AFTER being kidnapped at knifepoint and imprisoned in a pitch-black box, for seven agonising years Colleen Stan endured unimaginable horror at the hands of her sick captors.
She was tortured, whipped, hung from the ceiling, raped repeatedly, forced to sign a ‘slavery contract’ and kept under the bed while kidnappers – Cameron and Janice Hooker – even had sex on top of her.
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To this day, it remains one of the most harrowing kidnap cases in history – made all the more remarkable because, miraculously, Colleen survived to tell the tale.
Recalling her ordeal, Colleen, now 68, says: “I was kept in this box 22 to 23 hours a day. I don’t know how to explain what total darkness like that does to a human soul. I felt like they were going to kill me.”
A fateful mistake
Before her nightmare begain, Colleen grew up in California in “a typical middle class family”.
But on May 19, 1977, the 20-year-old’s life changed forever.
Speaking on the documentary The Girl In The Box, available to watch on Hayu, Colleen says: “It was my friend Linda’s birthday. I decided I was going to go and surprise her.
“I went down and I tried to get my car to start that day but it wouldn’t start so I said, ‘That’s alright, I’ll hitchhike.’”
Colleen set off on the seven-hour trip, initially getting rides from truck drivers who’d take her as far as they could. Then a car stopped for her.
She says: “I stick out my thumb and this young couple pulls up, about my age with a little baby.
“I evaluated the situation and it seemed safe.”
As the author of Perfect Victim: The True Story of ‘The Girl in the Box’ Carla Norton comments: “Hitchhiking was very common at that time, especially for young people.”
It was a split-second decision that would have horrific consequences.
She says: “I told them I was going to surprise my friend so they didn’t know I was coming. They had all this information on me, and I didn’t have any information on them.”
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‘If I screamed nobody would hear me’
After a few hours, they pulled over at a petrol station, and Colleen used the toilets while the couple refuelled the car.
She says: “When I got back in the car there was this strange wooden box in the backseat which wasn’t there before. It was kind of square. It appeared to have latches on it.”
The couple took a detour down a quiet dirt road, and Janice took the baby down to play in a small creek.
Colleen says: “All of a sudden [Cameron] jumps in from the passenger side. He has a big knife and pushes it into my throat and says, ‘Put your hands above your head’.
“He throws a blindfold over my eyes, tied my ankles together with some rope and puts the knife back to my throat and says, ‘Are you going to do what I say?’ Of course I said yes.
“He takes the wooden box and he puts it over my head and he shut it and latched it on the outside around my neck so if I screamed nobody would hear me.
“I was very scared and in shock. It was very stifling, very claustrophobic, very hot.
“I was completely in panic mode and freaking out. I didn’t know what these people were going to do with me.”
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‘They had sex at her feet’
The homemade box was double-walled, insulated and weighed about 20lb.
The couple then waited for nightfall and smuggled her into the basement of their house.
Colleen says: “He took the handcuff off one of my wrists, and slaps on this leather cuff and hooked it into a hook on the ceiling.”
She then had her clothes stripped off and was suspended from the beam in the ceiling – before Cameron brought his Janice downstairs and the pair had sex at her feet.
‘I’ll cut your vocal cords’
The next day Cameron – chained Colleen up to what he referred to as ‘the rack’.
She says: “He said, ‘Go ahead and scream, I’ll cut your vocal cords, I’ve done it before.’
“He kept me on the rack for a couple of weeks while he built another box. It was a box inside another box – a little bit bigger than a coffin.
“Once an evening he’d come down, get me out of the box, let me use the bed pan, then he would usually have me sit on the rack, hand me something to eat… I had to do all that, naked. Then he would hang me up and torture me.
“He put bare wires on my breasts and on the inside of my thighs. I was electrocuted. He would say, ‘I’m not doing this to punish you, I’m doing this because I like to.'”
He took me upstairs to their bedroom and he tied me up to their bed. I could feel them and hear them kissing over me and then all of a sudden he jumped on me and raped me.
Colleen Stan
Meanwhile, Colleen’s housemates inevitably grew concerned and filed a missing person’s report with the police – but there was a 400-mile stretch in which she could have gone missing, and not much to go on.
Seven months later, in January 1978, Cameron removed Colleen’s blindfold for the first time to sign a ‘slave contract’, which he said was overseen by a powerful organisation called ‘The Company’ who would hurt her and her loved ones if she didn’t obey.
