Once it was assembled, the first person to get into the box was the dogcatcher (or, more properly, the Animal Control Officer), Don Herrmann, a big, broad-shouldered man weighing 250 pounds. “I got in the box to see if I’d fit,” he recalls, chuckling. “It’s small, I’ll tell you that.”
He did fit, albeit snugly. But when they put the lid on he was stuck. He couldn’t turn over.
A call went up for someone of about Colleen’s size to try it out, so Jerry Brown fetched Janell Begbie, a meter maid. She agreed to climb in and found that she could turn over with the lid on, though with difficulty.
Then Christine McGuire wanted to try it to understand how it worked, how it felt to be shut inside.
At five feet two and about one hundred pounds, the prosecutor was the smallest person to try the box yet. She climbed in and lay down. The officers placed the wooden top over her.
“When they put the lid over me, I felt the sensory deprivation,” McGuire said later. “I felt like I was in a coffin, though I was surrounded by the reassuring words of police officers and other onlookers at the time.” And even as unnerving as this was, McGuire realized that when Colleen was in the box it had been caulked—there would be no air and no light seeping in around the edges.
McGuire wanted to demonstrate that all elements of what Colleen claimed had been her environment were operational. Officer Roger Marsh was sent off to the Tehama County Health Center to pick up a bedpan, and someone went out to the property room where evidence was stored to get the sleeping bag.
These were the meager comforts afforded Colleen, and with their addition, the attorney climbed back into the box. She wanted to make sure that using a bedpan in the box was feasible. In a prone position, she hiked it up under her backside. Then, using her hands and then her legs, she removed it to the end of the box. Awkward, but practicable.
Finally, she wanted to enter the box as Colleen had, through the opening at the foot of the bed. Prior to this, everyone had been entering the easy way, through the top, where the waterbed mattress would have been. Now, with the wooden top in place, Christine crawled in through the small opening at the foot of the bed and wiggled her way into the box. She ran her stockings, but was able to enter and exit without any problem.
At the time, this whole experiment lent itself to comedy: the squad room almost completely occupied by an awkward, wooden framework, the little, smartly dressed Deputy DA climbing in and out, police officers ambling in to sip coffee, watch, and exchange lively banter. But later McGuire reflected that this nervous levity had only partially masked an underlying unease. Beneath the humor lurked the ugly realization that the box was genuine. This was no joke.
CHAPTER 17
Dr. Chris Hatcher was retained late in January. From the beginning, he impressed McGuire with his gung-ho attitude and how quickly he absorbed information about the case. First, he requested a copy of the three-hundred-page preliminary hearing transcript, then asked for copies of police reports, and now he was asking to come to Red Bluff to take a firsthand look at scenes of the crime. He wanted to review the evidence, peruse Hooker’s reading material, and interview Janice. After that, he would interview Colleen in Riverside.
When Hatcher first walked into police headquarters, McGuire was relieved to see that the expert whom she’d feared was “too slick” was casually dressed in slacks and a sports coat.
After introductions, they drove with Lieutenant Brown to the Hooker residence. Without a search warrant they could only circle the empty mobile home. Dr. Hatcher paced its width and length, asking where the master bedroom would be, where the children slept, where the bathrooms were. Then he scrutinized the sheds.
After learning what they could, they headed back to the police station to review the evidence. The head box was pulled from the clutter in the property room. Originally seized from one of Hooker’s sheds, it was dusty and littered with mouse droppings.
Hatcher picked it up, opened and closed it. “It’s in a dilapidated condition—the neck holes don’t even line up. It ought to be reconstructed, if possible, so that it’s clear how it works.”
“That’s a good idea. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that,” McGuire said. A usable head box would help the jury understand the sensory deprivation it caused.
