Details Emerge in W.Va. Torture Case
By JOHN RABY and TOM BREEN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 11, 2007; 11:15 PM
BIG CREEK, W.Va. -- For at least a week, authorities say, a young black woman was held captive in a mobile home, forced to eat animal waste, stabbed, choked and repeatedly sexually abused _ all while being peppered with a racial slur.
It wasn't until deputies acting on an anonymous tip drove to a ramshackle trailer deep in West Virginia's rural hills that she was found. Limping toward the door with her arms outstretched, she uttered, "Help me," the Logan County sheriff's office said.
In this photo released by the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority Frankie Brewster is shown on Sept. 9, 2007, in Logan, W.Va., after she and five others were arrested for holding a Charleston woman captive in a Big Creek home for at least a week. The FBI is investigating whether the beating and sexual assault of this woman was a hate crime. (AP photo/West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority) (AP)
Six people, all white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, have been arrested and could face federal hate crime charges in the suspected attack on 20-year-old Megan Williams, who remained hospitalized Tuesday with injuries that included four stab wounds in the leg, and black and blue eyes. Her right arm was in a cast.
"I'm better," Williams told The Associated Press in a voice barely above a whisper.
"I don't understand a human being doing another human being the way they did my daughter," Carmen Williams said Tuesday from the Charleston Area Medical Center. "I didn't know there were people like that out here."
The AP generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name.
A prosecutor said police are investigating the possibility that the victim was lured to the house and attacked by a man she had met online, but Carmen Williams insisted that wasn't the case. "This wasn't from the Internet," she said.
Authorities were still looking for two people they believe drove the woman to the house where she was abused, said Logan County Chief Deputy V.K. Dingess. Deputies also interviewed Williams on Tuesday morning. An FBI spokesman in Pittsburgh, Bill Crowley, confirmed that the agency is looking into possible civil rights violations.
The case is "something that would have come out of a horror movie," Logan County Sheriff W.E. Hunter said.
The home is in a forlorn part of Logan County about 50 miles southwest of Charleston, where the scattered homes are marked by "No Trespassing" signs. An old shed linked to a mobile home by an extension cord is what authorities say became a hellish prison for Williams.
Deputies found her when they drove to the home on Saturday after receiving an anonymous tip from someone who witnessed the abuse, officials said.
The woman was forced to eat rat and dog feces and drink from a toilet, according to the criminal complaint filed in magistrate court based on what the suspects told deputies. She also had been choked with a cord, it alleges. Deputies say the woman was also doused with hot water while being sexually assaulted.
One of those arrested, Karen Burton, is accused of cutting the woman's ankle with a knife. She used the N-word in telling the woman she was victimized because she is black, according to the criminal complaint.
Carmen Williams said doctors told her daughter she may be well enough to leave the hospital within a few days, although a nurse said the young woman's condition was listed as "under evaluation."
"I just want my daughter to be well and recover," Carmen Williams said. "I know the Lord can do anything."
The six suspects were arrested Saturday and Sunday. Frankie Brewster, the 49-year-old woman who owns the home where the suspected attacks occurred, is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and giving false information during a felony investigation.
Her son, Bobby R. Brewster, 24, also of Big Creek, is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and assault during the commission of a felony.
Frankie Brewster was released from prison in September 2000 after serving five years for voluntary manslaughter and wanton endangerment in the death of an 84-year-old woman, according to court records.
Burton, 46, of Chapmanville, is charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault during the commission of a felony.
Her daughter Alisha Burton, 23, of Chapmanville, and George A. Messer, 27, of Chapmanville, are charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery.
Danny J. Combs, 20, of Harts, is charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding.
All six remained in custody Tuesday in lieu of $100,000 bail each, and all have asked for court-appointed attorneys.
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Tom Breen reported from Charleston, W.Va.
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