GOOD HELP IS HARD TO FIND AND KEEP

Texas couple 'kidnapped a woman and kept her chained to their bed for two weeks while forcing her to do housework'

By Chris Pleasance

Daily Mail
January 31, 2018

A Texas couple kept a woman prisoner for two weeks by chaining her up in their home while forcing her to do housework, police say.

Jean-Claude DeMars, 51, and Charlotte Kelly DeMars, 48, were arrested on the morning of January 26 in Ovilla after police were given a tip that a woman was being held against her will inside their home.

The victim, 51, who is not being identified, said she was kidnapped by Mr DeMars on January 16 when she blacked out after he gave her a drink at a gas station.

When she awoke she found herself inside the DeMars' home and was told she would be 'Charlotte's slave', according to an affidavit seen by The Dallas Morning News.

The woman said she had been involved in a years-long affair with Mr DeMars and he had been paying for a hotel for her to stay in.

He eventually stopped the payments and she was forced to move into a women's shelter, which is where he retrieved her from on the day of the kidnapping.

She claims the DeMars' kept her shackled by her hands and ankles to a bed and she was told she would have to pick up dog feces inside the house.

The couple allegedly gave her a bucket as a toilet, and only unchained her for as long as it took her to clean.

She eventually alerted a friend to what was happened after convincing Mr DeMars to give her a tablet computer.

When officers arrived they found the woman tied to the bed. She was freed and given medical treatment, while detectives seized hand and leg cuffs, chains and collars that were found inside.

Mr DeMars admitted to officers that he had picked the woman up from the shelter, but said she became 'loopy' and passed out on the ride home after they got drinks at the gas station.

He also admitted chaining the woman up, but said he did so because she asked him to, otherwise she would kill them in their sleep.

The couple are being held on a bond of $150,000. Investigations continue.

It comes after David and Louise Turpin, also from Texas, were accused of keeping their 13 children shackled inside a home described as a 'house of horrors'.

The pair allegedly kept the children in 'dark and foul-smelling surroundings' for years while starving them and subjecting them to beatings, including strangulation.

The accusations only emerged after one of the teenagers, a 17-year-old girl, who was so emaciated she looked age 10, staged a courageous escape by climbing through a window, executing a plan she’d crafted with her siblings for two years.