Against Their Will

by Nigel Cawthorne

  Being unsupervised in the trailer alone during the day meant that Colleen could easily have phoned her parents. But she believed that would only succeed in putting them in danger. After all, The Company tapped the phone; she believed they ran the phone company as well as the police department.

  Janice would bring home work from her job that Colleen would have to complete overnight. Colleen’s reward was to sleep in her sleeping bag on the living room floor. Janice then found that her employer would not pay overtime, so Colleen had to be registered as an employee. Hooker had her social security number and date of birth from documents in her purse. All she had to do was sign the enrollment papers—using her real name, which was becoming increasingly unfamiliar to her.

  By then it had been three years since Colleen had gone missing. Her name on a company’s records alerted no one. Plainly everyone had given up looking for her. When the check came, Colleen was forced to endorse it over to Hooker, who put the money straight into his bank account.

  Hooker was always devising new ways to terrorize Colleen. He told her that two men from The Company were coming to test her loyalty. They would want to see her tortured. When they did not appear, Janice said they were busy and had canceled, but they would come another day, so she had better prepare herself for a pretty vicious torture session.

  On another occasion, Hooker took her out into the forest and left her there naked all night. It was cold. In the morning she heard hunters in the area and was terrified what they might do to her if they found her nude, so she hid as best she could. Eventually, Hooker returned and drove her back to the trailer.

  Hooker enjoyed his power over her so much that he told her to start a diary and write down all the things he had done to her since she had first been captured. Though it had not been his intention, this eventually proved to be vital evidence against him at his trial.

  Colleen learned to flatter Hooker, even telling him that she loved him. Sometimes she even wrote him love letters. As a result, the torture was less frequent and less severe. That summer she was allowed out into the garden again. She was even allowed to talk to the neighbors, providing the conversation was confined to gardening. Any hint that she had talked about anything else would result in a beating, or she would be returned to the box. Sometimes she was returned to the box anyway, with no reason given. And sometimes, when she was under the bed, Colleen could hear Hooker beating his wife.

  On one occasion, Hooker told Colleen to take the children outside so he could whip Janice. Afterward, the girls wanted to know why mommy was crying. To deflect her husband’s wrath, Janice constantly carped about the tiniest thing Colleen did wrong so that Cameron would beat her instead.

  Other curious things happened. One day Colleen was given new clothes and Janice put makeup on her. The two women then went to a bar, where they met two guys and went back to their apartment. Janice disappeared into a back room with one of them. The other one kissed Colleen a few times. He talked; she listened, not daring to tell him anything about her plight. Then Janice emerged and they went home. Colleen supposed that Janice was allowed to have a little fun as a quid pro quo for Hooker indulging himself sexually with his slave.

  Colleen accompanied Janice on another date. This time she danced with another guy while Janice entertained her man friend. Another time, Colleen was given a swimsuit and was taken waterskiing with Cameron’s family. There were other family outings. They went skiing. Then on a shopping trip to Chico, she was allowed to phone her father’s home in Riverside, California.

  They used a pay phone in a gas station. Hooker stood next to Colleen with his finger posed. If she said anything wrong he would cut her off, Hooker warned. The phone was answered by Colleen’s sister Bonnie, who asked where she had been. Colleen said that she had been staying with friends. They chatted amiably. After about five minutes, Hooker indicated that Colleen should terminate the conversation, so she said good-bye and put the phone down.

  Later she was allowed to write home. Hooker vetted the letters and got her to rewrite them if they contained anything he did not like. They were posted from Chico with no return address. Then Colleen asked if she could visit her family, but Hooker said that The Company would not allow it.

  More calls home were allowed that fall. Colleen did not understand why he permitted this. Her family was happy to hear from her, but with Hooker standing next to her there was no way she could explain her predicament. Despite all her new freedoms, there was still no hope of escape.

