Man Was Held Captive for a Week and Repeatedly Beaten with Baseball Bat: Police

Six people in Ohio are accused of holding a man captive for about a week and repeatedly beating him with a metal baseball bat.

Aaron Bradshaw, 49, Austin Bradshaw, 23, Chance Johnston, 27, David Cessna, 26, Martina Esqueda, 28, and Michael Esqueda, 28, are facing charges of kidnapping to terrorize or to inflict serious physical harm.

The 26-year-old victim was allegedly kidnapped on March 14.

“He was being essentially tortured, assaulted, over the time frame of a week,” Maumee Chief of Police Josh Sprow told 13 Action News.

According to a complaint obtained by PEOPLE, the victim was beaten with a metal bat, made to stand for hours, only fed liquids — which he was given once a day — and slept a mere 10 hours during the time he was held in captivity.

“His injuries were results of being struck with a baseball bat, struck with fists, elbows, stomping on him when he was on the ground — which, over time, resulted in multiple fractured bones,” Maumee Chief of Police Josh Sprow told 13 Action News.

The victim escaped after he was allowed by his captors to go to a Speedway convenience store, Sprow said.

“When he was there, he made contact with an individual, who got in contact with the victim’s mother,” according to Sprow. “When she was contacted by this, literally a stranger, she knew something was up.”

Sprow alleged Martina Esqueda was the ringleader and had a romantic relationship with some of the suspects.

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“It’s clearly a strange situation when you have multiple adult men involved in a relationship with a female and then this whole felonious assault, kidnapping taking place,” he said. “Definitely not something that is normally happening in our city.”

They are being held at the Lucas County Corrections Center on $200,000 bond, according to WEAR-TV. 

The six defendants are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on April 1, WTOL reported.

Attorneys for the six defendants could not be reached for comment.