Sex Slavery Alleged Outside St. Louis

WASHINGTON PARK, Ill. (CN) - A woman who claims she was held as a sex slave for three years led police back to the home where she said she was held captive, to retrieve a toddler she said she had to leave behind during her escape.

The woman told police that she escaped last Tuesday, but could not take the child with her, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper reported that a man and a woman were led in handcuffs from the home.

Steven Johnson, 25, was charged with aggravated sexual assault, the St. Clair state's attorney said at a Saturday press conference.

Johnson's 54-year-old mother Owida Johnson was charged with child endangerment, the prosecutor said.

Police Chief David Clark told the Post-Dispatch that the woman ran away from her St. Louis home three years ago, when she was 16.

She claims she was held at the house against her will by a man who raped her and fathered the child two years ago. She claims that when it became time for her to have the baby, the man and his mother forced her to falsify medical records and use a false name. She said the man and his mother stayed with her the entire time she was in the hospital.

She told police that whenever she tried to escape, the man ran her down and forced her back to the house at gunpoint. She said he beat and sexually assaulted her almost daily.

Washington Park, a town of around 6,000, is east of St. Louis, across the Illinois state line.

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