  One day a kindly neighbor saw Colleen crying and asked what the matter was. Colleen could not tell her. The neighbor said that people at the local church would help. Even there Colleen feared she would not dare unburden herself, but for a quiet moment she and her neighbor prayed together.

  After two years’ work, the dungeon under the storage shed was complete. Colleen was taken there. There was a trapdoor in the floor of the shed. Then she had to descend a ladder. The dungeon was deep, making the ceiling high enough for her to be hung up. Down there was her sleeping bag, her Bible, a portable radio, and a chair.

  Once Colleen was in the dungeon, Hooker hauled up the ladder. She had been told that, if she was found there, she was to say that she used the cellar for quiet contemplation. She was to say, without irony, that in the cellar she could be nearer to God. The trapdoor was then closed. She stood on the chair and tried to shift it, but it appeared Hooker had put something heavy on it and it would not budge.

  After a couple of nights, it began raining. When Hooker came to visit in the morning, Colleen was knee-deep in water. They tried bailing, but it did not work. A pump was no help either. So she was returned to the box.

  At Christmas, Colleen was allowed to send home a blanket she had made. It was for a baby that had been born to the family since she had been gone. She was also allowed to phone home from the trailer. Hooker said that The Company would be monitoring the call. Her father asked her for the number. Colleen made an excuse and said she would give it to him another time. She also received a Christmas present from the Hookers—a new sleeping bag.

  In February 1981, Colleen was unchained from the back toilet and allowed to sleep full time on the floor in the living room. But Hooker began to grow tired of Janice’s constant criticism of Colleen. This situation grew worse when Janice found Colleen’s diary, which enumerated her rapes. In it, Colleen had also talked flatteringly of her “love” for Hooker. Things reached a breaking point when the Hookers’ older daughter inadvertently called Colleen “Mom.” Hooker took Colleen out to the forest, tied her between two trees, and whipped her.

  One day in March, Colleen was made to kneel with her head bowed before her master. He had news to tell her. The Company had decided to let her visit her family. He had to put up a $30,000 surety. But she had better not try anything. The phones would be tapped; the house bugged. If anything went amiss, the house would be swamped by security. People would get hurt. But first, as a test, The Company wanted her hung up and whipped.

  This was not going to be done in any of the ordinary places, but at a small farm his father had in Oregon. The whole family drove up there. While Janice, the children, and the family dog waited outside, Hooker took Colleen into barn, told her to strip, and strung her up from a rafter. Suddenly, they heard the dog bark. Someone was coming. Hooker quickly let Colleen down, but she was still naked when his father walked in. It was dark in the barn, and Colleen was not sure that the old man could see her. Later, Hooker’s older daughter asked Colleen why her wrists were so red.

  On the day Hooker was supposed to take Colleen to the bus station for her trip home, everyone bid her farewell. The two girls kissed her good-bye, and the kindly neighbor gave her $10 she could ill afford. But Colleen was not going anywhere, not that day. Hooker drove around for an hour, then told Colleen to lie down in the car. He then returned and locked her in the shed. That night, he smuggled her back into the trailer, got her to strip, and put her back in the box.

  Over the next few days
, Colleen was hung up repeatedly and savagely beaten. Then came one final test The Company wanted her put through. She was to put a shotgun in her mouth and pull the trigger. Colleen did this without hesitation. The hammer came down on an empty chamber. She had passed the test.

  On March 20, 1981, Hooker set off up Interstate 5 with Colleen in the car. As they neared Sacramento, he said he wanted to check in with The Company’s headquarters there. She was left in the car for a quarter of an hour while he disappeared into an anonymous building. When he returned, he said that The Company were too busy to see her, but he had been given all the appropriate paperwork to allow her a home visit. The company’s secretary had wished her luck. As they continued their journey, Hooker instructed her on what to say to her family and, once again, went through the security arrangements The Company had set up.

  At Riverside, Hooker dropped Colleen outside her grandmother’s house. She paid a quick visit and they arranged to go to church together the next day. Then Hooker drove Colleen over to her father’s place. He dropped her there and drove away. Her stepmother and sisters were there. Her mother, who lived nearby, turned up a little later.

