Kidnapping of Colleen Stan

The Colleen Stan abduction ended in 1984 at Weed Court in Red Bluff . The victim, who was given the pseudonym Colleen Stan , was imprisoned there as a 20-year-old since May 19, 1977 and sexually abused without anyone outside the house of her kidnapper noticed. In the trial against her kidnapper, Cameron Hooker , the case was described as a unique case in the history of the FBI .

Sequence of events

According to Borwin Bandelow , who describes the case in his book after personal contact with Colleen Stan, the sequence of events was as follows: Colleen Stan wanted to attend a friends birthday party in 1977. She hitchhiked and a car stopped in which the later perpetrator was sitting with his wife and toddler. After a short drive, the culprit left the street, stopped and threatened Colleen with a knife. He put the victim's head in a prepared box to keep her from screaming.

For years Colleen had to live in his house in a kind of coffin, in which she was locked 23 hours a day. For the rest of the day, she was given food, allowed to relieve herself, and was tortured and raped. She was persuaded by the kidnapper Cameron Hooker that he had legally acquired her as a slave. Should she escape, an organization he called "The Company" would pursue and kill her.

Exemption and criminal proceedings

Janice Hooker, the kidnapper's knowledgeable wife, was found to rescue Colleen seven years after the kidnapping. Janice felt remorse and sought advice from various clergymen in the community. However, she presented the situation as a pure triangular relationship or polygamy far more harmless. Consequently, the main points of imprisonment and abuse were not mentioned. The ecclesiastical classification of the fall as a sin led Janice to decide to rescue Colleen from her predicament. On August 9, 1984, she informed her husband's detainee that there was no contract allowing Hooker to hold her and let her go.

During the trial, his wife testified against her husband and was exempt from punishment. She said she was tortured and brainwashed by her husband for years. Cameron Hooker was sentenced to 104 years in prison.

Literature and film

In her novel Totenmontag, Kathy Reichs lets the protagonist realize that a suspect in her case is a free rider from Cameron Hooker.

The episode Lost in Darkness ("Ball & Chain") of the Ghost Whisperer series is also about an identical case except for the age of the abducted women.

The plot of the British thriller Captive in the Dark from 2005 is based on the abduction case Colleen Stan.

The prosecutor for the case, Christin McGuire, has written a book about the case, of which there is also a German translation: Die Serfigen , Bastei Lübbe, 1993, ISBN 978-3-404-13471-7

Web links

Katherine Ramsland: here ( August 26, 2012 memento on the Internet Archive ) in crimelibrary from Turner Entertainment Networks

supporting documents

↑ Jim B. Green: Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts of Life. Dubbed by the Media "The Girl in the Box" and "The Sex Slave" . iUniverse, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4401-1837-1 .
↑ Borwin Bandelow: Who is afraid of the bad man ?: Why perpetrators fascinate us . Rowohlt, 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-00666-2 .

[1] Jim B. Green: Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts of Life. Dubbed by the Media "The Girl in the Box" and "The Sex Slave" . iUniverse, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4401-1837-1 .

[2] Borwin Bandelow: Who is afraid of the bad man ?: Why perpetrators fascinate us . Rowohlt, 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-00666-2 .