They reviewed an array of items—the whips, handcuffs, and hooks; the S/M sketches Cameron had drawn; and the disassembled bed and box where Colleen had been confined. Hatcher asked how Colleen handled urination and defecation in the box, what the temperature would have been during the summer, what sorts of punishments she was subjected to. They went through a seemingly endless collection of slides and photos, mostly of Janice, since virtually all of those of Colleen had been destroyed. Looking closely, Dr. Hatcher pointed out whip marks on Janice’s body that McGuire had never noticed before.
It wasn’t difficult to see how Hooker got ideas for some of his equipment and techniques. Going through boxes of seized pornography, Hatcher suggested they be cataloged in terms of those having to do with slaves and masters, kidnapping, mind control, bondage, and sado-masochism. Cameron’s collection was replete with such material. And Hatcher underscored the importance of these publications by suggesting they be combed for specific information which Hooker might have applied in his treatment of Colleen.
Mid-morning, Christine McGuire’s husband, District Attorney Jim Lang, brought their baby daughter to the police station. It was Christine’s turn to take care of her while he played his Saturday golf game, so now she carried eight-month-old Nicole around with her as she, Dr. Hatcher, and Lieutenant Brown went through the evidence. Pouring through it, McGuire was oblivious to the contrast she created: mother with babe in arms against a backdrop of hardcore pornography and bondage equipment.
Later that afternoon Hatcher interviewed Janice, then wanted to examine the basement of 1140 Oak Street.
It was McGuire’s first visit to this particular scene of the crime—a cold, dark, damp, gray room. Until now, she’d only seen photographs, and she was stunned to find it so small. Breathing the musty air, she struggled to imagine the box, the rack, and the workshop all jammed into this meager space. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could have been imprisoned here.
Brown pointed out marks beneath the stairs where the workshop had been. ‘This is glue,” he said, pointing to light-colored lines running across the cement. “It’s like an outline. It shows where the workshop was glued to the wall.”
They stared and murmured. It was tiny. Like a broom closet. A claustrophobe’s nightmare. Yet Colleen Stan claimed to have spent hundreds of hours in this cramped little corner, working on crafts through the dead hours of night.
Back at the police station, they said their farewells and Hatcher prepared to depart. It had been a brief visit, but the psychologist had managed to refocus the investigation, initiating an important turn in its direction.
As he was leaving, McGuire asked, “What do you think, Doctor, now that you’ve had a chance to view the evidence and talk to Janice?”
“I’d rather not give you an opinion until I’ve had a chance to talk to Colleen and digest everything,” he said, “but I will say this case exceeds common fantasy, and it’s far beyond any typical B and D or S/M relationship.”
At about nine o’clock on the morning of March 8, McGuire walked into the Tehama County Courthouse and climbed the wide marble staircase that sweeps up to the second floor, every footfall echoing through the halls and into the courtrooms. Here, she was in her element. She relished her work, and this morning she was looking forward to getting a favorable ruling on the Hooker case.
Attorneys McGuire and Papendick had been asked to meet with Judge Watkins in advance of a scheduled hearing on the change-of-venue motion. McGuire arrived to find the nattily dressed and always confident Papendick already waiting in a leather chair.
Judge Watkins, a fair-skinned man in his fifties, with a shock of red hair, a concerned look on his face, and a cigarette in his hand,
greeted them and spread a copy of the previous night’s Daily News across his desk. “Crime Expenses Could Bankrupt Tehama County,” declared the front-page headline. Christine had already read the article, which warned of the financial consequences of prosecuting four major and expensive criminal cases—most notably the Hooker case.
The judge felt the article made it inappropriate for him to hear the change-of-venue motion. “If I don’t grant it,” he said, “the inference will be that I was influenced by concern over the cost of an out-of-county trial.”
With Judge Watkins thus disqualifying himself, a visiting judge, Stanley Young, would have to step in to hear the case. Judge Young, whom Judge Watkins had already spoken to, was close at hand, and as soon as arrangements were made, both counsels left to take their seats in the courtroom.
