CHARLESTON, W.Va., Sept. 11, 2007
6 Arrests In Alleged Torture Case In W.Va.
Victim Is Black, Suspects Are White; Cops Consider Hate Crime Charges
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Clockwise from top left: Bobby Brewster, Frankie Brewster, Danny Combs, Karen Burton, Alisha Burton, George Messer. The six have been named suspects in a torture case in West Virginia. (CBS/AP)
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The victim was repeatedly called a racial slur while her captors sexually abused, beat and stabbed her, her mother said.
Six people, all white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, were arrested in connection with the alleged abduction of the 20-year-old black woman.
"I don't understand a human being doing another human being the way they did my daughter," Carmen Williams said Tuesday from her daughter's room at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital. "I didn't know there were people like that out here."
Megan Williams, with a cast on her arm, spoke barely above a whisper.
"I'm better," she said.
The Associated Press 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 where she was attacked by a man she met on the internet, but Carmen Williams insisted that wasn't the case. "This wasn't from the Internet," she said.
Deputies also interviewed the victim Tuesday morning. State, local and federal officials planned to meet later in the day to decide whether to file hate crime charges, Logan County sheriff's Sgt. Sonya Porter said. An FBI spokesman in Pittsburgh, Bill Crowley, confirmed that the agency is looking into possible civil rights violations.
The woman's abductors called her the N-word "every time they stabbed her," Carmen Williams told The Charleston Gazette earlier.
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.
The case is "something that would have come out of a horror movie," Logan County Sheriff W.E. Hunter said.
Deputies found Williams on Saturday when they went to the house in Big Creek, about 35 miles southwest of Charleston, to investigate an anonymous tip from someone who had witnessed the abuse, Porter said Tuesday.
One of the suspects, Frankie Brewster, was sitting on the front porch and told deputies she was alone, but moments later the woman limped toward the door, her arms outstretched, saying "Help me," the sheriff's department said in a news release.
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."
Besides being sexually assaulted, the woman was stabbed four times in the left leg and beaten, Porter said. Her eyes were black and blue. The wounds were inflicted at least a week ago, deputies 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. She also had been choked with a cord, it alleges.
She was made to lick parts of Brewster’s body, under the threat of death, according to The Charleston Gazette. Her hair was pulled out. She was sexually assaulted while hot water was poured on her body, and while a man held a knife to her, the paper reported.
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.
The six suspects were arrested Saturday and Sunday. Deputies were still trying to determine whether the woman knew her assailants, Porter said.
Brewster, the 49-year-old who owns the home where the alleged 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.
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.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 260 CommentsNo one is pretending anything and the law does treat racially-based crime as hate regardless of the race of the perps or victims.
You''re statistics are a figment of your imagination intended to excuse the crime by placing it in some other context. All hate crime is heinous and punishable as such under the law(except in Jeno,Louisiana).
a-human-right.com
"We live in a world where more and more women are unaccompanied at odd hours, or they are vulnerable in dangerous places - a world where restraining orders are often ineffective and the police cannot be counted upon to arrive in time, if at all. In such a world, women must be able to protect themselves. In terms of both deterrence and lethal force, guns are among the most effective tools available for self-defense."
- Mary Zeiss Stange, "Guns, like abortion, are a matter of choice"
Rajpatel3 - your racist post makes me sick.
These are monsters though, anyone that would do something like this is terrible. They should be locked up for life. This is trash. I can''t believe people do this. Get off the drugs people.
Just have the 6 tied up to a pole, while the victim just swings a metal bat across their face, and puts rusty nails in their veins.
Sick white trash. That''s all it is.
May the devil thwart his wrath on these six evil evil people
People who are prepared and capable of protecting themselves do not get kidnapped and raped.
a-human-right.com
I can not believe that someone would comment on how blacks are not "innocent little lambs" as if that mattered to this situation at all. And statistics show that the preponderance of crime committed by blacks are ''black on black'' crime, not the 90% quoted ''black on white'' crime. It may be true that blacks make up a smaller percentage of the population but a higher percentage of the prison population, but there could be reasons why these numbers are skewed -- such as, blacks historically have not been well off and able to afford pricey attorneys that would get them off.
