The police found themselves in a narrow corridor. This led to a padded room, soundproofed with rubber cladding, where Elisabeth had originally been confined and repeatedly abused. It was so well-insulated that no scream, cry, or sob could escape. Beyond that, there was a small living area. Then there was a passage little more than a foot wide that a person had to turn sideways to get down. This led to a rudimentary kitchen and bathroom. On the white-tiled walls of a tiny shower cubicle, the captives had painted a butterfly, a flower, an octopus, and a snail, in an attempt to brighten their grim surroundings.
Further on, there were two small bedrooms, each with two beds. There was a washing machine, a fridge, and freezer. Otherwise the furnishings were sparse. The police found a toy elephant perched on a medicine cabinet and scraps of paper and glue used to entertain the children. The only other distraction was a small TV, which provided flickering images of the outside world. There was no natural light and little air. The whole scene was lit by electric light bulbs, which went on and off on a timer to give some sense of day and night
In the midst of this pitiful scene, the police found two ashen-faced children: eighteen-year-old Stefan and five-year-old Felix. With a ceiling that was five-feet-six inches at the highest, there was nowhere Stefan could stand upright. Felix preferred to go on all fours and had a strange, simian gait. Both boys were in poor physical condition, bent, pale, and terrified.
When they were taken out of the cellar, the two boys were overawed by daylight—something they had never seen before. They babbled between themselves in their own coded talk, but were also able to communicate in German. Felix pointed to the sky and asked a policeman, “Is God up there?”
Elisabeth Fritzl was brought to the house to ease her sons’ passage into the outside world. They were then taken to a hospital for a comprehensive checkup at dusk, as they were not used to sunlight. All four of the captives were suffering from vitamin D deficiency. They were anemic and malnourished. Their immune systems were compromised, and Felix’s joints and muscles had failed to develop properly.
While Kerstin remained in a medically induced coma, the family was reunited at the Amstetten Mauer Landesklinikum Psychiatric Clinic where Elisabeth and the children who had been held in the cellar were gradually introduced to sunlight. The entire family underwent therapy. Kerstin eventually joined them at the clinic, and she was expected to make a full recovery. It was reported later that Elisabeth had a falling out with her mother and, also that she fell in love with one of her guards.
After having trouble, initially, dealing with the trauma, the children from upstairs and those from downstairs bonded and went on to cope remarkably well. DNA tests confirmed that Josef Fritzl was the father of all six surviving children. He was charged with rape, incest, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement, and negligent homicide of the infant Michael. He went to trial in St. Pölten, pleading guilty to all charges except enslavement and murder. However, he then had to sit through eleven hours of his daughter’s videotaped evidence against him. She said that she had resisted him at first, but then gave way to her father’s daily demands for violent sex because she knew her life—and later the lives of her children—depended on it. Not only did he rape her thousands of times, he humiliated her by forcing her to re-enact scenes from pornographic videos he brought to the cellar and made her watch.
After her testimony, Fritzl changed his plea to guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and committed to an institution for the criminally insane. He must serve a minimum of fifteen years before he is eligible for parole, though it is unlikely that he will ever be released.
Chapter 3
Colleen Stan—The Girl in the Box
ON MAY 19, 1977, TWENTY-YEAR-OLD Colleen Stan decided to hitchhike from Eugene, Oregon, to attend a friend’s birthday party in Westwood, California, some three hundred miles away. Although there had been a number of murders of young women hitchhikers, “thumbing a ride” was still a common way for young people to travel in the late 1970s. Caution was advised, but Colleen considered herself an experienced hitchhiker, and a good judge of whether a driver offering a ride were safe.
By mid-afternoon on May 19, she had reached Red Bluff, California, some seventy miles from her destination. Suspicious of lone male drivers, she had turned down two potential rides there. Then a 1971 two-door, cobalt-blue Dodge Colt with a man and a woman nursing a baby inside stopped. The couple said they were going to Westwood, and Colleen felt safe to get in. They were friendly enough and seemed clean-cut. A married couple, their names were Cameron and Janice Hooker. However, Colleen noticed that, while they talked, Cameron kept checking her out in the rear-view mirror.
He asked why she was going to Westwood. She said that it was a friend’s birthday and she wanted to surprise her.
“She doesn’t know you’re coming?” said Cameron.
“No, it will be a complete surprise.”
They stopped in a gas station where Colleen used the restroom. Later, she said that a voice inside her told her to climb out of the bathroom window and make a run for it. But then she reasoned that, even if Cameron was a bit weird, he would never do anything to her in front of his wife and child.
Colleen could not have been more wrong. From an early age, Cameron had been hooked on violent pornography. After he had graduated from high school, he got a job in a local lumber mill. A year later, he met fifteen-year-old Janice, who was an epileptic. She was malleable and craved attention at any cost. Cameron persuaded her to let him tie her naked to a tree, even suspended painfully by the wrists. Throughout their courtship, their sadomasochistic and bondage games continued. Eventually, they married and moved into 1140 Oak Street in Red Bluff. Their landlords, an elderly couple, lived next door. For them, the quiet Hookers seemed like the perfect tenants.