  They asked her where she had been for the past four years and why she had not stayed in touch. But they did not put too much pressure on her; they were afraid that they might push her away forever. It was clear that they assumed that she had joined some weird cult. The police had given up looking for her long ago. To them, she was a simple runaway. Colleen had been twenty when she went missing. Because she was an adult, there was little the authorities could do. In her heart, Colleen wanted to tell her family the truth, but she was too afraid of The Company.

  Colleen sat up much of the night with her sister Bonnie, catching up on family news. The following day, they went to church with their grandmother. In her prayers, Colleen even remembered Hooker and The Company for allowing her to visit her family. After a family lunch, the phone rang at her father’s house. Colleen answered it. It was Hooker. He said he would be there in ten minutes.

  When he arrived, he introduced himself as Mike and said that he was Colleen’s fiancé. When they asked for his phone number, he said he was in the midst of moving at the time and would give them the number when the new line was installed. Bonnie was worried. Colleen seemed strange around “Mike.” She had always been so affectionate with former lovers. But when Colleen’s stepmother produced a camera, Colleen knew she had to play the part and put her arms around Hooker.

  When they left, Colleen managed to persuade Hooker to stop at her mother’s house so that she could say good-bye. On the way back to Red Bluff, she told Hooker how grateful she was.

  They arrived home the following morning. The trailer was empty. Janice and the kids were staying with her family. Colleen was then raped and returned to the box. It was the beginning of a long incarceration.

  For the next three years, Colleen was allowed out of the box only after the children had gone to bed. She could empty her bedpan, drink a glass of water, eat some leftovers, and was then returned to the box—though sometimes she was not let out at all. She only ate on average four or five times a week. Her weight decreased dramatically and, kept constantly in the dark, her hair began to fall out.

  That summer, the Hooker family went away for three days. Colleen was left in the box with a quart of water and a pack of cookies. While they were away, the temperature in Red Bluff soared over 120°F. It got so hot that she feared she might die if she didn’t get out of there. She kicked at the end of the box and something gave way. But then she stopped, fearing the consequences if she were caught. When the family returned, Colleen was too weak even to stand. Hooker fixed the box and said nothing.

  Whenever Janice and the children were out, Colleen was taken out of the box to be tortured, beaten, and raped. Hooker thought up more horrors for her. With her lower legs tied to the back of her thighs, she was handcuffed and sat on the commode with a rubber gas mask over her head. The eyes of the gas mask were taped over. Only one tiny air hole was left open. Hooker would put his finger over this until she was on the verge of suffocating. Then when he tired of this game, he left her bound up while he went for something to eat. When he released her after two hours, she had lost all feeling in her legs.

  Janice went into the hospital for four days in April 1982. This allowed Hooker to indulge the full range of torture and abuse. After being kept in the box for so long, the lack of light had made Colleen’s bones brittle and, when she was tied up in the frame, part of her big toe came away. Hooker was furious that she had bled on the carpet.

  In October 1983, she was transferred back to the dungeon under the shed. This was a relief after being confined in the box. She was given some clothes and there was an infrared lamp down there to keep her warm. There, she could read the Bible and she tuned the radio in to a Christian radio station.

  The Hookers’ children had been warned not to go near the shed, but when their niece turned up, she peeped inside. Hooker feared that Colleen had been discovered, so after just a week in the hole, it was back in the box for Colleen.

  Later that year, Hooker stopped raping Colleen and a new relationship developed between her and Janice, who was also taking an interest in the Bible. Janice kept getting Colleen out of the box so they could study the good book together. Hooker encouraged this.

  On her twenty-seventh birthday, Colleen was given a birthday cake. This was the first acknowledgement of her birthday since she’d become a captive. She asked to be allowed to work. Hooker thought it would be a good idea for her to bring some money into the household again. First, though, after three years, she had to be reintroduced to the family. She was given clothes to wear and a story to tell. The girls were glad to see her back.

