Man accused of ‘marrying’ stepdaughter
A rape suspect has been arrested in Mexico in a bizarre case that involves accusations he held his stepdaughter captive for 19 years after “marrying” her in Oklahoma when she was 11.
Henri Michele Piette, 62, was arrested Thursday. He was being returned Friday to Oklahoma, where he was charged last month with first-degree rape and other offenses.
The rape victim, Rosalynn Michelle McGinnis, was able to escape with her children last year in Mexico and “made her way to the U.S. Embassy,” investigators reported in court affidavits.
McGinnis, now 33, has spoken out about her ordeal since returning to the United States. She told People magazine, “I want the world to know. I want him to be stopped and I want justice to be served.”
She told the magazine she was raped, beaten with baseball bats, stabbed, choked unconscious and shot during her time with Piette. “I cried every night,” she said.
Piette is charged in Wagoner County District Court. He is accused of first raping McGinnis when she was 11 or 12 on a bunk bed in a back room of her home in Wagoner. She told investigators Piette “married” her in a van in Wagoner when she was around 11 and even gave her a ring, according to court affidavits. A son of Piette told the FBI in January that he performed the “ceremony” in the van when he was 15.
Piette “took” McGinnis in January 1997 from a school in Poteau after her mother left him because of assaults, investigators reported. McGinnis had been living with her mother at a women’s shelter in Poteau.
“After being introduced to ... Piette’s other children as their new mother, they began traveling to numerous locations throughout the United States and abroad including ... Texas, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico,” an FBI special agent reported in one court affidavit.
Piette changed their names repeatedly “in an attempt to stay hidden,” the FBI agent reported.
They first lived in Tulsa after she was taken from her mother and then in Oklahoma City, according to the court records. Piette would come back occasionally to Oklahoma and force McGinnis “to mail letters just so people would believe” she was still in the state, the FBI agent reported.
“McGinnis stated that she was sexually assaulted multiple times a day almost every day while she was with Piette,” according to the court affidavits.
She fled with eight of her children, People magazine reported. A son had ran away earlier and they have since been reunited.
She told the magazine that their marriage ceremony in the van was the day before he married her mother.
The Oklahoman does not normally identify rape victims unless they choose to go public. Wagoner County District Attorney Jack Thorp on Friday commended the “excellent work” of the FBI and cooperation from federal prosecutors “that has aided us in the capture and extradition of the fugitive Henri Piette.”
The district attorney said Piette is presumed innocent.
The FBI said Piette “has resided in Mexico and ... Central America for a very long time and has deep ties to criminal organizations in Mexico.