‘It shouldn’t have happened’: 2 people accused of torturing, holding man hostage in Penn Hills

A man and woman are facing charges after police said they held a man hostage in their home and tortured him.

The criminal complaint said Windal Cox and Yolanda Scott held the victim against his will and beat him for ten hours.

The victim escaped by jumping out of a second-story window, the complaint said.

On the night of Dec. 20, 2023, Ashley Eaddy posted a photo of a naked man being taken by police from her Penn Hills street. At the time she thought maybe the man was just drunk. She never imagined that what she witnessed was a victim running for his life.

“When you see somebody come onto your street, you think they are nice. They are saying hi, and you don’t really know what’s going on behind [closed doors],” said Ashley Eaddy, a neighbor who witnessed the naked man.

According to newly released court documents, inside of a home on Mt. Carmel Road in Penn Hills was a torture factory.

Police said the victim was staying with Cox, a childhood friend, for a few days, but on the sixth day, the victim told police things turned sour.

The criminal complaint details how Cox and Scott held the man against his will. It stated the two hit him with empty liquor bottles, sprayed cleaning disinfectant in his mouth and eyes, and burnt out their cigarettes on his skin.

Officers said when they entered the home, there was blood everywhere, and the victim had suffered multiple abrasions to his skull along with many other injuries. The victim told police he escaped by jumping out of a second-story window. Police said he then ran through the backyard and up a driveway to a nearby home where they called 911.

“My brother said there is a man that doesn’t have any clothes on. So, I was like, ‘Okay, Mom something is going on outside,’ before I knew it this man ran out exposed, and the police came,” Eaddy said.

Neighbors reacted on Wednesday after finally learning what happened that night.

“It was very cold I mean it was whew, close to 20-something degrees. It’s crazy, it’s sad cause it shouldn’t have happened,” Eaddy recalled.

Both Scott and Cox are charged with multiple felonies including aggravated assault and are currently in Allegheny County Jail.

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