  She was allowed to sleep in the bathroom again, with a chain around her neck. In front of others, she was to stop calling the Hookers “master” and “mistress.” Instead, she was to call them Cameron and Jan. But as a good slave, she still called them “sir” and “ma’am,” fearful of returning to the box.

  On May 21, 1984, Janice drove Colleen to Red Bluff to look for a job. Eventually they found her a position as a housekeeper at a motel that was only a few hundred yards from where she had been picked up when hitchhiking seven years before. It was also just a short distance from the Red Bluff Police Department, and the Highway Patrol used the Denny’s restaurant next door. But Colleen believed that turning to them would mean risking the wrath of The Company, torture, and death.

  Now that she was working, Colleen was allowed to sleep on the floor in the living room again. She was permitted to visit the home of another housekeeper from the hotel after work, and the Hookers let her take on overtime, working at the front desk.

  Colleen went on family outings and grew close to Janice. They went to church together. On one occasion they talked to the pastor about the troubles they had at home—leaving out any references to sexual slavery and torture. After that, the pastor even visited them at the trailer.

  It was then more than a year since Hooker had last raped Colleen. Now he put the pressure on. God wanted her to have sex with him. When Janice agreed, Colleen gave in.

  Hooker talked of making Colleen his second wife. One day, he said, they would move to Lake Tahoe where she would have his baby and he would have more slaves. Hooker’s relationship with Colleen began to unsettle Janice once more. She decided to put an end to it. One day, Janice turned up at the motel and told Colleen that Hooker was not a member of The Company. Colleen could hardly believe her ears. She broke down. For seven years, she had been a prisoner of his lies. Perhaps fearing that Colleen would go to the police, Janice still maintained that The Company existed and that Colleen should fear it. It was just that Cameron was not part of it.

  Colleen never understood why Janice had suddenly decided to tell her the truth. Was she worried that Hooker was about to kill both of them? Or, now that Hooker was having sex with Colleen again, was she tired of sharing her husband?

  The two
women decided to escape. Colleen quit her job and they went to visit the pastor. Janice told him that her abusive husband was having an affair with Colleen, while Colleen said that Hooker had made her his sex slave and that her real name was Colleen Stan. However, the girls were still at home and it was too late to make their escape that day. They had to go home and pretend that everything was normal, then make their escape in the morning. Janice was so used to being the dutiful wife that she was afraid that she would spill the beans and Hooker would end up murdering them both. Colleen suggested that she pretend to be ill and say she did not want to make him ill too, so she should sleep in the living room with Colleen. It worked.

  In the morning, after Hooker had gone to work, they packed their things and went to Janice’s parents’ house. Colleen then phoned her father, who wired her the bus fare home. Hooker turned up that night. Colleen stayed with the girls in a back bedroom while Janice talked to him outside. Eventually, he drove away. Then Janice told the whole story to her parents who, like the pastor, could not really take it in.

  The following morning, Janice drove Colleen to the bus station. She begged her not to go to the police, saying that they should give Cameron a chance to change.

  Before she got on the bus, Colleen called the trailer. Hooker answered. She told him that she was about to get on the bus and go home, and there was nothing he could do about it. She heard him cry.

  Arriving in Riverside the next day, she told her family of her kidnapping and her years of captivity, though she spared them the painful details of the rape, the torture, and the box for fear of hurting them. She learned that her family had made every effort to find her, even visiting Red Bluff. But she had simply vanished into thin air.

  Colleen called Janice to tell her that she had arrived home safely. Over the next few months, they exchanged calls. Colleen wanted to know if Cameron had really changed or whether he was coming down Interstate 5 to get her.

  Hooker called too, on one occasion, just to ask her how to make a tuna sandwich. For the first time in his life, there was no one to look after him. Colleen even felt a little sorry for him. This soon passed when her cousin Linda, a firebrand, phoned Hooker and told him what she thought of him.