Amite Family Kept Autistic Woman Caged, Forced Her to Eat Her Mother's Ashes
Five members of a Louisiana family are charged with conspiring to concord a 22-year-old relative with autism earnest for months — locking her in an outdoor cage and inflicting humiliations such equally forcing her to cut the grass with pair of scissors, make clean a floor spill with her natural language and swallow her mother's cremated remains from a bowl, PEOPLE confirms.
The accused also allegedly advertised the victim for sex and on several occasions ordered her to strip and make advances to men who came to the family's mobile dwelling in Amite, including a cablevision repairman and a family friend invited for a barbecue, according to a federal indictment which was made public on Th and obtained by PEOPLE.
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The victim's exact relationship to the accused is not detailed in the court documents.
The six-count federal homo trafficking and detest crime indictment alleges that Raylaine Knope, 42; her husband, Terry J. Knope 2, 45; her 23-year-old son, Jody Lambert; and Terry's 20-year-old daughter, Taylor Knope, conspired to obtain forced labor and used forcefulness and threats of force to interfere with the victim's housing rights due to her inability, the U.Due south. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana said in a statement.
Raylaine and Terry are also charged with attempted sex trafficking of the victim.
In improver, Terry is charged with a hate criminal offence, for allegedly shooting the victim with a BB gun, and a charge of theft of government funds, later on allegedly stealing the victim'due south inability benefits.
Raylaine'south daughter Bridget Lambert, 21, was charged separately in the alleged forced labor conspiracy.
All are existence held in Tangipahoa Parish jails, a spokesman for the county's corrections role confirms. It could non exist adamant if any of the five accept nevertheless entered a plea to the federal allegations.
A telephone call by PEOPLE to Claude Kelly, the master federal public defender for the Eastern District of Louisiana, was not immediately returned on Monday.
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Terry Knope Ii
| Credit: Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff'southward Role
The federal charges come on the heels of related accusations filed confronting the five individuals in Tangipahoa Parish, according to Autumn Payton, a spokeswoman for the local district attorney's office.
Each of the suspects has pleaded not guilty to those allegations, which include kidnapping, human trafficking, cruelty to the infirmed and contributing to the delinquency of minors, Payton tells PEOPLE.
A call to Principal Public Defender Reginald McIntyre in the parish public defender's office, whose attorneys are representing the family members in the local case, was not immediately returned.
A trial for the five suspecdts on the local charges is due to start Aug. thirteen.
Indictment Describes Design of Abuse
According to the federal charges revealed last week, the victim — identified as "an adult relative" of Raylaine Knope — lived with the victim's mother and the accused individuals together at the mother's abode in Kentwood in August 2015.
After the mother died on Aug. 12, 2015, of that year, the victim and the defendants relocated to the holding in Amite.
On Aug. xiii, 2015, Terry Knope applied to become the payee for the victim's federal disability benefits, which totaled $8,796 from that engagement through June 30, 2016, co-ordinate to the federal indictment. On that June 30, Tangipahoa Parish sheriff's officials carried out a search warrant at the property later on receiving complaints about a adult female locked in a cage, the Times-Picayune reports.
At that point the victim was taken from the home and placed in the intendance of the state health department.
Later investigation revealed the horrific weather nether which the woman was allegedly fabricated to alive and work, including "physical violence, threats of physical violence, psychological and exact abuse, abuse of legal process, and psychological manipulation to obtain uncompensated labor and services," the federal indictment states.
The indictment alleges the victim was required to do housework and yard piece of work "in exchange for nutrient and water," including an occasion where Terry "forced [her] to clean up a spill on the kitchen floor using [her] tongue" and some other where he "forced [her] to make clean out the mobile abode's septic system without whatever gloves, tools, or protective habiliment."
Throughout the period when the victim lived on the property, if she did not complete the work quickly or to Raylaine's liking, Raylaine allegedly denied her nutrient, according to the charges.
Jody Lambert
| Credit: Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff'southward Office
Taylor Knope
| Credit: Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office
Prosecutors said in the indictment that the victim initially slept inside on a flooring mattress before Raylaine ordered her to sleep in a backyard tent, whose zipper allegedly was locked each nighttime by Taylor and others "and so that [she] could not escape."
The charges in the indictment detail that, after the victim did try escape, Raylaine allegedly "threatened to kill [her] if [she] ever tried to escape again."
The tent then was moved into an outdoor shed that was secured with a padlock, the indictment states. In the spring of 2016, nether Raylaine's management, Terry and Jody Lambert, Raylaine's son, forth with others, built a muzzle out of chicken wire so used a plastic tarp and tree branches to hide it.
A saucepan inside the cage, which was padlocked each night and unlocked each morning, served equally the victim'south toilet, co-ordinate to the indictment.
"On 1 occasion, Jody Lambert held a handgun to [the victim's] head and threatened to shoot [her] if [she] did non obey his orders," the indictment states.
Declared assaults on the victim by the defendants included fractured bones when Terry struck the victim'southward hand with a hammer; burns from a lighter; strikes with a wooden paddle, a shower rod, and another to the head with a metal padlock; punches to her head and face; and holding her head under water as she struggled to breathe, according to the charges.
In add-on, Terry allegedly fired a BB gun toward the victim at shut range, causing the BB pellets to order under the victim'south skin.
Each of the defendants allegedly routinely called the victim "stupid" and "retarded," and on at least one occasion Raylaine reportedly said, "This retarded girl will exercise anything y'all say."
According to the indictment: "On i occasion Raylaine Knope ordered [the victim] to open up an urn containing [the victim's] deceased mother'southward ashes, pour the ashes into a basin, and eat the ashes with a spoon, every bit Raylaine Knope, Terry Knope, Jody Lambert and Taylor Knope stood nearby, watching and laughing."
To farther exert command, according to the indictment, Raylaine and Terry forced the victim to consume methamphetamine and prescription painkillers, "and so threaten[ed] to plow [her] in to the police for using drugs if [she] did not obey the defendants' orders."
"I'm so disgusted," Rocky Stewart, a neighbor who lives next door to the family'south property, told the Times-Trivial after the family members were arrested in July 2016. "It's simply horrible. I detest to say they are my relatives."
He said the suspects are his showtime and second cousins, although he said he did not know the victim.
"It's a miracle she'due south live," he said. "God must have had his hand over her."
Source: https://people.com/crime/la-family-kept-austistic-woman-cage-for-trafficking/
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