Americans remember the shocking story of Ariel Castro. The Cleveland kidnapper not only subjected women to sexual slavery in his home for years, but he assaulted them to the point of causing abortions of their unborn children when they became pregnant.
Now, an Indiana couple is making headlines for their horrific tale of kidnapping, but the story ends a differently. Instead of impregnating a woman and forcing her to have an abortion so the sexual slavery can continue, they raped a woman to get her pregnant because they couldn’t have children.
In July, the Evansville woman identified as Joelle Ann Lockwood was last seen walking on a road when Ricky Roy House Jr. pulled over to offer a ride to the 30-year-old mother. The two had previously known one another from school, and House offered to drive the woman to her destination. House advised the woman they would stop at his house first. That would be the last time the woman’s family would hear of her for the next two months.
House and Kendra Tooley (right) kept Lockwood captive in their trailer. Reportedly, the young woman was forced to spend a significant amount of time in a wooden cage. When not in the cage, she was forced to do chores and reports indicate she was sexually assaulted.
As Breitbart News reports, “Lockwood told police that House intended to make her pregnant because his girlfriend, Tooley, could not conceive.”
Writer Warner Huston presents the background on this shocking case:
House offered the woman a ride, and she accepted. However, the ride ended at House’s trailer home—40 miles away in the small town of Stewartsville.
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There, Lockwood says, House and his girlfriend attacked her and used chloroform to render her unconscious. When Lockwood awoke, she found her clothing shredded. She was also fastened to a bed with zip ties and other constraints, wearing a dog collar and a leash.
The couple allegedly held the woman for nearly two months, during which time House repeatedly beat and raped her, according to law enforcement.
The woman’s ordeal didn’t end until Tooley invited her ex-husband, 61-year-old Ronald Higgs, over to their trailer home and allegedly bragged to him that they had a woman chained up in the back bedroom.
When a shocked Higgs saw Lockwood held captive, she pleaded with him to help her escape her two-month hell.
Higgs told police that right then and there he became determined not to leave without the young woman and ended up in a fight with House after attempts to buy the woman’s freedom failed.
Eventually Higgs was able to help the woman escape and notified authorities.