The media was already there, and when Hooker was brought in, looking thin but well-groomed, a ripple went through the courtroom. McGuire noticed that he seemed cool and collected, unfazed by all the attention, and at one point even appeared to turn and pose for the cameras. His family sat behind him, and he smiled and chatted with them before the court was brought to order.
Papendick presented a convincing collection of newspaper clippings, showing that local coverage had been so extensive that it was unlikely many people in the county were unfamiliar with the case. This, he said, jeopardized Hooker’s chance of getting a fair trial.
When it was McGuire’s turn to rebut his argument, she simply said, “We’ll submit it, Your Honor,” leaving it up to the judge.
She still thought Papendick was making a mistake. Hooker was a local boy, with a job and general lifestyle that people here could relate to, whereas Colleen Stan was an outsider, and therefore suspect. For the most part, the people of Tehama County were absolutely incredulous of the charges against Hooker. And her husband and Hatcher had both agreed that jurors in a more urban locale would be more likely to understand psychological explanations, coercion, captivity syndromes, and the ticklish issue of why Colleen hadn’t escaped when she’d had the opportunity.
To both attorneys’ satisfaction, Judge Young granted the change-of-venue motion. A new trial date would be set when the trial site was decided.
Janice Hooker called that afternoon, anxious over the Daily News article about the cost of trying her husband. She understood that the state would absorb part of the cost of trying death penalty cases and, thinking of the Spannhake case, worried that the county’s fiscal problems would push the DA’s office into going after the death penalty. Apparently, she felt guilty enough about putting Cameron behind bars; she didn’t want to feel responsible for his death.
McGuire reassured her that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Cameron with murder, and even if there were, the possibility of a death penalty was remote.
A couple of days later, Janice called to set up an appointment. Although emotionally stronger, she still seemed under Cameron’s sway. At times it sounded as if she were operating as his mouthpiece, passing on information for him. And she played both sides: Apparently she wanted him locked up so he couldn’t kidnap or torture anyone else, but didn’t want to feel responsible for whatever justice might be meted out. It was difficult to know how much Jan could be trusted.
At times McGuire was appalled by Jan’s docility. She’d signed no slavery contract, she’d believed in no Company, why hadn’t she just walked out? Why had she put up with the pain and humiliation for so many years?
But today McGuire put her head in her hands and sighed, thinking: How can I possibly criticize Janice? Am I so different? Aren’t I just as afraid to leave a bad situation?
Her relationship with Jim had steadily soured, and now Christine also found herself caught in an unhappy marriage—one she was unable to change but reluctant to leave. She’ tried to deny her marital troubles by losing herself in the pressing responsibilities of being a working mother, pouring her energies into her job, but the veil of activity she spun about herself couldn’t hide the anger and pain that was slowly eroding the foundation of her marriage. “In some ways,” thought Christine, “I’m as weak and dependent as Janice.”
She rubbed her forehead and tried to put her personal life out of her mind, refocusing on Janice Hooker.
Christine couldn’t help but feel pangs of sympathy for her, despite Janice’s exasperating fence-sitting. Obviously struggling to come to terms with what had happened, Janice was going to counseling regularly, catching up on ten years of repressed emotions, grappling both with guilt and her own victimization.
Once she had shyly showed Christine a scrap of paper with a few phrases penciled on it, saying it was something she carried around with her for emotional support. It was a short list of encouraging phrases, such as, “I am not a bad person.” Christine had been touched by the disclosure, by the poignancy of Janice carrying around little reminders of her worth as a person.
When Janice came in today she chatted awhile and then indicated, as McGuire had expected, that she wanted to make a statement. Shamblin was called in.
When he arrived, Jan explained she’d read in the newspapers that Colleen had denied wanting to have Cameron’s child. “That’s not true,” she objected. “Colleen told me that she loved Cameron and that he was going to let her have his baby.”
Further, Jan said she’d read the same thing in a “diary” that Colleen had written, but that the “diary” had been burned along with other items before Cameron’s arrest.
