golfmom
Former Member
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...C80C1F78347743438625746700144898?OpenDocument
2 virtually enslaved for years
St. Louis For two decades, Robert Leitzel wondered what happened to his sister and her husband. The mentally disabled couple had moved from Kansas to Missouri with former landlords, and seemed to disappear.
Leitzel's persistence and a misdelivered letter unraveled a bizarre story of relatives forced to live in squalor in Macon, Mo., enslaved by threats and beatings as they handed their disability checks over to onetime friends who had become virtual captors.
The last chapter was written Thursday in federal court in St. Louis, where Donald Hicks, 70, and his wife, Mary Hicks, 53 were sentenced on a single felony charge of misusing Social Security funds.
2 virtually enslaved for years
St. Louis For two decades, Robert Leitzel wondered what happened to his sister and her husband. The mentally disabled couple had moved from Kansas to Missouri with former landlords, and seemed to disappear.
Leitzel's persistence and a misdelivered letter unraveled a bizarre story of relatives forced to live in squalor in Macon, Mo., enslaved by threats and beatings as they handed their disability checks over to onetime friends who had become virtual captors.
The last chapter was written Thursday in federal court in St. Louis, where Donald Hicks, 70, and his wife, Mary Hicks, 53 were sentenced on a single felony charge of misusing Social Security funds.
