For years, it was the perfect cover. She was a working mom with two kids and a house of her own. He was a violent pimp who kept drug-addicted women in the basement, gave them cocaine, fentanyl and heroin on a plate, sold them for sex and beat them.
This house of horrors was located on a quaint street near the Grosse Pointe-Detroit border, just behind Ascension St. John Hospital on the city's east side. While two minor children lived upstairs with their mom and her boyfriend, the FBI says, women were being beaten, drugged and sexually exploited in the basement. According to the FBI, the women were drug addicts, hopelessly and helplessly controlled by the sinister Detroit couple — until the victims spoke up.
According to the FBI and victim impact statements, Summerlin kept all the money from the sex dates and, at times, beat the women to ensure their compliance.
He also raped several of his victims, including one woman who recalled being "held down and raped while staring at the gun as a reminder of what would happen if I didn't lie there and allow him to take it. She also recalled the "physical pain of guy after guy that he'd send in the basement to make his money" as being unbearable, explaining what happened if she refused a date.
Federal prosecutors called his crimes "reprehensible. Attorneys Sara Woodward and Tara Hindelang argued in court documents, stressing Summerlin turned the victims' struggles "into a business model.
