September 12, 2007
Woman, 20, Was Imprisoned and Tortured, Police Say
By CHRIS STRATTON and IAN URBINA
LOGAN, W.Va., Sept. 11 - A 20-year-old woman was held captive for more than a
week in a mobile home, where she was raped, stabbed and tortured by at least a
half-dozen people, the police said. Sheriff's deputies rescued her on Saturday,
and she remained hospitalized Tuesday in stable condition.
"I've been in law enforcement for more than 30 years, and this is the first time
I've ever seen anything of this nature," the Logan County sheriff, Eddie Hunter,
said.
Six people, including a mother and her son and a mother and her daughter, have
been charged in the case.
The police said the people charged, all of whom are white, yelled racial slurs
at the woman, who is black, during some of the attacks. The woman endured
horrific torture, according to court documents. She was raped by multiple men,
some of whom poured scalding water on her during the assaults, according to the
criminal complaints.
She was forced to lick up blood, eat animal feces and drink water from a toilet,
the documents said, and she was also stabbed repeatedly in the leg and was told
that if she tried to leave, she would be killed.
The police said that more than a week ago, the victim went with Bobby R.
Brewster, 24, who she believed was a friend, to the trailer where he lives with
his mother, Frankie Lee Brewster, 49, in Big Creek, in the northern end of Logan
County.
On Tuesday, the police were interviewing the victim further about two more
people she said were involved.
On Saturday, Logan County deputies received a tip about a woman being held
against her will at the Brewster residence. A person working in the area had
heard disturbing noises coming from the trailer and seen the victim with cuts on
her leg through the window, the police said.
"Upon the deputies' arrival, they found Mrs. Frankie Brewster sitting on the
front porch," a police report says. The deputies asked Mrs. Brewster if anyone
else was at the residence and she said she was alone.
As she was talking, the police documents say, Mrs. Brewster got up and stepped
toward the door, when a woman inside the residence limped toward the door with
her arms held out and said, "Help me." The woman's eyes were bruised and she had
four large stab wounds on her left leg, the police said.
Police documents say Mrs. Brewster admitted to holding the victim at the trailer
against her will and beating her.
The victim was taken to Logan Regional Hospital and then to the General Hospital
of Charleston Area Medical Center, where she underwent surgery for her leg
wounds.
Mrs. Brewster was charged with sexual assault, kidnapping, malicious wounding
and giving false statements to an officer. Mr. Brewster was charged with
kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and assault during the commission
of a felony.
The Brewster family and their trailer has a history of violent crime, the police
said.
Mr. Brewster killed his stepfather there when he was 12, the authorities said,
and served time at a juvenile correction facility.
In July 1994, Mrs. Brewster shot and killed an 84-year-old woman she was looking
after, also in the trailer, according to court records.
Mrs. Brewster, who was charged with first-degree murder, pleaded guilty to
voluntary manslaughter and served six years at a state correctional facility.
She was paroled in 2000.
In 2005, two men got into a fight outside the trailer, the police said, ending
with a fatal stabbing.
In January, the police were again called to the trailer, where they found a man
who had been slashed across his abdomen; the man survived, according to court
documents, and Mr. Brewster was a witness in that case.
Also being held in the case of the young woman were Danny J. Combs, 20, who was
charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding; George A. Messer, 27, who
was charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery; Karen
Burton, 46, who was charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault during
the commission of a felony; and her daughter, Alisha Burton, 23, who was charged
with assault during the commission of a felony and battery. The four were being
held in $100,000 bond each.
The Brewsters were being held pending bond hearings.
The authorities said they were still deciding whether to file additional
charges, of hate crimes, against the defendants.
"The whole family is shocked," a sister of the victim said.
The victim, who, relatives said, has mild learning disabilities but graduated
from high school. The sister would not comment on whether the victim was living
at home or had a job.
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