HOUSTON – A man has been arrested, accused of kidnapping a woman and holding her against her will at a southeast Houston home for several years.
Lee Carter, 52, is charged with aggravated kidnapping. He was arrested Thursday. He is in the Harris County Jail with a bond set at $100,000.
Despite getting out of the situation back in April, on Friday, Houston Police were back out at the home investigating a tip that the woman might still be there. Police performed a welfare check at the home along Perry Street.
The Investigation
“They made the arrest for the outstanding aggravated kidnaping warrant,” said Michael Collins, Commander with the Houston Police Department. “The concern is that we possibly had an individual located inside this residence, um, perhaps locked, perhaps locked inside one of the interior rooms”
The initial incident happened in April 2023.
According to court documents, officers responded on April 7, 2023, to a home located in the 5200 block of Perry Street in southeast Houston for a kidnapping in progress. When they arrived, they heard a woman’s voice coming from a window of the home. Officers began to speak to the woman who told them about four or five years before she was pregnant and panhandling off Almeda Genoa. At that time, the suspect, identified as Lee Carter, pulled over to give the woman a dollar.
The court documents said Carter asked the woman if she needed help. The woman said she needed help and Carter said he would help her and told her to get in his car. The woman got in his car and he drove to his home on Perry Street where the woman said he had been holding her against her will for the past 4-5 years.
The documents said the woman told police Carter repeatedly forced her to have sex with him, forced her to take drugs, and prevented her from leaving the house by locking her inside a garage. The woman said she did not have a shower in the garage, so from time to time, Carter would allow her to leave the room to shower.
The woman said she never saw anyone else in the home while she was kept there, but could hear Carter arguing with other women while she showered. She said on numerous occasions, when Carter would take her from the garage to the home, she attempted to run away and escape. Each time, Carter would run after her, grab her, and return her to the garage and lock her inside again.
The woman said she pled with Carter to let her go almost daily, but was threatened with physical violence. She said when she begged him to let her leave, Carter would force her to take pills along with crack cocaine and other illegal drugs, causing her to become physically unable to leave. She said she told Carter on numerous occasions that she didn’t want to take the drugs, but he continued to force her to take them.
The documents said the woman told police Carter provided her with chips and snacks for food, but she was hardly able to get a full meal. When she spoke to police, the woman said she had not showered in almost two months. She said she was able to text police because Carter allowed her to use his laptop where she used a Text Now application to contact 911 dispatch and tell them she was being held against her will.
The woman said she had been able to escape once before, but she ended up in the hospital and Carter came and picked her up and locked her in the garage again. He then put up boards on the exterior of the garage window to prevent her from escaping again.
The documents said there was a makeshift toilet inside of the garage that did not flush, a sink with faucet and dripping spigot, a mattress covered with vomit, assorted chips and a few Twinkies.
The documents said that officers said the victim was “extremely malnourished” and weighing “approximately 70 pounds with a pungent stench”. Her clothes were very dirty and she had no shoes.
A neighbor told police they never actually saw anything going on at the home, but from conversations with Carter, they believed there may have been illegal activity happening in the house.
They were actually at my door talking to me when a gal came clawing out of that window that you see barricaded up,” said Jedediah Beights.
The neighbor told police they believed there may have been human trafficking or that porn may have been being made with the women at the home.
“All of it gave me a red flag,” Beights said. “Everything from day one was a red flag. He didn’t do anything. That wasn’t a red flag.”
At one point, Carter actually told Beights about the women who he kept inside the home.
“He had just kind of explained that, um, he had some girls that were in there, and he never used the word locked up, but, um, he was kind of protecting them from themselves,” he said. “From the sounds of things, she would call him his boyfriend. Her boyfriend. So, I mean, it was kind of a mutual weirdness, I guess.”
The Arrest
On Thursday, the Houston Police Department arrested Carter.
He was booked into the Harris County Jail where he’s facing a charge of aggravated kidnapping.
The judge set his bail at $100,000 and he is ordered not to have contact with the victim. Among several conditions of release, if Carter bails out, he will be required to wear an ankle monitor.
A public defender told the judge that Carter has lived in Houston his entire life and is employed as a real estate broker. Additionally, the public defender said that Carter has seven children, ranging from one to 31 years old.
Where’s The Victim?
After hours of knocking on Carter’s front door asking if anyone was inside, police officers made forcible entry to the home.
“Due to the very serious nature of the warrant and aggravated kidnaping, we had exigent circumstances to make entry,” Collins said. “We would not have entered a residence without a warrant unless we had serious concerns about somebody’s safety. And again, due to that, the nature and the severity of the allegations in that incident report and the complainant’s statement.”
Inside, they only found a TV playing and a dog, which was rescued by BARK.
The woman Carter is accused of holding captive, sexually abusing and forced to take drugs was nowhere to be found.
Houston Police tell KPRC 2 that they do have other leads to follow, but are not able to release any additional information.