Once they were married, Janice became tired of their bondage games. She wanted to have a baby. Cameron said she could have one if she would help him find a young female slave to take her place. There would be no sex, Cameron promised. That would be reserved for his wife. The slave would be the there to be chained, beaten, and tortured. In Cameron’s eyes, Colleen seemed like the perfect candidate—the first of many, he hoped.
When Colleen got back into the car, they gave her a candy bar. On the seat beside her, she noticed a strange wooden box. It had leather hinges and leather reinforcement strips along each edge. Only later would she find out what it was for.
About a mile down the road from the gas station, the Hookers asked if she minded if they took a little detour to see some spectacular ice caves. Colleen said she was in no hurry, just as long as they reached Westwood by nightfall.
Cameron pulled off down a dirt road. Colleen grew suspicious. There were no signs to the ice caves. But the couple were locals; presumably, they knew where they were going. Then Cameron stopped the car in the middle of nowhere. Janice got out of the car with the baby. Cameron followed. They walked down to a creek to get some cool mountain water. Colleen waited in the backseat of the car with the door open.
She was not paying much attention, but then she noticed that Janice and the baby were alone by the creek. Cameron had disappeared. Suddenly, the front seat of the car was yanked forward and Cameron sprang into the backseat beside her. He was holding a large butcher’s knife to Colleen’s throat and told her to put her hands in the air. It seemed clear that he was going to kill her if she did not obey. Quickly, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and secured her arms behind her back.
“Are you going to do what I tell you?” he asked.
Colleen was too petrified to speak, but managed to nod her head. He blindfolded her, then put a harness over her head with a broad leather strap across her mouth. Another strap went under her chin, and when the contraption was fastened at the back of her head, she found could not move her jaw to scream. Deftly, he tied her ankles together. Plainly, he had practiced this well.
It then became clear what the strange box beside her on the seat was
for. He put it over her head and slammed it shut. Inside it was filled with foam rubber, roughly the shape of her head. She became disoriented and breathing was difficult. Cameron lay her down on the backseat and covered her with her own sleeping bag. Pretty soon she began to overheat.
She heard the muffled sound of the door closing as Janice and the child got back into the car. The engine started and Colleen could feel the car moving as it made its way back up the dirt road. At the highway, she felt the car turn right, back toward Red Bluff.
In town, she could hear other traffic. The car made a couple of stops. People got in and out. Then they drove out of town.
Next time they stopped, the sleeping bag was pulled off her. The box on her head was removed, and she was allowed to sit up. But all the other restraints stayed in place. Although she was shaking with fear, it was a relief to be cool and she could smell food cooking. It seemed to Colleen that her captors were having a picnic.
They drove around some more. When they eventually stopped, Colleen’s ankles were untied and she was led into a house. She was taken down into a basement. Cameron told her to step up. From under her blindfold, she could see that she was standing on an ice chest. Unlocking her left wrist from the handcuffs, he locked her right wrist to a pipe above her head. Then he started removing her shoes and her clothes. Colleen was sure she was going to be raped.
Cameron then put a strap around her left wrist and attached it to a wooden beam with a hook. This meant he could release the handcuff to finish removing her clothes without ever leaving both hands free. She could smell the sweat from his body and was shaking with fear. This, she sensed, was exciting him.
When she was naked with both arms restrained high above her in the shape of a Y, she asked him what he was going to do to her. He replied, “Shut up.”
He ran his hands over her body, then suddenly kicked the ice chest away. Pain shot through her arms and shoulders. Looking out from under the blindfold, she saw an open magazine on a table. It showed a naked woman suspended from the ceiling, just as she was, and she began sobbing uncontrollably. She then saw Cameron and Janice take their clothes off and have sex on the table in front of her.
When Cameron noticed she was watching them, he ordered her to put her head down. But before she could comply, he leapt up, grabbed a whip, and started beating her. The pain was unbearable. This excited him and more sex ensued. When the couple had finished, Janice put her clothes on and went back upstairs. Cameron ran his hands over Colleen’s naked body again. He took photographs of her, then chained her up in a box. When she complained that she could hardly breath, he threatened to cut her vocal cords. He had done it before, he said. Then he wrapped a belt or cord around her upper body. She felt something sharp between her legs. Later, she discovered that he was trying to administer an electric shock to her genitals, but he could not get the equipment to work.
She was left tied up all night, unable to move. Sometimes she sensed that he was looking at her, admiring the red welts left by the whip. Occasionally, she could feel the touch of his hands. In the morning, she was released from the box. She asked when he would let her go. Hooker said soon. She would ask the same question and get the same answer over and over again.
He got her up on the table and chained her, spread-eagle, to a rack. He replaced her head box and left her there. An hour later, he released her and took her to a chair and handed her a plastic bedpan. She had not been to the restroom for twenty-four hours. Even so, she told him that she could not go with him watching. He stepped back, though she could not see if he was still watching as the blindfold was still in place.
He fed her, but kept her blindfolded. Then her chains were replaced with leather straps. She was stood back up on the ice chest and her arms were tied above her. Then the ice chest was kicked away and she was left suspended for fifteen minutes. When she was taken down, she was chained back to the rack and the head box was replaced. She was left like that for another day, never knowing whether she was alone or he was ogling her naked body.
