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Man
Arrested For Allegedly 'Marrying' Stepdaughter at Age 12, Holding Her Captive
For 19 Years At
Deborah Hastings
Inside Edition October 9, 2017
An arrest has been
made in the strange saga of a woman who told FBI agents her stepdad had
kidnapped her at age 12 and held her captive for 19 years.
Henri Michele Piette,
62, was arrested last week in Mexico and extradited to Oklahoma, where he was
charged with rape, child abuse and other offenses, The Oklahoman reported.
Rosalynn Michelle
McGinnis, now 33, said she was able to escape last year from a filthy tent with
eight of her nine children. She made her way to a U.S. Embassy, investigators
said in court documents, the paper reported.
Her eldest child is
grown and escaped before her, she said. They have since been reunited, she
said.
In an interview with People magazine, McGinnis said she was speaking
publicly because “I want the world to know. I want him to be stopped and I want
justice to be served.”
She was beaten with a
baseball bat, raped, stabbed, shot and choked unconscious during nearly two
decades with Piette, she said.
He has been charged in
Wagoner County. He “married” her in a van after kidnapping her from school, she told investigators.
Her mother had left Piette because he beat her and the mom and daughter were
living in a women’s shelter, McGinnis said.
McGinnis and Piette’s
children were dragged across states including Texas, Montana and Arizona,
according to FBI agents.
Ultimately, they
landed in Mexico, where they lived in a tent in a remote village.
After 19 years of
abuse, and recovering from a crude surgery to remove her gallbladder, McGinnis
decided it was now or never.
“I knew that if I
didn’t get out of there,” she told the magazine. “I’d either go insane or I
would end up dying and leaving my kids with that man.”
Back in the U.S.,
McGinnis has been working the JAYC Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit began by
Jaycee Dugard, who was abducted at age 11 in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., before
she was rescued after 18 years.
She also has been
helped by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“It took a lot of
courage. It took a lot of bravery,” Robert Lowery, vice president of missing children for the organization, told the
publication.
“She wasn’t only
concerned for herself,” he said, “but for her children.”
Want to fight back? Contact the Foundation for Child Victims
of the Family Court Here
