compiled by Patrick H. Moore
In a story quite reminiscent of Ariel Castro, a Missouri sadist, Edward Bagley, Sr., 46, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for holding a female runaway captive for six years in his house trailer in Lebanon, Missouri during which time she was tortured, raped on a more or less daily basis, and forced to act as a sex slave for Bagley’s client-customers, two of whom are also receiving lengthy prison terms. Oddly, when she turned 18 in 2004, the victim — who is referred to as FV, for Female Victim, in the court documents — was forced by Bagley to sign a one-sided contract in which she agreed to serve as Bagley’s “sex slave, with a term that never ended.”
Bagley accepted the 20-year sentence as part of a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty to one of 11 counts of having sex with a minor.
Arturo Garcia of The Raw Story writes:
Bagley admitted to luring the victim…into living with him and his wife Marilyn in their home in Lebanon, Missouri in December 2002, when the victim was a 16-year-old runaway. The Bagleys trapped her until February 2009.
Edward Bagley was also ordered to pay $123,000 to cover the cost of future counseling and medical care for the victim. Two of Bagley’s customers, 34-year-old Bradley Cook and 53-year-old Dennis Henry, were sentenced to 20 years and 10 years, respectively, for sex trafficking. All three men will be ordered to submit to mandatory supervision after their release.
Cook and Henry would visit Bagley’s trailer in Lebanon, Mo., and pay to torture and have sex with the girl during violent sessions that lasted for hours. In court, the girl testified that Cook, who online handle was “PutHer2GoodUse”, “laughed when I suffered, while I cried and begged.”
As part of their “contract defense”, Bagley, who insisted on being called Master Ed, and his wife, argued that they did not have sex with the victim until she was 18 years old, an argument that not unexpectedly got them absolutely nowhere with U.S. District Court judge Dean Whipple.
During her confinement, the Bagleys marketed the victim online for sadomasochistic sex shows, where others were allowed to watch and participate. The victim was water-boarded, hung upside down, whipped, strangled, electrocuted and pierced with needles. When she became pregnant, which apparently happened frequently, she was subjected to forced abortions using household items like vacuums and coat hangers.
Although the majority of the abuse took place in the trailer viewed by online watchers or in-person participants, Bagley also sent his female slave on the road. He forced her to work in a Lebanon strip club and would escort her to customers’ homes for private shows.
In 2006, Bagley drove the girl to visit another Lebanon resident, Michael “The Rodent” Stokes. She arrived naked except for a dog collar and ankle collars with locks. Bagley produced a duffle bag of torture tools and ordered the victim to “put on a show for us.” According to the Federal prosecutors, Bagley also used a photo of the girl’s vagina sewn shut to entice Stokes.
Stokes stated that he was impressed that “someone had that much control over someone” and “had never seen anything like it”. He was so impressed, in fact, that he soon became a regular customer, paying in steaks, hamburgers, cigarettes, personalized playing cards and cash to see the girl shocked with a crank phone attached to her vagina and anus.
Either Stokes or Bagley fronted $1,000 of their own money to send the victim to California for a sexual bondage photo shoot for Taboo magazine, which was then used to promote her at strip clubs.
The prosecutors stated that Bagley initially groomed the girl with drugs and pornography after his son introduced her as his girlfriend.
Of those convicted, only Marilyn Bagley is not expected to serve time. The prosecutors consider her to be one of Bagley’s victims and have offered her probation.
The defendants are jointly and severally libel for restitution of $738,250.
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A few observations:
This case is clearly reminiscent of the Ariel Castro case with the key difference being that Bagley had a diabolical entrepreneurial streak and made no attempt to keep the victim’s presence a secret, but rather handed her off to other perverts to be abused by them.
In the past two weeks, we have been confronted by three cases of sexual abuse that have received national attention. In the case of Cherice Moralez, the Montana suicide victim whose sexual abuse began when she was 14, embattled Judge G. Todd Baugh gave the abuser, Stacey Rambold, a mere 30 days and initially largely blamed the relationship on the victim. In the northern Michigan case from a few days ago, former schoolteacher Neal Erickson received an indeterminate sentence of 15 to 30 years for engaging in a three year sexual affair with a student that began when the boy was 14.
Now, in the Bagley case, the defendant got 20 years for conduct that was arguably far worse than what occurred in either of the other two cases. Thus, it is apparent that sentencing in these cases is very much a subjective matter. If Neal Erickson deserved 15 years for his illicit relationship, Edward Bagley would appear to deserve at least 75 years in Federal prison. In the case of Stacey Rambold, the sentence was clearly much too short.
If I were the judge in the Bagley case, assuming I had the authority, I would sentence Bagley to life in prison. It’s somewhat of a no-brainer. However, I struggle to arrive at a fair sentence in the other two cases and, truthfully, am glad that I am not the one tasked with making the decisions.
Click below to views Cenk Uygur’s discussion of this case on The Young Turks: