http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3590598
Inside a shed on a remote hillside of this coalfield community, authorities say a young black woman was tortured for days, sexually assaulted, beaten and forced to eat rat droppings.
Her captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her and made her drink from a toilet, according to criminal complaints.
It wasn't until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff's deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended and she was able to limp to safety, arms outstretched as she cried, "Help me!"
"I don't understand such a horrific crime being committed here," said Johnny Meade, pastor of the community's Apostolic Church of God in the Name of Christ Jesus.
The FBI is now looking into possible civil rights violations, agency spokesman Bill Crowley said, authorities in West Virginia said they were investigating the case as a possible hate crime.
At one point, an assailant cut the woman's ankle with a knife and used the N-word in telling her she was victimized because she is black, authorities said. They said the young was also forced to eat dog feces.
Investigators are still trying to determine how the woman ended up at the property and whether she knew any of the six people arrested or two others, suspected of driving her to the home, who are being sought, said Logan County Chief Sheriff's Deputy V.K. Dingess.
Police tape now surrounds the entrances to the beige-and-brown mobile home where Megan Williams, 20, was found. An extension cord runs from the home to the cramped shed, which authorities say she was held in with a portable stereo, a locker and a power saw.
The Associated Press generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name. Carmen Williams said she wanted people to know what her daughter endured.
"I don't understand a human being doing another human being the way they did my daughter," Carmen Williams said Tuesday from her daughter's hospital room. "I didn't know there were people like that out here."
Inside a shed on a remote hillside of this coalfield community, authorities say a young black woman was tortured for days, sexually assaulted, beaten and forced to eat rat droppings.
Her captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her and made her drink from a toilet, according to criminal complaints.
It wasn't until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff's deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended and she was able to limp to safety, arms outstretched as she cried, "Help me!"
"I don't understand such a horrific crime being committed here," said Johnny Meade, pastor of the community's Apostolic Church of God in the Name of Christ Jesus.
The FBI is now looking into possible civil rights violations, agency spokesman Bill Crowley said, authorities in West Virginia said they were investigating the case as a possible hate crime.
At one point, an assailant cut the woman's ankle with a knife and used the N-word in telling her she was victimized because she is black, authorities said. They said the young was also forced to eat dog feces.
Investigators are still trying to determine how the woman ended up at the property and whether she knew any of the six people arrested or two others, suspected of driving her to the home, who are being sought, said Logan County Chief Sheriff's Deputy V.K. Dingess.
Police tape now surrounds the entrances to the beige-and-brown mobile home where Megan Williams, 20, was found. An extension cord runs from the home to the cramped shed, which authorities say she was held in with a portable stereo, a locker and a power saw.
The Associated Press generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name. Carmen Williams said she wanted people to know what her daughter endured.
"I don't understand a human being doing another human being the way they did my daughter," Carmen Williams said Tuesday from her daughter's hospital room. "I didn't know there were people like that out here."
but this isn't the first time similar has happened..