“He usually nailed the door shut but he didn’t this time,” she said about the afternoon of Nov. 26, when she she jumped from the second-story window of the unassuming yellow house in the quaint Dayton Lane Historic District — just yards from the Hamilton Dream Center, while she said her captor was in the basement.
Her ordeal began 10 days earlier, on Nov. 16 when the woman said she’d met William H. Manis, 44, of 904 Campbell Ave. while walking along East Avenue. The woman, who admitted to abusing crack cocaine and sometimes working as a prostitute, said she agreed to go with Manis back to his house for sex.
She said the two first talked for around 30 minutes, with Manis telling her he’d been in prison for stabbing a man five times. Despite that revelation, the woman said he seemed fine. She didn’t think there would be any problems, until they began having sex.
“He stuffed a toboggan hat in my mouth to be quiet and I bit his finger,” which she said is what allegedly set him off.
The woman was then bound at her hands and feet and locked inside a closet. She was raped 18 times over the 10-day period, she said.
“He made me his own little pet,” she said. “He would take me out to bathe me, feed me, change my clothes and rape me.”
The woman, whose stomach is swollen with bruises healing, said she was forced to urinate on herself, allegedly so Manis could wash her. His house was barren, she said with only a couch — no washer and dryer, no bed, no television. During the time she was at Manis’ residence, her baby was being cared for by her family members, and it was not clear whether anyone reported the woman missing.
It was the afternoon of Nov. 26 when she said Manis received word his landlord would be stopping by.
“He hurried to dress me,” she said, adding that in his apparent haste he didn’t nail the closet door shut.
The two men were down in the basement at about 4 p.m. when she made her escape, jumping from the second-story window and injuring her spine after landing on her backside. She made her way to a neighbor, and after knocking didn’t work, she tried the door knob.
“I fell over onto the floor (inside) and screamed for help,” she said. “He’d told me he would kill me, even in public, if I tried to escape. He said he wasn’t going back to prison.”
Loud cries can be heard in the background of the 911 tape.
“I hope this helps some other girls stay off the street,” she said. “It scared me away.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2179 or hpoturalski@coxohio.com.
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