Woman kept as sex slave in a wooden box relives seven-year nightmare
Catherine Healey - Yahoo News on September 9, 2016, 5:41 pm
WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC CONTENT
A hitchhiker who was kidnapped by a couple and kept in a wooden box under their bed as a sex slave has spoken out about her ordeal which lasted seven years.
Colleen Stan was dubbed 'The Girl in the Box' after she was gagged, head tied inside the box, and later brainwashed into not escaping when the couple took her out in public as their 'live-in nanny'.
The ordeal lasted from 1977-1984.
It ended only once her captor's wife helped her flee and reported her husband to police.
Colleen Stan. Source: Supplied
Police showing the head restraint used on Ms Stan (left) and the box her head was kept in during some of the torture (right). Source: AP
The then-20-year-old made the fateful decision to hitchhike from her home in Oregon to California to surprise a friend for her birthday.
Ms Stan was less than 100 miles away when she accepted a lift from Cameron and Janice Hooker, a seemingly nice couple who were travelling with their infant child.
But not long into the trip, Mr Hooker pulled a knife on Ms Stan, blindfolded her and took her to the couple's home where she was forced to become his sex slave.
Ms Stan's captor Cameron Hooker. Source: AP
"I thought I was going to die," Stan told People Magazine.
Ms Stan spent 23 out of 24 hours a days locked in the wooden crate, and was released only to be raped, tortured or hit.
A copy of the box Ms Stan was kept in. Source: Supplied
"I learned I could go anywhere in my mind," she tells People Magazine.
"You just remove yourself from the real situation going on and you go somewhere else. You go somewhere pleasant, around people you love. Whatever makes you happy."
Over the years she was whipped, burnt, left dangling from the ceiling, raped, left naked for days and shocked by Mr Hooker.
Ms Stan was forced to sign a contract stating she was now a slave and told her a group called The Company would be after her if she ever tried to escape.
With Janice's help, Ms Stan fled but never reported the incident to police.
Ms Stan, almost 30 years after the kidnapping. Source: Supplied
It was only after another girl was abducted that Mrs Hooker reported her husband to police and traded immunity for her testimony against him.
While there was never enough evidence for murder charges against the second girl, Hooker was sentenced to 104 years jail for his treatment of Ms Stan, whose story will now be told through a US telemovie to be released this weekend.
Hooker remains behind bars but becomes eligible for parole in 2022.
