Another Ohio Captivity Case: Woman, Child Held 2 Years

Ohio has another creepy captivity case on its hands. Three people have been charged with forced labor after allegedly holding a woman with cognitive disabilities and her child prisoner for two years, reports the Plain Dealer. According to an FBI affidavit reviewed by the Mansfield News Journal, Jordie Callahan, 26, and Jessica Hunt, 31, convinced the woman (referred to in the affidavit as SE) to come live with them, then allegedly forced her to do house and yard work. She and her child (no age is given) were watched via baby monitor and kept in a padlocked room with a concrete floor, in an arrangement that the US attorney called "modern-day slavery."

• The suspects allegedly kept their captives in line by beating them and threatening to kill them and using pit bulls and pythons to frighten them. They also took SE's monthly public assistance payments.
• Among the many horrifying details in the affidavit: SE's child was kept in a single room all day, and she was not permitted to feed the child fruits or vegetables—though she was ordered to feed those items to an iguana.
• The affidavit also states that Callahan and Hunt intentionally injured SE (in one case, striking her hand with a rock) so she would be prescribed pain medication they could take.

• Police were clued into the situation in October, when SE stole a candy bar from a Family Dollar while shopping for her alleged captors—and asked authorities to take her to jail. When police questioned her, she revealed that the people she lived with were "mean," and police launched an investigation. WOIO reports they today raided the apartment in Ashland, which is located about an hour outside of Cleveland.
• Callahan, Hunt, and Daniel J. Brown, 33; face a variety of additional charges, including abduction and kidnapping; court records show an unnamed fourth person was charged.

(More Ohio stories.)