"They said she's not going anywhere," he said.Īt that point he got into a fight with House, who he said threatened him with a sawed-off shotgun. Higgs, a former motorcycle club member, testified that to help Lockwood escape he made up a story that he was going to sell her, sharing the money with House and Tooley. "I said 'what planet are you on?'" Higgs said.Īt first Higgs said, he thought Lockwood was there consensually, but as the weekend continued, he said he became more and more convinced she was in fact being held against her will. He said he was shocked when Tooley told him they had a woman in a cage in their trailer. The man who rescued her, Ronald Higgs, told the jury he was Tooley's ex-husband. I didn't think I would make it out alive," she said. "I was scared I would get sold and never see my family again. Lockwood also said she was too scared to run, afraid she would be shot or that her treatment would be even worse if she failed to get away. She said she was often threatened with being killed or sold to others. She said she stopped counting after 10 or 12 times. Later, when she saw chloroform bottles in the trailer, she said she assumed that it was used to make her pass out.ĭuring her stay at the trailer she said she was raped numerous times by House. She said she woke up blindfolded and tied to a bed. I think I passed out from the smell," she said. "He came at me with something on my face. Once there, she said they smoked marijuana and she drank vodka she brought until it was time to leave. Lockwood said she agreed to go back to Stewartsville and hang out with them because House told her he would bring her back to Evansville in a few hours. She said she met House on the evening of July 9 as she was walking down Fulton Avenue in Evansville on her way to a women's shelter where she had been staying. Lockwood was living in Evansville at the time but she said she grew up near Poseyville, Indiana, and knew House from school and knew Tooley from working at a restaurant there. Hooks on a wall and restraints on a mattress also were consistent with parts of Lockwood's story, said Gentry and EPD Officer Don Vondersher, another crime scene investigator. 410 shotgun ammunition, knives, a small club, a bat, two whips and bottles of chloroform. Jurors saw photographs and heard Gentry's testimony about numerous straps, belts, ropes and restraints found throughout the trailer, as well as. It measured 27-inches wide and tall and 49-inches long, he said. It was screwed together, reinforced with glue, screwed into the floor and wall, and covered with drywall and paneling to blend in. He said the cage was constructed out of baby crib slats with a heavy table top for a lid and a locking door. "There was not a lot of ability to move around in there," Gentry said. He said it took officers three hours to remove it. Gentry told the jury that the cage in which Lockwood said she was kept was built into the wall of a bedroom closet in the trailer so that it was difficult to see. I was scared," she said.ĭuring that time, she said, he repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and threatened her. She testified that House frequently kept her in the cage for much of the last half of the 59 days she was at his trailer. Lockwood was the prosecutor's lead witness Tuesday. Also charged in the case is Kendra Tooley, 45, who was House's fiancée at the time. House, 38, is accused of kidnapping, confining and raping Joelle Lockwood in his Stewartsville, Indiana, trailer home from July 10 to Sept. The case straddled both Posey and Vanderburgh counties and the Evansville Police Department assisted the Posey County Sheriff's Office investigating it. allegedly held an Evansville woman captive last year in his trailer was so well built that it had to be cut out to be removed.Įvansville Police Department Officer Ben Gentry, who was lead crime scene investigator, testified about the cage during the first day of evidence in House's trial in Posey Circuit Court. An investigator testified Tuesday that a wooden cage in which Ricky House Jr.
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