How Cops Stumbled on 115 Hostages in Texas Home

(Newser) – Houston police last Wednesday uncovered a grim building covered in human waste and packed with 115 people held hostage inside. Court papers filed in the case against five alleged human smugglers provide more insight into how the "stash house" came to be, and how police uncovered it. The Houston Chronicle reports that the tip came from a worried grandmother, who reached out to local police after being contacted by a smuggler who demanded $13,000 in order to transport her daughter and two young grandchildren to Chicago—a trip the woman said her daughter had paid the smugglers $15,000 to facilitate. Pay the ransom, the grandmother was told, or the smugglers would "make her family disappear." KPRC previously reported the 24-year-old and her children didn't show up at a prescribed meeting place last Tuesday night.

The grandmother's tip brought police to the Pearland-area home; neighbors told KHOU they had no inkling of what was going on inside, but it didn't take police long to figure it out: One set of officers stopped a Ford Mustang that was exiting the property and noticed "a black semi-automatic handgun protruding from beneath the front passenger seat"; other officers saw three men jump a fence and flee; still a third group observed men wearing only underwear inside, and called the Department of Homeland Security. Why the lack of clothing? Per the filing, the alleged smugglers locked up their hostages' clothes and shoes to make fleeing difficult; deadbolt locks, boarded-up windows, a wooden paddle, stun gun, and firearms also assisted to that end. Those held there, some for at least six weeks, hailed from El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. An initial court appearance is today scheduled for the five accused, who are charged with hostage-taking and violence with a firearm.

Cops Find 'Sea of People' Held Hostage in Texas Home

(Newser) – Police staking out a squalid Houston home have uncovered the city's largest stash house in recent years, and it's pretty grim: The building was covered in human waste, had no hot water, and just one partially-working toilet for the more than 100 people held hostage inside. After a tip that human smugglers were demanding more money of a woman they helped bring across the border from Mexico, along with her two children, police entered the home yesterday to find a "sea of people coming at the officers as they entered," a police rep tells the Houston Chronicle. Among the "hungry, thirsty, and exhausted" hostages—some had been held there for more than two weeks—were 94 men, 14 women, and two children, aged 5 and 7.

"The smell and conditions were just awful," the police rep continues, describing "bodies upon bodies, people stacked on top of each other. Dirty, filthy, conditions," per KPRC. Hostages were kept shoeless—to make it harder to run away—and males could only wear underwear. "This case demonstrates the human tragedy that occurs as a result of our broken borders," says Rep. Mike McCaul. "Last year over 100,000 people entered the United States illegally through Texas alone and the Department of Homeland Security has no plan to stop the flow." Five smugglers have been arrested, KHOU reports, while most of the hostages—believed to be from Central American countries—were sent to a detention facility to be examined; they are now likely to be deported, the Chronicle notes.