Marilyn Bagley pleads guilty in sex-slave case
Marilyn Bagley pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday for her role in sex trafficking a 16-year-old girl, whom she and her husband, Ed, allegedly kept as a sex slave in the couple’s Lebanon, Missouri, trailer. The press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office is upsetting, as is the story as a whole (which came out early in 2011).
“By pleading guilty today, Bagley admitted that the victim, identified as ‘Female Victim,’ or FV,’ was subject to sadistic acts of torture that increased in quantity and intensity over a six-year time period. They involved, for example, strangulation, suffocation, breast and vaginal penetration with skewers, and electrical voltage,” the release said.
Prosecutors have said that the victim was mentally disabled, and that the Bagleys invited her to move in with them in 2003 when she was still a minor. The couple then trained her to be a sex slave, prosecutors say.
“Bagley taught FV how to do basic things she did not know how to do like dress, eat, wear makeup, cook and clean. Bagley also admitted that she taught FV how to behave as a sex slave. Sadistic acts were conducted on FV, who would be punished if she did not do as instructed,” the press release said.
Bagley, 47, will be sentenced to probation, which might seem light. But prosecutors say she was victim of physical and emotional abuse for more than 25 years before the victim moved in. “Her participation in the criminal conduct resulted in the abuse being redirected away from her and to the victim,” the office said.