The truth is, I''m going to despise anyone who commits such attrocities, no matter what their race is. And if a black commits a crime against me, a white, with a racial component attached then I hope the feds would use the hate crime clasue as well.
- those are excellent candidates for seven-pesos ranting! LOL!
A huge majority of the time when a gun is used in self defense, not a single shot is fired.
Just seeing a gun is often all it takes to change a criminal''s mind.
I doubt this is the first time they''ve done this. Someone should check the back yard for body parts.
Oh, and Kristi101, just so you can have some clarity, from a psychological pov, sexual assault isn''t about ***, it''s about exerting power. That''s why they hurt her like that.
I really hope these monsters get the punishment they deserve.
-- Susan B. Anthony
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Everyone of these people look like severe meth heads
Protection from these types of people is up to you and you alone.
Posted by jon_mccain at 03:40 PM : Sep 11, 2007
-good one!
While the numbers may in fact not be the most precise in RajPatel3''s comment, I invite you to do a simple study of your own to confirm or deny the point being made. In your local city or town, pick out the worst white neighborhood and the worst black neighborhood. Around dusk, have a black volunteer walk through the white neighborhood. At the same time, have a white volunteer walk through the black neighborhood. The next day at same time of day, have a black volunteer walk through the black neighborhood, and have a white volunteer walk through the white neighborhood. If you can get enough volunteers, repeat this study for a period of 10 days, continually alternating race with neighborhood. Compare all results and see which volunteers comes out of each neighborhoods intact, with wallet, and without the need of a paramedic.
This type of study should help answer the question of which race is more apt to committing what crime, against whom and where.The results would be interesting and insightful!
Posted by jon_mccain at 03:40 PM : Sep 11, 2007
*** that was the funniest thing I read all day.. LOLOLOLOL
what is more sick than this article, and a greater eye opener concerning the sickness of many in america, is some of the comments posted here.
Only true white trash could be so ignorant.
No second chance,just so they can do it again cause most criminals are repeat offenders. I feel this way because I hate the way the goverment runs it''s prison systems in where the convicts have more rights than I do.
While we sit on the oppisite side of those walls,they are getting dental care Free,health care Free,better food than low income familys get,a better education for Free. Need I go on?
Get rid of the prisons and bring back the firing squad and God help those that are really innocent,who will be shot also.
Wrong! You left out black-on-black and white-on-white crimes, not to mention yellow, red, brown, etc. The majority of this country is white, so you''d expect most crimes are committed against the majority. But it is not accurate to say that 90% of violent crime is black-on-white.
What''s needed to get an accurate picture is to find the PERCENTAGE of the white population who are victimized by black people VS. the PERCENTAGE of the black population who are victimized by white people.
Does anybody have that statistic?
Here''s what the Bureau of Justice Statistics says for 2005:
* Per every 1,000 persons in that racial group, 27 blacks, 20 whites and 14 persons of other races sustained a violent crime. (That%u2019s 27/1000, or 2.7% of blacks who are crime victims, vs. 2.0% whites, and 1.4% other. Seems like blacks are crime victims more often than whites!)
* Black and white persons experienced similar rates of simple assault.
* All races experienced about the same rates of rape/sexual assault.
* Blacks were more likely than whites to be victims of carjacking (3 versus 1 per 10,000 respectively)
This doesn''t say who the perps were, but it should give you a clear idea that your assertion that 90% of the crime is black-on-white is complete BS.
Rape, and other sexual assaults are not crimes of passion. They are forms of control, degradation, subjegating. They are to terrorize a person, feel themselves at fault, and many other reasons. In this case, since the crime(s) were racially based, it would be used as a contol/punishment tool.
These are monsters though, anyone that would do something like this is terrible. They should be locked up for life. This is trash. I can''''t believe people do this. Get off the drugs people.
Posted by Kristi101 at 03:25 PM : Sep 11, 2007
Put all of them in prison, house them with multiracial inmates, and let their crimes be known. But, we all know that they will be sheltered to protect them from retalitaory attacks.
The only thing the report failed to mention was the Banjo music coming from the house.
ROFLMAO!!!!!
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