A northeast Arkansas man is accused of making a runaway teenage girl his “sex slave,” repeatedly raping her while she lived with him and his family, officials say.
The Sharp County sheriff’s office arrested Jacob M. Gibson, 22, of Cave City on Sept. 4 after his mother, Rossann Gibson, responded to a “frantic phone call” that afternoon from the 17-year-old victim, who was incomprehensible, according to the affidavit.
He faces three counts of rape, one count of kidnapping and one count of trafficking of persons, all class Y felonies, records show.
When the call abruptly ended, Rossann Gibson told officials she “raced home” from church to the home where she, her son and Jacob Gibson's stepfather lived on Brickle Springs Road in Cave City. There, she found Jacob Gibson and the girl locked in a shed.
Rossann Gibson was able to convince her son to open the shed door, at which point the teenager ran in the direction of the woman’s vehicle.
Away from the home, the teenager told Rosann Gibson her account of what Jacob Gibson had done to her over a week-long period, including forcing her to perform numerous sexual acts.
Jacob Gibson told the sheriff's office that their sexual encounters began two months after they met, adding that when a request for her to perform sexual acts on him was not met on his birthday and nearly three months after, he "collected what he was owed."
The teenager and Gibson met after he was unable to meet up with his biological father in Washington, authorities said. They then traveled to Arkansas together.
Soon after arriving in Cave City, the teenager said, Jacob Gibson cut off contact with her family and began to dictate her interactions with his own family. She added that her living arrangement at the home became increasingly worse with the man's abuse of methamphetamine.
Rossann Gibson said she began to fear for the teenager's safety when she began to see the girl less frequently and believed that "something hadn't been right for some time" but didn't have enough evidence to seek help.
Gibson tested positive for methamphetamine and THC at the Sharp County jail, where he remained as of Friday afternoon.
Read Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.