Disturbing Details Emerging about Amish Girls' Abduction

A preliminary hearing was held yesterday for Nicole Vaisey, one of two people charged with second-degree kidnapping of two Amish sisters Aug. 13 in upstate New York.

Vaisey and Steven Howells had been prowling for victims, according to news reports.

According to nytv.com, St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Brooks Bigwarfe testified at the hearing that Vaisey told him about their abduction plan.

“She called it a shopping trip and they wanted to make the two girls their slaves,” Bigwarfe said.

Howells waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

The girls, 7-year-old Delila Miller and 12-year-old Fannie Miller, were wearing Amish blue dresses, blue aprons and black bonnets when they went to wait on a customer who drove up to their family’s vegetable stand at around 7:20 p.m. When the car left the girls were gone.

According to news reports, Vaisey, 29, and Howells, 39, lured the children to the car to look at a puppy.

The girls were taken to the couple’s house—where, according to news reports, Howells may have been building a sound-proofed room—and shackled together. St. Lawrence County officials said that the girls had been sexually abused and that at least one of them had been sedated, according to nytv.com.

Then their kidnappers, seeing the news and internet furor over the kidnapping and learning about the massive search effort in the area, grew worried. They drove the girls to an isolated place and left them there, the detective told the court.

However, Howells and Vaisey had plans for more.

“We felt that there was the definite potential that there was going to be other victims,” St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin Wells told the news media.

Vaisey’s attorney, Bradford Riendeau, told the New York Times that Howells was abusive to his client in their master/slave relationship.

The investigation continues.