After that, the couple started to let her out at night to do chores around the house – and Cameron began raping her.
Colleen says: “The first rape, he took me upstairs to their bedroom and he tied me up to their bed. I could feel them and hear them kissing over me and then all of a sudden he jumped on me and raped me.”
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‘I thought about taking my own life’
Meanwhile, Colleen’s desperate family hired a private investigator to try to find her. They refused to give up hope that their daughter was still alive, but their search proved fruitless.
Eleven months later, the Hookers moved to a rural location in a smaller mobile home with no basement, where Colleen was kept in a box under the bed – where she could hear the couple have sex above her.
5 must-watch Hayu true crime shows
- Deadly Cults – In this series, investigators uncover and expose the dark world of cults that kill. Each episode focuses on a different cult, looking at the behaviour of their leaders and followers.
- Snapped: Killer Couples – Each episode reveals the shocking story of a couple who have committed murder together. A spin-off of series Snapped, which chronicled lives of women who lost control and were charged with murder, the show has aired 17 seasons, each with ten episodes.
- In Ice Cold Blood – Hosted by Ice-T, this series exposed outrageous tales and shocking true stories involving sex, money, murder and sometimes a fatal cocktail of all three.
- Charmed To Death – A series following the true stories of manipulative and deceptively dangerous criminals who use their charm to cheat, steal and lure unsuspecting victims into romantic relationships, ultimately leaving a wake of devastation and death.
- The Girl In The Box – Colleen Stan relives what it was like to be kidnapped, imprisoned in a box, and how she bravely escaped. The 20-year-old’s ordeal all started when she accepted a ride from Cameron Hooker, and she was kept captive for nearly a year…
By 1980, Colleen has been mentally and physically under control of couple for three years and was, for a time, granted a few ‘privileges’.
Bizarrely, at one point she was even allowed to visit her family – but told they would be hurt if she revealed the horrors of what she was going through.
Colleen says: “People always say, ‘Why didn’t you run away?’ I just felt that it wasn’t an option at that time. [After signing the slave contract] I really felt I’d be hurt and other people would be hurt if I went against them.
“He was telling me what to say…that he was my boyfriend and we were going to get married.
“He said ‘The Company’ had set up something to watch [her parents’] house and bug their phones and if I said anything, people were going to die.
“I didn’t tell them about anything – I didn’t want anyone to be hurt.”
After that, the conditions in which Colleen was forced to live got even worse.
She says in the documentary: “Once a day, I was given something to eat and then it was pretty exclusive for about three years – I was locked up in the box.
“The more I was whimpering or crying, the more excited he got. If I didn’t react, it kind of got boring for him.
“I was a mess. I got very skinny. Looked anorexic. My hair was falling out. After so many years had passed, there did come a point when I thought about taking my own life.”
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A daring escape
By 1984, Cameron’s wife Janice was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, filled with remorse over what they had done.
While Cameron was at work, she fled with Colleen to her parents’ house, where Colleen was able to contact her family and finally return home.
I consider this defendant the most dangerous psychopath that I have ever dealt with… He will be a danger for as long as he is alive.
The judge at Cameron Hooker’s sentencing
However, she was hesitant to report her ordeal. Unable to tell who she could trust, she decided not to go to the police.
Meanwhile, Jan told her pastor everything about Colleen – and also an alleged murder nine years previously, of Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, a woman who went missing in 1976.
According to Janice, they had kidnapped Marie and held her in a similar manner to Colleen before killing her – however, Cameron never admitted to this, and no charges were filed against him.
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‘Life today is good’
The Pastor called the police and three months after Colleen’s escape, Cameron was taken into custody. Controversially, Janice was offered immunity in return for giving evidence against her husband,
Police found the head box, sex magazines, restraints and a picture of the slave contract and Cameron Hooker was found guilty on a number of charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault.
He was sentenced to 104 years in prison, with the judge commenting: “I consider this defendant the most dangerous psychopath that I have ever dealt with… He will be a danger for as long as he is alive.”
Colleen went on to have a daughter in 1987 and every year she celebrates the anniversary of when she returned home to her family with a beach party.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
“I thoroughly enjoy my freedom. Life today is good,” she says.
“You have to learn how to live in the now, and not let that past drag you back.”
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