Man Charged With Holding Woman Captive in Attic for 6 Weeks

A plumbing problem led a Massachusetts landlord to a horrific scene in a home's attic. Prosecutors say a 29-year-old man, Jordende Pierre, held a woman there for roughly six weeks, allegedly assaulting and sexually trafficking her in an unfinished space where she was found naked, malnourished, and living with a bucket for a toilet, NBC News reports. The landlord and her husband called 911 after discovering the woman and a man in the attic of the Malden home; the man fled. "She clearly had not eaten, she was dirty. She was living, essentially, in squalor in this attic area," Middlesex County Assistant DA Jacob McCrindle said during a hearing on Friday.

The landlord, Qing Sun, said she went to the multi-unit property with her husband on Sept. 20 to investigate a water leak and they eventually found the "disturbing situation." She said Pierre is not one of her tenants and she had no knowledge of anybody living in the attic. "I'm very happy to be able to help this young girl get back to her family," she said. Prosecutors said Pierre kidnapped the woman after meeting her on a dating app and picking her up from a rehab facility, WCVB reports. Pierre supplied her with drugs, sexually assaulted her, and arranged for at least six other men to visit for paid sex, removing the attic doorknob to keep her from leaving, prosecutors said.

She was forced to "engage in sexual encounters with men who would come to the house on dates that were arranged by this defendant," prosecutors said Friday. Pierre, who was already out on bail in an unrelated assault case, was arrested Thursday in a multi-agency operation and is being held pending an Oct. 6 hearing. He has been charged with trafficking a person for sexual servitude, kidnapping, and indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older.

• Neighbors say police have visited the house, nicknamed "Frankenstein's home," multiple times in the past, NBC reports. "We've heard rumors about that house in the past," neighbor Tarra Sewell says. "I would never, ever imagine something happening so close to my home," she says. "That's really, really scary."