Man arrested for torturing women in his basement
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) A Fort Wayne man has been charged with a slew of felonies after police said he held two women in his basement and tortured them.
Morgan Govan, 37, in the 2700 block of Chestnut Street, faces two counts of aggravated battery, three counts of criminal confinement, and one count each of possession of a narcotic drug and intimidation – all felonies – related to a Monday incident. He was arrested late Monday.
According to a probable cause affidavit, an “extremely injured” woman showed up at her grandmother’s home around 2:30 p.m. Her family, then, called police.
The woman was taken to a local hospital with severe bruises to her left eye and face, bruises and a cut to her right eye, a bloody mouth, cuts on each of her arms, bruises to her back from beatings and a cut to the back of her head from a claw hammer, the affidavit said.
The woman told police the incident began at a Lima Road storage unit. She said she had been clean from heroin for a week and a half, but while she was on the drug, her dealer – Govan – had placed a storage unit in her name. Since, the woman said he’d been calling her for the key. The woman told police she finally agreed to meet him to hand over the key, and while at the storage unit, Govan said things were missing from inside and became “violently aggravated,” according to the affidavit.
The woman said she told Govan that she’d loaned the key to another woman, who Govan had prostituted out and kept on heroin, the affidavit said. The woman said Govan then became angry and tossed her into her own car and drove to the Chestnut Street home, the affidavit said.
During the drive, the woman said Govan punched her some 10 times, the affidavit said.
At the home, the pair saw the second woman, and she admitted to taking the items from the storage unit, the affidavit said.
Goven then took both women and threw them into the basement of the home, laid them face down and bound their arms behind their backs with cable, the affidavit said. The first woman told police he then kicked her in the head more than 100 times, hit her with a claw hammer and tortured them, the affidavit said.
Govan told the woman he was going to kill them both, the affidavit said.
While he was upstairs, though, the first woman told police that the second woman slipped out of the cable and ran off, the affidavit said. The first woman said after that escape, Govan acted like he couldn’t kill her now because he figured the second woman would go to the police, the affidavit said.
Govan then picked her up and took her to the door and threw her out, the woman said, according to the affidavit. She said Govan told her if she went to police, he’d kill her whole family, the affidavit said.
Police also spoke with the second woman later. She said Govan, who had supplied her with 3.5 grams of heroin a day, was mad about items stolen from his storage unit – items the woman said she traded to another heroin dealer for drugs, the affidavit said. Govan then tortured them, she said, stomping on their heads and bodies for a steady 45 minutes, the affidavit said. The woman said Govan was so aggressively beating them that he would have to stop for breaks, the affidavit said.
The woman said after she escaped, she ran to the nearest house where she saw people and used the phone, the affidavit said. She told police she suffered 50 bumps and contusions all over her body, as well as dizziness, a possible broken left foot and issues with back and leg, the affidavit said.
Police arrested Govan later. During an interview with police, Govan became “uncontrollable and lawyered up,” the affidavit said.
The case laid out by prosecutors appears to tell a different story.