Woman escapes after being held captive, raped

By Janice Morse

The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON

Held captive in a closet for 10 days and raped 18 times, a young woman says two things kept her alive: complying with “Wild Bill’s” strange demands and thinking about seeing her two small children again.

“He would let me out only when he wanted to talk to me, rape me, feed me or bathe me,” the 22-year-old woman told The Enquirer on Monday, after city police announced they had arrested William Hobert Manis, 44, on 18 rape charges and a kidnapping count.

A friend of Manis’, Mike Hamilton of Milford, says supporters are trying to post his $200,000 bond, and they don’t believe the accusations.

“There is no way he could’ve held anybody hostage without us knowing,” Hamilton said. He and others visited Manis’ Campbell Avenue home repeatedly throughout the 10-day period of the alleged crimes, he said.

But authorities say evidence backs up the woman’s account of her bizarre confinement, and she described how Manis kept it secret.

As he hung out with friends, Manis kept her bound, gagged and under orders not to shift her position at all — or face consequences.

“He would hog-tie me, and tell me not to move. When he came back, if he saw I had changed position at all, he would strip me naked and put me in the attic, and it was as cold in there as it was outside,” she said. “That was my punishment.”

Hamilton Police Capt. Joe Murray said the incident is one of the worst he can recall in his 31-year career.

Jason Phillabaum, a Butler County assistant prosecutor, said that based on what police have told prosecutors, there is ample evidence to proceed against Manis, and that the case deserves “focused attention and aggressive prosecution.”

In 1996-97, Manis served Ohio prison time for aggravated assault. Earlier, he was locked up for nonviolent crimes in North Carolina.

In 1992, Hamilton police arrested Manis on four counts of rape and a kidnapping — charges Middletown police had filed — but that case was dismissed.

Manis is linked to the white supremacist group Aryan Nations, Hamilton police said, and his accuser says Manis described his alignment with that group.

“He basically told me his whole life story,” she said, including his nickname, “Wild Bill.”

“I don’t think he planned on letting me go, or he wouldn’t have told me so much,” she said.

She says Manis, who police said receives disability payments, told her he had been hired to kidnap her and other young women so they could be sold as sex slaves.

The woman admits she met Manis as she trolled gritty East Avenue, prostituting herself to support her drug habit. She hopes to convince other young women: “It ain’t worth it being out there on the streets. I’m done with it.”

When Manis walked up to her Nov. 16, he seemed “totally normal,” she said.

The two chatted as they walked to his rented home in the city’s historic district.

Soon after arriving, Manis turned violent, she said, and tried to shove his knit cap into her mouth. At 160 pounds and 5 feet 8 inches, Manis outweighed the 5-foot-4-inch woman by about 35 pounds. He overtook her, whacked her in the head with a pair of handcuffs, restraining her and binding her mouth with tape, she said.

Manis noticed she couldn’t breathe, she said, so he removed the tape and replaced it with a rope and sock.

Manis would remove the gag from her mouth to allow her to drink soda pop and water. Every second day, he would ration out spaghetti, noodles and chili.

While she ate, Manis spouted off political and social ideology.

She marked how many days had passed by noticing daylight spilling through the cracks of the closet door each morning.

“I was scared to go to sleep at night because I needed to be aware of what was going on at all times,” she said. “I thought there was a chance he would kill me every day.”

She wasn’t sure how she would survive, she just knew she had to.

On Friday, she pounced on the one chance to escape.

In his haste to meet the landlord for a furnace repair, Manis forgot to take his usual precaution: nailing the closet door shut.

After the woman heard no nail being driven, she tried the door and got it to open. She opened a front window and leapt two stories to the ground, landing hard on her backside.

Still cuffed at the wrists and ankles, the woman struggled to her feet and shuffled to the house next door.

That neighbor, who called 911 around 3:30 p.m. Friday, told a dispatcher: “You need to get a police officer to our house like now. We just had a handcuffed girl come through our door, and [she] is in pretty tough shape. She said she got out from the house next door.”

The woman knew she was safe — and headed back to her little ones.

“I didn’t care if I was going to be paralyzed by making that jump. I was coming home to my kids,” she said.

As for Manis, she’s convinced the evidence will keep him locked up.

“What he did to me — 18 counts of rape and a kidnapping — that ain’t no joke,” she said. “He ain’t getting out no time soon.”