The next day, she was pulling at her chains, moaning and crying, when the head box was removed. This time she heard a woman’s voice.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
She indicated, as best she could, that she was cold. The woman put a blanket over her. When she was unlocked again, Cameron gave her some water and two egg-salad sandwiches. She ate the first, but refused the second. She was not that hungry. This was a mistake. Cameron explained that she should be more grateful. She was suspended from the ceiling again and whipped until she passed out from the pain. When she regained consciousness, Colleen found no support under her feet and passed out again.
When Cameron eventually took her down, she ate the second sandwich. Absolute obedience, she learned, was mandatory. Then she spent another day on the rack. He taught her to be silent. There was to be no whimpering and no conversation. He would give orders; she would obey.
Some time later, Janice returned to the basement. She slipped the head box off and explained to Colleen that, though she was held there naked, she was not going to be raped. There would be no sex. But the torture would continue. Colleen was there, it seemed, to take Janice’s pain for her.
Janice then asked if Colleen knew where she was.
“Yes, in Red Bluff.”
And what would she do if she were released?
“Go to the police and tell them that I had been kidnapped.”
The head box was replaced. Plainly, these were the wrong answers.
The abuse soon fell into a routine. Colleen would spend twenty-three hours chained to the rack, with the head box keeping her in complete isolation. Then she would be released to use the bedpan, always with Cameron watching. She would be fed and watered; she knew never to refuse anything she was given. Then two or three times a week she would be suspended from the ceiling or be subjected to some other sadistic form of punishment. Usually, Cameron would take photographs of her in the most humiliating and degrading positions. He took no chances, developing the photographs himself.
Any form of resistance or complaint was met with a vicious whipping. On one occasion she rattled the chains on the rack because she needed to go to the restroom. He came down to the basement and supplied the bedpan. But afterward she was suspended from the ceiling and thrashed with a bullwhip until she passed out. This was the punishment for making a noise.
Escape, of course, was impossible. At all times, she was kept tethered and blindfolded. At six feet four, Cameron was ten inches taller than Colleen. Janice was petite, but Colleen learned later that she carried a shotgun during her visits to the cellar, just in case. But even if Colleen were somehow freed from her shackles and made a dash for it, she had no doubt the door to the basement would be locked. And beyond that, she didn’t even know if she was in a town or out in the middle of the countryside. How far could she get before he caught up with her?
All Colleen could do was spend her twenty-three hours on the rack trying to analyze Cameron’s mind and moves, seeking solace in happy memories from childhood, and praying to God for his help and guidance.
After a week, Colleen heard sawing and hammering. Hooker was constructing a coffin-shaped box, which would be Colleen’s new home. The rack would still be used for special tortures, but the rest of the time, she would be kept in the coffin. It had a double skin to make it even more escape-proof. Ventilation was provided by a hair dryer with the heating element turned off. She would remain in chains in the box to make her feel even more helpless, and he stopped her ears with grease to increase her sense of isolation. If anyone came into the basement, she could not have heard them. Apparently, Cameron had removed her from the rack because he feared a surprise visit from their landlords. The box was made from cheap particleboard, which was coarse on her skin and gave her splinters. Usually she was given her sleeping bag to lie on, though it was removed for special punishment.
Sometimes, she could not wait twenty-three hours to go to the bathroom and would s
oil herself. This would make Cameron angry. He would string her up and whip her with a variety of lashes, from a bullwhip to a cat-o’-nine-tails, taking care not to cut the skin. He did not want to risk her getting an infection.
There were other tortures. He would string her up and burn her, or administer electric shocks to vulnerable parts of her naked body. Sometimes he would suspend her from her ankles. Colleen noticed that he drew inspiration from S&M magazines, using her as a human guinea pig.
Then there was the sex. Cameron and Janice would have sex on top of the box with her in it. He also forced her to perform oral sex on him, though Colleen did not know whether Janice knew about this. After three months, Cameron brought Colleen a toothbrush and let her clean her teeth.
Colleen grew grateful for small mercies. One morning Cameron brought pancakes and syrup for her. She ate twice that day. Then she discovered it was merely a prelude to a particularly vile act of cruelty that evening.
Her periods had ceased, probably due to stress. But then, after three months, she started to menstruate again. Hooker was furious and she feared a whipping. Instead, for the first time in three months, she was taken upstairs and given a bath.
Throughout, she was gagged with duct tape and blindfolded with a baby’s diaper. Her hair was filthy and tangled, so badly that it could not be unknotted. Janice took a pair of scissors and cut it off.
But no experience in the Hooker household would be complete without torture. While being bathed, Colleen was hog-tied with her hands and feet behind her back. She was then suspended from a broom handle and dunked, head first, in the water. Hooker would keep her there until she thought her lungs were exploding, then pull her out for a second before dunking her back in. The water torture lasted two hours.
Back in the basement she was tied up again, face down on the rack, and Cameron forced her to fellate him. Then she was returned to the mind-numbing torture of the darkness and isolation in the box.
Against Their Will Page 6