A Kansas City, Missouri, community activist has been vindicated after an abducted woman escaped a home where she was held captive.

Bishop Tony Caldwell made a video last month calling on authorities to look into tips he received about young missing Black women in a neighborhood 30 miles outside of Kansas City. However, the Kansas City Police disputed the claims, calling them “completely unfounded.”

Yet, weeks later, a 22-year-old knocked on a neighbor’s door in the same area where Caldwell said he was told the women went missing. Atlanta Black Star reached out to Caldwell for comment.

“That was the description of the guy we were talking about and that was the location we said they were being taken from,” Caldwell told the Kansas City Defender.

Caldwell warned about a serial killer on the loose near Prospect Avenue in Kansas City. The bishop at Eternal Life Church & Family Living Center in Kansas City said he was “upset” and called on police and the community to “knock on doors.” However, the police department said there was “no evidence” to support the claims.

Yet, Excelsior Springs resident Lisa Johnson told KSHB 41 that she saw a young woman “hunched over” almost crawling to her front door on Oct. 7. The bruised, malnourished woman was wearing a dog collar and had ligature marks around her wrists and ankles, reports show.

“She didn’t have much of a voice,” Johnson said. “It was more of a light ‘help me’ than anything.”

Johnson said she immediately called 911.

Ciara Tharp’s grandmother, who lives next door, said she heard a screaming woman knocking on the door.

“You have to help me. I’ve been raped. I’ve been held captive,” Tharp recalled telling her grandmother. “She’s like, ‘You gotta help me.’”

Tharp’s grandmother let the young woman inside, wrapped her in a blanket, and gave her food and water.

According to court documents, the Excelsior Springs Police Department responded to a call about “a female who showed up at the front door wearing a trash bag, metal collar with a padlock, and duct tape around her neck.”

The victim identified in court documents as T.J. showed authorities the house where she had been held against her will. Neighbors said she also mentioned friends who “didn’t make it” and were allegedly killed by the suspect.

“Upon the [police] officer’s arrival at the residence, they found T.J. She was wearing latex lingerie and had a metal collar around her neck with a padlock and duct tape around her neck. T.J. advised that a man by the name of Timothy picked her up on Prospect in Kansas City at the beginning of September 2022,” court documents show.

T.J. told authorities the man kept her in a small room in the basement that he had built. She broke free after he left that morning to take his child to school.

“That’s exactly what we were telling people. I’m just sorry that it took so long, but I’m grateful that she found a way out,” Caldwell said. “I’m sorry people didn’t act on it sooner, and it’s absolutely tragic that the other young ladies didn’t make it. It’s horrible.”

Timothy M. Haslett was arrested the same day and charged with first-degree aggravated rape, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault. T.J. told authorities that there are two more victims.

The Clay County Sheriff’s office said on Oct. 11 that it was still investigating the case along with Excelsior Springs and Kansas City Missouri Police departments. The law enforcement agencies have not confirmed whether they were able to identify other victims but said they will do “every investigative thing you can think of.”

“That thorough approach means it will take time. It will take time to analyze evidence recovered during the execution of the search warrant. It will take time to interview people involved,” Clay County Sherrif’s office said. “It will take time to use that information to see if the suspect, in this case, is connected to any more crimes.”

Haslett entered a not-guilty plea and is being held on a $500,000 bond.

The Kansas City Police Department told the Kansas City Defender that it is standing by its earlier statement that dismissed Caldwell and other community members’ concerns over the perpetrator. The local paper had posted Caldwell’s video on TikTok and removed it after the police department’s statement but scheduled a meeting with community leaders to assess the threat.

“We base our investigations on police incident reports of criminal activity. We do still maintain that there is no indication that what you guys reported was accurate and there was no indication that there was anything that supported that claim,” KCPD said.

“We share what information we can publicly, many times from the scene, of incidents of violent crimes when there is a report or an investigation underway, there had and has not been anything that corresponded to your reports on social media and the web which is why we refuted that report and said that the claims were unfounded,” the statement continued.

Caldwell, who oversees two churches in Kansas City and a community center, said he received the information before authorities because he and his organizers are “right on the street level.”

“A lot of times, we are even trying to give the police information so they can act on it because the people in the street don’t trust them and now we can see that’s rightfully so,” he said.

Caldwell’s Justice and Dignity Center has feeding and youth enrichment programs that work within the community.

“The families are heartbroken and now they are even more mad because something could have been done back then,” Caldwell said. “There’s a possibility their loved ones could have been saved if folks would have acted back when our community was first making these reports instead of waiting for the young lady to escape. If she didn’t escape we would’ve never known, truly, we would’ve never known this was happening.”