Kidnapping, sexual assault investigation to take days at Excelsior Springs home: Police
An investigation at an Excelsior Springs home is expected to take multiple days after neighbors helped a woman who ran from the house screaming for help and alleging she had been sexually assaulted.
Several neighbors told The Star that a woman exited the house seeking help around 7:40 a.m. Friday. She appeared to have been beaten and was handcuffed, and said there were two other female victims.
Police in Excelsior Springs were contacted at 7:47 a.m. to investigate the incident in the 300 block of Old Orchard Street. The woman reported to police that she had been held against her will and sexually assaulted, Clay County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Sarah Boyd said in a news release.
“When we made contact with her, it was readily apparent that she had been held against her will for a significant period of time,” said Excelsior Springs police Lt. Ryan Dowdy.
She was transported to a hospital and was in stable condition. The victim was from the metro area. Her family had joined her at the hospital.
Dowdy said he expected the department to submit the case for charging Friday night.
Police declined to say if other victims were suspected or had been located. A cadaver dog was brought out to search the property, but police declined to comment on any findings.
Uniformed police officers and plainclothes detectives maintained a heavy presence on the block through Friday evening.
Investigators were seen going through a pile of trash in the backyard of the ranch-style residence, and other neighbors reported witnessing the removal of a blue barrel from the basement into the yard, which was placed under an evidence tent that had been set up.
A truck was also moved into an evidence area, Dowdy said.
Several neighbors continued to watch the scene of their front yards, porches and driveways.
Missy Hancock, a neighbor who lives on the next street, said for the three years she saw the resident’s backyard, it was trashy and always filled with junk. She said the man who lives there was around before she moved to the neighborhood.
She tried to speak to him once since they were neighbors, she said. But, she added:“He wasn’t having it.”
Tammy Stewart, an Excelsior Springs resident, said recent crimes in the area have put her and her fiancée on edge. On Saturday, a man shot at police, injuring one officer. Police returned fire, striking him in the head. The man, later identified as Carl J. Carrell, 65, died.
Stewart also said she was friends and neighbors with Theresa Bass, a mother of five who was shot and killed last month in Excelsior Springs. The victim’s husband Keith Bass has been charged with first-degree murder.
Police asked for the community to be patient as they continued to search the Old Orchard Street home so they could get “justice for the victims and make sure that she is taken care of and that this case doesn’t fall by the wayside,” Dowdy said.
