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(Taken from the Toledo Blade)
In the modest, Midwestern city of Toledo, Ohio, cousins and best friends Cara and Stacy went out one May afternoon for a frosty. It began to rain, and a woman driving a white Lincoln Continental pulled alongside the girls. The man in the passenger seat looked familiar; the girls thought he was a friend's father. The girls asked, and the man claimed he was who they thought, and offered them a ride. Cara and Stacey, 14 and 15, took the adults up on their offer. They picked up some Chinese takeout and drove to a private home.
Once inside, the man Deric Willoughby locked the door and set an alarm system. He told the girls he was their “daddy”, and if they didn't obey him “there's going to be consequences,' ... arguably for the rest of your lives." Derek, along with Cashmere and Envy, two female accomplices, separated the cousins. One girl was taken to the basement, the other upstairs. The girls were sold for sex at least a dozen times over the next 10 days, as their families filed a police report and scoured the city. The girls were never left alone, always accompanied by Willoughby, Cashmere, or Envy.
Once they tried to escape, Stacy's mother said. Willoughby caught them, and threw Stacy into the dining room table. Cara later told her aunt that Willoughby dragged her
upstairs by her hair and kicked her down the steps again and again.
Their 10 days in captivity amounted to a crash course in the business of forced sex. They were given clothes and fake identities, and were taken to hotels around Toledo and forced to perform sex acts. An adult always watched and collected payment. Cara and Stacy learned quickly not to cry or speak without permission. When one girl broke a rule, they told authorities, it was her cousin who took the beating.
Ten days after their kidnap, the girls were taken to a truck stop near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Acting on a prostitution call, deputies found Stacy and Envy in a truck. On a “gut instinct”, a deputy held Stacey back because of her apparent age, but had to let Envy go on lack of evidence. Once Stacy was away from her captors, she told the officer the her story. The deputies called the FBI and Stacy's family.
Stacy told her parents and Cara's where she thought her cousin was being kept. Cara's father frantically drove to the location, calling law enforcement along the way, and upon arrival ran at the house brandishing a tire iron. A chaotic scene between three family members and the three residents ended when Willoughby allegedly shoved Cara out a second-story window. She was treated for injuries but survived the accident.
The traffickers were indicted on December 14, 2005, accused of two counts of sexual trafficking of children; two counts of interstate transportation of minors for prostitution, and conspiracy. Both girls are living outside Toledo in undisclosed locations, and their parents say they are doing better.
Taken from the Toledo Blade, January 8, 2006. From the three part series, “Lost Youth,” by Robin Erb and Roberta de Boer (Blade staff writers).
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