Lee Carter, a 52-year-old Texas rapper who uses the stage name Viper, was arrested by the Houston Police Department on Jan. 4 and was subsequently charged with aggravated kidnapping after he allegedly held a woman captive at his home for years. According to the Houston Chronicle, court documents indicate that upon responding to a call about a kidnapping in progress, officers heard a voice. The voice was later identified as belonging to the person who made the complaint, who said Carter kidnapped her about four or five years ago while she was panhandling near Almeda Genoa Road in Houston. She said that Carter told her to get in his vehicle and took her back home with him.
According to the court documents, the woman alleges that Carter kept her locked up in a garage
attached to his home and fed her a steady diet of drugs, including crack cocaine, and chips, and also repeatedly sexually assaulted her and did not allow her to use the bathroom or shower on a regular basis. The documents allege that Carter would occasionally let her bathe in his house, but she would then be returned to the garage. At a certain juncture, the woman managed to flee by shattering the garage window. She was subsequently picked up by the police and transported to a hospital. However, she was later discharged and Carter resumed holding the woman in captivity. Following this escape attempt, Carter boarded up the window and allegedly threatened the woman with physical harm if she tried to escape again.The court documents allege that on April 7, Carter gave the woman access to a laptop, which she used to contact the police via a Text Now app and informed them that he was holding her against her will. The officer who responded to the call said that the woman in the garage stood around 5’2 and was extremely malnourished, weighing around 70 pounds. After the Houston Fire Department breached the window, officers discovered a mattress that was covered with vomit, bags of chips and Twinkies, and a makeshift toilet. Her hair was “crusty,” according to the documents, and her clothes were “filthy dirty.” She informed the officers that she pleaded with Carter daily to release her from captivity and that she never got a full meal, surviving on snacks.
ABC 13 reports that neighbors described seeing a woman who appeared to be several months pregnant,
crawl out of a window. Jedediah Beights, a neighbor, told the outlet, “At one point, maybe a year ago now, the cops come banging on my door claiming somebody had called from inside the house and was kidnapped or not able to leave on her own. Right then, as the cops are standing at my door, a gal comes crawling out that window just there, just clawing her way out, pregnant, eight months.”Houston Police Department Commander Michael Collins said that the conditions he found the woman in sickened him, telling ABC 13, “It makes me sick as a human being. And I can tell you as a police department, we are here for the citizens of Houston, we are here for the community, and we are here to make sure that this individual and her family gets justice.”
The allegations against Carter were so disturbing, the judge cleared the room before reading the court documents aloud and setting Carter’s bail at $100,000. Despite the allegations that the woman was pregnant when Carter allegedly abducted her, it has not yet been determined if she gave birth or what happened to the child once she did. The woman’s location is also currently unknown, according to the Houston Police Department.
Carter is currently being held at the Harris County Jail and a preliminary hearing for his case has been set for Jan. 8.
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