A Missouri man is facing criminal charges after a young woman he allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted escaped and went door to door in his suburban neighborhood wearing a dog collar and screaming for help, say authorities.
“She was terrified,” neighbor Ciara Tharp toldKSHB. She says the young woman, who has not been publicly identified, showed up at her grandmother’s house at about 7:45 a.m. on Friday, begging for help.
Tharp’s grandmother “heard a woman screaming and came knocking on the door, so she opened the door and the lady said, ‘You have to help me, I’ve been raped, I’ve been held captive,'” Tharp told KSHB’. “She’s like, ‘You gotta help me.'”
Tharp’s grandmother quickly brought the woman inside her house.
“It was restricting her breathing,” Tharp said. “She had ligature marks on her wrists. She could tell she was pretty weak. She brought her inside and gave her some food and wrapped a blanket around her.”
Tharp’s grandmother’s neighbor, Lisa Johnson, said she was shocked when she saw the bruised woman “hunched over” and almost crawling up the steps, Johnson told KSHB.
The woman said she’d been held captive inside a home for more than a week and was able to escape when the man left the house, both outlets report.
Timothy Haslett Jr.Clay County Sheriff’s Office
The young woman reported the alleged kidnapping and sexual assault to the Excelsior Springs Missouri Police Department at 7:47 a.m. Friday, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said in a release
The woman told police “she had been held against her will and sexually assaulted,” the release says.
After obtaining a search warrant, at 4 p.m., police searched the Old Orchard Road home of Timothy Haslett, Jr., the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said in the release.
At 9:15 p.m., police announced that Haslett had been charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault.
“There are rumors on social media that there are additional deceased victims,” the release said. “There is NO EVIDENCE of that at this time.”
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“We have no further victims that we are aware of at this specific moment in time,” he said. “We are still processing the warrant and that all is subject to change. She made mention of other victims, but there’s no signs of them at this time that we have found.”
He told KOAM, “When we made contact with her, it was readily apparent that she had been held against her will for a significant period of time.”
Haslett is being held in the local jail. It is unclear whether he has retained an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
The neighbors who came to the young woman’s aid hope that she is able to move forward after this terrifying ordeal.
source: people.com
