing story out of Indiana , a man who found a wife through a Craigslist ad is accused of forcing her to become a sex slave.
Credit: George Mathis
Credit: George Mathis
According to the Indianapolis Star story, Kenneth Harden responded to a "wanted" ad requesting a man who wanted a woman who would stay home and take care of children.
Instead of being a Christian man who had trouble meeting women, Harden turned out to be "a manipulative sadist who forced her to sign a sex-slave contract, publicly humiliated and brutally abused her physically and sexually for nearly a year," the Star writes.
Harden, now jailed on rape and other charges in rural south Indiana's Jackson County, allegedly burned the woman with cigarettes, made her wear a collar and choked her until she lost consciousness.
She eventually called police and told them "I'm tired of getting hit every day. Please, I'm scared."
When police arrived at the home and asked why she wore a collar she said "Because I am [Harden's] property and slave." She also called Harden her "Lord" and "giver of life" because he controlled her diabetes meds.
She showed police a binder labeled "Sex Slave Manual 2014" where she was forced to sign documents with her own blood.
Those stories are disturbing, as is the fact the sex trafficking trade seems to be growing. Atlanta is consider a hub of the sex trafficking trade and the victims are usually not grown women, but young girls who are tricked into the sex industry by adult male predators who have become adept at enslaving children.
More news I ran across Thursday:
- Earth's tattered ozone layer is healing
- Earliest snowfall since 1888 in South Dakota
- Summer snow blankets Denver
- Female F-16 pilot ordered to sacrifice life to down airliner used in Sept. 11 attacks
- Wal-Mart shoplifter uses store's motorized wheelchair as getaway vehicle
- 25 percent of college grads have the same income as high school grads
- Man awakes from coma speaking fluent Mandarin
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