Woman: Stepdad Kidnapped Me, Fathered My 9 Kids

She says she wasn't even a teen when he first raped her
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 15, 2017 4:28 PM CST
Woman: Stepdad Kidnapped Me, Fathered My 9 Kids
In this photo provided by the Wagoner County Sheriff's Office, Henri Michelle Piette is pictured in an undated booking photo.   (Wagoner County Sheriff's Office via AP)

A federal grand jury in Oklahoma has indicted a 63-year-old man accused of kidnapping his stepdaughter and holding her captive for more than 20 years in Mexico and elsewhere while fathering her nine children. Henri Piette is accused of kidnapping Rosalynn McGinnis in 1995 or 1996, per a grand jury indictment handed down in Oklahoma on Wednesday. The AP generally doesn't ID people who say they've been sexually abused, but McGinnis has discussed her case publicly. "Knowing that the man who physically took 22 years from me, leaving me with a lifetime of painful challenges, has been captured makes today one of the most pivotal times of my life," she told People in October. FBI agent Adam Reynolds wrote in an affidavit Piette first had sex with McGinnis when she was 11 or 12, and that Piette "took her to a van and married her" around that time in a ceremony.

Piette changed McGinnis' name as well as his own "numerous times in an attempt to stay hidden," the affidavit says. They traveled in the US and Mexico, occasionally returning to Oklahoma to mail letters so people would think they were still there, the document says. McGinnis conceived two children with Piette while she was younger than 18 and another seven after she'd turned 18, the affidavit notes. Now 33, McGinnis says she escaped from Piette last year in Mexico and went to the US Embassy, where she secured passports for herself and the kids so they could enter the US. Piette is currently in custody in Oklahoma. If convicted of kidnapping, he faces up to life in prison. Piette also faces state charges of first-degree rape of a victim under 14, child abuse by injury, and two counts of lewd molestation, per court records. The rape charge is also punishable by up to life in prison.

(More kidnapping stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X