Kristine Guerra

kristine.guerra@indystar.com

EVANSVILLE — The woman sat next to Ronald Higgs on the bed. She was in tears as she whispered.

"I don't want to be here. I've been here for 60 days," the woman said.

"Please don't leave here without me."

Two other people, a man and a woman, were sleeping on a mattress just a few feet away in the living room area of the small mobile home.

The woman didn't want them to hear anything. Higgs said she kept wiping her tears because she didn't want them to see that she was crying.

That moment on Friday night, Higgs realized something was terribly wrong.

He first met the woman Thursday. He didn't recognize her, he said. He never watches TV and he doesn't read much, so he didn't realize that she was the same 30-year-old woman who disappeared two months ago while walking along an Evansville street.

That day, Higgs went to see his ex-wife, Kendra Tooley, and her live-in boyfriend, Ricky Roy House Jr., who were living in the mobile home on Story Street in Stewartsville in southwestern Indiana. The couple didn't have any food or water, so House went out to get something for all of them to eat and drink. While House was gone, Tooley sat next to Higgs on the couch.

"I've got a girl in the cage," she told Higgs.

Higgs asked Tooley to take the girl out and introduce her to him, thinking she was only teasing him.

"I can't get her out until (Ricky) is back," Tooley told Higgs. He realized his ex-wife was serious.

Higgs saw the woman who supposedly had been in the cage later that day, after House got home. She was wearing only a brown T-shirt. A leather belt was wrapped around her neck. A rope was tied to it and ran down her back under her shirt. Higgs later noticed that the woman also had a belt around her waist with a rope tied to it.

At that point, Higgs said he couldn't make sense of what was going on.

He still didn't fully believe that there was a cage, until the next day. He went to a small bedroom, passing a curtain that separated it from the rest of the trailer. There the wooden cage was, he said, with a book on top of it.

Friday night, after the woman cried to him, is when Higgs said he realized that she was being held captive by House and Tooley. It didn't occur to him immediately. He said House had told him earlier that he picked up a drunk girl and took her to his trailer to smoke a joint with them.

That night, he decided he needed to get the woman out of there.

'She hasn't had the baby yet'

A little after noon on Saturday, Higgs told House he would buy the woman.

Higgs offered him $100, he said. House refused.

"She hasn't had the baby yet," he told Higgs.

According to court documents, the woman was forced to have sex for two months. Tooley later told detectives that House was trying to get the woman pregnant because Tooley was too old to have children, documents said.

Tooley and Higgs, 61, had been divorced for more than 20 years. They had three daughters together.

Tooley also claimed she had been abused by House.

House and Higgs got in a fight, as the latter tried to get the woman out to safety. Higgs said House pointed a shotgun against his chin, but it wasn't loaded. House then walked away. Higgs assumed he was looking for ammunition. Meanwhile, he said he convinced Tooley to let them go, promising her that he wouldn't tell the police.

He said he asked Tooley if she wanted to go with them. She didn't say anything, Higgs said, and he and the woman drove away in his van.

When they were a few miles away, Higgs asked the woman where she wanted to go.

"Do you have a shower?" the woman asked Higgs. "Please, I need to take a shower."

The woman was dirty, Higgs said, because the trailer had no running water.

The two went to Higgs' apartment in Evansville, where the woman took a shower. She later called her mother, crying and rocking back and forth as she talked. Higgs remembered hearing the woman's mother crying on the phone. Her parents came to the apartment that Saturday. Police arrived shortly after.

House, 37, and Tooley, 44, were arrested early Sunday and each is facing rape, criminal confinement, kidnapping and other charges. Both were being held under $50,000 cash bonds at the Posey County Jail in Mt. Vernon.

The Indianapolis Star is not naming the Evansville woman. The Star does not typically name people who may have been victims of sexual assault.

Kidnapping shocks neighbors

Neighbors on Story Street know everyone and their families. Their children play with each other on sunny afternoons. When someone needs help, neighbors don't hesitate to lend a hand. When something strange or different is happening, they talk to each other about it.

But for two months, no one noticed anything odd happening inside the mobile home in the 9800 block of Story Street.

On Monday, sisters Alicia and Angelia Phillips stared in disbelief toward the trailer, shaking their heads as they spoke. They said they know House. They also know of the woman he allegedly kidnapped. They said her family used to own a business in the area.

They said had they known they were so close to where the woman was, they would've done something.

"Any of us would've torn the doors down to get her," Alicia Phillips said, looking at the trailer across the street from her house.

The Phillips sisters said the generations of families raised in Stewartsville, a small Posey County community nestled among miles of cornfields, cared for and looked after each other. Alicia Phillips said if anyone had known what allegedly was going on in the trailer, "They would've risked their lives to rescue her. They would've put up a fight," she said.

But no one suspected. No one thought of looking inside the trailer.

The Phillips sisters said they sometimes saw House hollering at his dog. Sometimes, they heard him and Tooley arguing. But he usually seemed nice, friendly and upbeat.

However, neighbors also said House had a history of run-ins with the law. Police officers were frequently seen stopping by the trailer. In 2011, he was convicted of possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia.

He was placed on 17 months of probation, court records show. Higgs said House had talked to him before about cooking and using methamphetamine.

Some of the neighbors remain reluctant to talk about the incident.

Most were quick to decline interviews. They said they didn't want to speak ill of House or his family, who have been longtime residents of the community.

"It's a shock to everyone in the community," said Chief Deputy Tom Latham of the Posey County Sheriff's Department. "These is a situation that does unfortunately occur, but in a small community, it's quite a shock to endure."

Posey County, located in rural Southern Indiana about 20 miles outside of Evansville, has about 25,000 residents, according to the latest census estimate. Stewartsville had not been included in recent census counts. The neighboring town of Poseyville has about 1,000 people. Most business owners on Main Street in Poseyville said they know the woman and her family. No one wanted to comment.

Two days after the alleged kidnapping, curious residents drove along Story Street, slowing down to look at the mobile home before driving away. Angelia Phillips said she has lost count of the number of reporters who knocked on her door.

The trailer stands out amid the modest family homes, some have mini playgrounds in the front yard. Unlike the rest of the houses that line Story Street, the mobile home appears poorly maintained and unwelcoming.

Visitors are met with three "No Trespassing" signs, one on a post and two by the stairs.

Shards of glass now litter the front of the home. The main door is in pieces by the stairs. Neighbors said police kicked in the wooden door and broke out all the glass windows when they arrested House and Tooley. One of the windows is covered in plastic and secured by a layer of tape.

The back patio, where neighbors said House and Tooley had been heard fighting, is cluttered with several plastic chairs, garbage, trash bins, old pieces of wood, empty flower pots and dirty towels.

A new friend

As he sat in his rocking chair in his Evansville apartment Tuesday, recalling the events of the past few days, Higgs said two good things came out of the whole incident.

The woman is alive. And he may have gained a new friend.

He said the woman called him on Sunday. She asked him how he was doing.

"How are you doing?" Higgs asked back.

The woman told him she had been with her children and family. She hadn't slept since she got back.

It was a brief conversation. The woman gave Higgs her contact number.

She told him to call her anytime, Higgs said.

Higgs didn't want to bother the woman for a few more days. Soon, he may ask her and her family to get together with him and his family.

Star reporter Tim Evans and Star researcher Cathy Knapp contributed to this story.

Contact Star reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444-6209. Follow her on Twitter: @kristine_guerra.