Indiana couple pleads not guilty in caging and rape of missing woman

An Indiana couple has been charged with a flurry of felonies after holding a woman captive for nearly two months, forcing her into a wooden cage and raping her repeatedly, officials alleged.

According to indictments filed by prosecutors in Posey County, Ind., Kendra Tooley, 44, and Ricky R. House, Jr., 37, are accused of holding the woman, missing since July 12, at their mobile home in rural southwestern Indiana.

Both pleaded not guilty Monday afternoon in an Indiana court, said Posey County Deputy Sheriff Tom Latham.

Tooley faces 10 felony counts, including two counts of rape, four counts of criminal confinement, two counts of kidnapping, conspiracy to commit rape and conspiracy to commit criminal confinement.

Her boyfriend, House, faces four felony counts of rape, four counts of criminal confinement, two counts of kidnapping, a count of conspiracy to commit criminal confinement, conspiracy to commit rape, one count of battery, and one count of pointing a firearm.

Bail for Tooley was set at $150,000, Latham said, and House is being held on $500,000 bail.

The couple are accused of holding the woman at gunpoint, forcing her to have sex with both of them while she was tied down, beating her with a belt and locking her in a wooden cage that House built, court documents say.

The woman told police that she was forced to cook and clean for the couple when she wasn’t locked in the cage, the Associated Press reported.

“It was pretty much modernized slavery in my eyes,” Latham told the Associated Press.

The woman, a 30-year-old mother of two, was reported missing by her mother in July after she failed to meet her family at a baseball game. The Times does not typically name victims in sexual assault cases.

According to the court documents, the woman knew House and Tooley, and was walking along a road after visiting with some friends when House drove by. He offered the woman a ride, and she accepted, so they went to his trailer in Poseyville, Ind., about 30 minutes from her home.

After awhile, when the woman stood to leave, prosecutors allege that House placed chloroform over her mouth and caused her to pass out.

When she woke, her clothes were cut off and she was tied to a bed in the trailer, the document says.

The woman told investigators she was bound with bungee cords and zip ties, and forced to have sex with both of her captors. She said she wasn’t allowed to use the telephone, or talk to anyone outside the trailer. She was also forced to wear a red dog collar with a leash attached to it, she said.

She was only allowed outside of the trailer three times during the nearly two months she was held against her will, court documents said, and only at night under the watchful eye of the couple.

After Tooley’s ex-husband, Ronald Higgs, showed up at the trailer Thursday, the woman pleaded with him to help, court documents say.

Higgs told the woman that he would come back to help her escape, and returned on Saturday, confronting House.

House and Higgs then got into a heated argument, prosecutors say, and House pointed a shotgun at Higgs’ chin, threatening to kill him.

Somehow, the two were able to get away, and the woman called her parents, who called police.

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