An Alabama sex ring was uncovered after authorities investigated the case of a teen that went missing two years ago, finding a link within her family. The "dark and twisted" incestuous Alabama sex ring reportedly involved the missing teen's adult relatives and three family friends.
The teen who went missing in 2012 and linked to the Alabama sex ring was 19-year-old Brittney Wood. She was last seen with her uncle Donnie Holland, who was coincidentally under investigation for shocking sex crimes at the time.
When Wood disappeared in May 30, 2012, Holland committed shortly after. He died from a bullet. It is only, two years later, that the Alabama sex ring emerged, showing there could have been widespread sexual abuse within the Alabama family.
The investigation revealed quite publicly the Alabama sex ring, which authorities describe as a "dark, twisted tale of perversion in the working-class neighbourhoods" and wasteland of coastal Alabama.
Following the investigation, eight adult relatives and three family friends of the 19-year-old have been charged with dozens of felonies in two counties. Authorities say they have been part of the incestuous Alabama sex ring wherein family members shared children for group sex.
According to prosecutors, Holland was the leader in the horrific practice, which is now described as the largest sex ring uncovered in Alabama. The missing teen, Wood, was a likely victim and key witness.
"Brittney could have been huge," according to prosecutor Teresa Heinz. "She could have corroborated so many things."
Wood is reportedly presumed dead, though authorities have not found a trace of her body and nobody charged for her disappearance.
Two of Wood's uncles and an older brother have pleaded guilty to sex charges despite Wood being unable to testify. This month, jurors reportedly convicted a one of Holland's friends on multiple sex charges in the first trial.
Other members of Wood's family likely involved in the Alabama sex ring await trial. They include the 19-year-old's mother, Chessie Wood, and two of her aunts, according to Metro.
Chessie denied involvement in any crime. However, she revealed some of her closest relatives have abused children, including her daughter.
"There are innocent people in this and there are guilty people in this," the 39-year-old said in an interview into the Alabama sex ring. "I don't know how the judicial system is going to figure it all out because they're not the sharpest tools in the shed."
Meanwhile, Chessie has reportedly been accused of having sex with a young female relative. She added that she had no idea about the Alabama sex ring apparently occurring within her family until her daughter disappeared.
"The No. 1 thing here is to find Brittney. The No. 2 thing is to get all these sick (people) off the streets," she told in the interview.
The case of the Alabama sex ring has apparently gotten so immense that officials don't know the exact number of minors inside and outside the family who could have been victims to incest. According to authorities, children are estimated to be within the age range of 11 to 16 children. They are reportedly around the ages of 3 or 4 when they were first molested or made to watch adult relatives during drug-fueled orgies.
The children of the adult suspects have now been placed under foster care or are now under the care of relatives uninvolved in the Alabama sex ring crimes.
So far, Brittney is reportedly not one of the victims in any of the cases filed involving children in her family. However, investigation into the horrific acts committed in her family were only looked into after she and her uncle Donnie went missing and died respectively.
The night Brittney disappeared, cellphone records and witness accounts indicate that she left west Mobile with Holland and crossed Mobile Bay into Baldwin County. Two days later, Holland was found inside his SUV by his wife and one of her friends, shot in the rear of his head behind an ear. Authorities reportedly found the location of the wound an odd spot to be self-inflicted.
"We didn't even realize she was missing until after they found him shot," said Hanke after Wood disappeared shrouding mystery into Holland's death and the Alabama sex ring.
Three weeks following investigations into Wood's disappearance, two of Woods's uncles, Dustin Kent and Scott Wood, were arrested. They later pleaded guilty to rape and sodomy. Aunts and family friends were also charged later on.
This month, 50-year-old Billy Brownlee, a family friend of the Woods, was convicted in Baldwin County after sexually abusing a girl in the Holland family when she was about 12.
Wendy, Donnie Holland's 35-year-old wife, is also set for trial in early December, reports the Associated Press.
Still, it remains a mystery how the Alabama sex ring could have gone on for years between between that number of people in the family, and without any one being charged until 2012. One girl in the family reportedly got sexually abused as early as 2008. Welfare workers instead found the complaint unsubstantiated.
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