Alleged Human Beings Pay Debt by Giving Teen Daughter to Old Man
(Photo: ABC News)
It sounds like something out of a very old book, or maybe a nightmare, but this week police raided the house of a sketchy middle-aged man in Pennsylvania, and they found him with 12 girls living in his house.
Everything about the case of 51-year-old Lee Kaplan is horrifying. The girls found in his home ranged in age from six months to 18 years, and the 6-month-old and a 3-year-old were reportedly the daughter of the 18-year-old, who had her first baby when she was 14.
Worst of all, that young woman was allegedly “gifted” to Kaplan to pay a debt, police are saying.
The police went out to check on Kaplan’s house today after a neighbor complained about the condition and safety of the home, and about having seen scared-looking little girls in blue dresses living there. Kaplan allegedly had been telling people that there were no children at his house, but after another neighbor said Kaplan was seen coming home with a baby, one of the neighbors decided to call it in.
“I just wasn’t gonna let go,” said neighbor Jen Fetz to ABC News. “I saw a couple girls last week standing in the driveway. They just looked unhappy and sad and again in the blue dresses, and I’ve been telling my husband for years something isn’t right, something isn’t right.”
Police are saying that the 18-year-old found in Kaplan’s home was actually given to him by her parents to thank Kaplan for helping save their farm. The police went to the girl’s parents, and her father told them that they’d “researched the legality of it on the Internet.”
The parents describe themselves as born-again Christians, and they used to be Amish. They reportedly run a puppy mill.
The father told police that he knew their daughter was 14 years old when Kaplan got her pregnant, and yet they sent their nine other daughters to live with him as well, once they lost their farm. Police say there’s no evidence that Kaplan had sexually assaulted any of the girls besides the eldest, but nobody will be surprised if it turns out that he did.
The couple only gave away their girls. Their 19-year-old son still lives with them, and he told reporters that his parents were “good parents.” It’s tough to blame him, knowing that he grew up with a set of parents who would give their daughters away to be sex slaves. One hopes that every kid involved in this story will get a lot of help and therapy, because this is the stuff nightmares are made of.
