SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (KRON) — A teenage girl survived five months of horror in the backyard of a San Leandro house where she was forced to become a sex slave.
According to court documents, a 17-year-old girl lived in a backyard shed and was repeatedly raped by her captors. Before she was rescued, the girl thought about killing herself, police said.
Neighbors told KRON4 that they had no idea a girl was imprisoned for nearly half a year behind a one-story house at 692 Hutchings Drive.
It wasn’t until the girl turned to a second victim for help that she was rescued.
Juan Aguilar, 41, and his wife, Margaret Wilson, 39, were arrested on Oct. 5. by San Leandro Police Department officers. They were booked into Santa Rita Jail with no bail.
They were both charged with forcible rape and human trafficking. Aguilar was also charged with kidnapping.
Investigators said the disturbing chain of events began in January when Aguilar was traveling in Central America. Aguilar found a girl in Honduras, kidnapped her at gunpoint, and threatened to kill her grandmother if she tried to get help from the police, according to court documents.
Aguilar took the girl and drove her over the border through Guatemala, to Mexico. The victim was a virgin before her captor began raping her, police said.
Aguilar handed the girl over to a human smuggler, known as a “coyote,” in Mexico. The coyote sexually assaulted the girl repeatedly in Mexico before he brought her to the United States on May 5.
Police said a third man transported the girl from Texas to the San Francisco Bay Area, where they were met by Aguilar. The girl was taken to Aguilar’s home in San Leandro.
Aguilar raped the girl in the shed repeatedly for five months, police said.
The victim “began to cut herself on the inside of her forearm and threatened to commit suicide when Aguilar would come into the shed to rape her,” police Det. Joanna Villa wrote in court documents.
The wife “groomed” the girl into prostitution, Villa wrote. The couple began taking the girl to San Francisco where she would be forced to participate in “dates,” exchanging sex acts for money. Aguilar would act as “security,” carrying a loaded firearm while the girl was sold for sex trafficking, police said.
In October, the victim confided with one of Aguilar’s nieces. The niece said she had also been raped by Aguilar when she was a young girl, according to investigators.
The niece’s mother took both girls to the San Francisco Police Department to report the crimes.
Wilson and Aguilar remain behind bars. The couple pleaded not guilty and a pretrial hearing is set for Nov. 30 at the East County Hall of Justice.