But Colleen had denied ever having loved Cameron or wanting to have his child. During the preliminary hearing, she had insisted that, though she wanted to have a child, she had never wanted to have Cameron Hooker’s.
So now one star witness’s version of truth had cast doubt upon the other’s.
This turn of events left McGuire even more unsettled when she heard a rumor that Papendick had acquired some secret and potentially damaging evidence.
He was heard gloating to friends that he had “love letters” written by Colleen to Cameron. He claimed the letters demonstrated that their peculiar relationship, including the bondage and discipline, was therefore consensual.
When McGuire checked with Colleen and Janice, neither could recall Colleen writing any letters to Cameron during her captivity. Their responses were so low-key that the prosecutor simply discounted the reported love letters as idle gossip.
PART SEVEN
RETURN TO DARKNESS
Spring 1981–Summer 1984
Sometimes I’m not very far from utter despair. No one knows I am alive any more. I’m given up for dead by now, I’m accepted for dead.
Miranda, The Collector, by John Fowles
CHAPTER 18
K’ s imprisonment had come full circle. The darkness was again her intimate companion, a heavy shroud covering her days that lifted off only at night, when she was let out into the trailer’s artificial light for a precious hour or two. Then she consumed her nightly meal, usually leftovers, at the foot of the bed or in the bathroom, where she emptied her bedpan, and, if they gave her some time, did deep knee-bends and read the Bible awhile before being locked again in the darkness.
With K passing day after day in the secret compartment beneath the bed, peace was restored within the Hooker household. As usual, Janice blocked out distasteful details, turning her full attention to the duties of being a mother and housewife.
Jan was, ironically, an expert at compartmentalization.
Spring edged into summer and local memories of “Kay Powers” evaporated like dew. If anyone asked, the word was that “Kay” was doing fine in Southern California.
Meanwhile, the searing summer heat penetrated deep into the mobile home, sliding into the box like licks from hell. Day after day, K endured the sweltering and inescapable heat.
Once Jan and Cameron left town for a weekend, leaving K to bake and sweat in the box. No food. No water. For three days she suffered through a delirium of unrelenting incarceration and nearly intolerable heat. Sweat wept from her
pores till K thought she would die of dehydration. When the Hookers finally came home and let her out, she could barely stand.
This apparently made an impression; the next time they went away for the weekend, they left K with a quart of water and about a dozen chocolate chip cookies wrapped in tin foil.
Months dragged by, K suffering through the slow, flat oppressiveness of solitary confinement. At night, when it was very quiet, she put her ear to the vent hole and heard the hiss of the cars and the growl of the trucks as they passed on the freeway just a few hundred yards away. Through that hole, that pinpoint view of ground beneath the trailer, she perceived the slow brightening as dawn approached. She heard Cameron leave for work, the slam of the car door and the snarl of the ignition reaching her before the exhaust billowed beneath the mobile home and wafted into the box, filling her lungs with fumes.
The temperature left its nightly nadir and climbed steadily upward until the day warmed to full-force: the dogs barking, the girls running in and out and letting the door slam, their carefree laughter ringing through the air. K listened hard, picking up bits and pieces over the constant whir of the blower.
While that small vent was her access to the world, it served to let in more than simply sounds and smells and a patch of light. One night she had company.
It startled her with its tiny claws. Pricking and tickling, it raced across her skin, searching for an escape from the huge creature it had unexpectedly encountered. It scurried the length of her body, K writhing beneath its miniature feet as she tried to maneuver the furry intruder toward the vent hole. It balked and scampered back up her bare skin toward her face, finally fleeing out the hole, leaving her shivering in its wake.
In an existence of tedium and monotony, even the brief visit of a mouse was an event.
Prayers and dreams were K’s primary diversions. Sleep was her only escape. For a while she could lose herself in dreams and distant, almost hallucinatory images of family, of children, of freedom. . . .
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