by Colin Wilson
A case that received nationwide publicity in America in 1985 is perhaps the classic illustration of the power syndrome.
On 19 May 1977 a twenty-year-old girl named Colleen Stan set out to hitchhike from Eugene, Oregon, to Westwood in Northern California, where she intended to help a friend celebrate her birthday. At Red Bluff, a young couple in a blue Dodge offered her a lift; the woman had a baby on her knee, and her husband was a mild, bespectacled individual. Half an hour or so later, in a filling-station restroom, Colleen had an odd intuition that she was in danger and ought to escape; unfortunately she ignored it. When the young couple suggested turning off the main road to look at some ice caves in a national park, Colleen raised no objection. When the car stopped in a lonely place, the man placed a knife to her throat, then handcuffed her hands behind her back. He placed a strap round her head and tightened it under her jaw so she could not open her mouth. Then he bound her, and placed a peculiar wooden box over her head. It had obviously been purpose-made, and when it had been closed it left her in total darkness, hardly able to breathe.
Hours later, the man took her into the cellar of a house, and stripped her naked. His motive was not rape. Instead, he suspended her from the ceiling with leather straps, and whipped her. Then the man and his wife had sexual intercourse beneath her feet. Later, the ‘head box’ was again clamped round her neck, and she was placed in a large wooden box, about three feet high, and locked in for the night. He also placed a ‘prickly object’ between her thighs. It was designed to give her an electric shock, but failed to work.
The next day she was chained by her ankles to a rack, and given food. When she showed no appetite, he hung her from the beam again and whipped her until she was unconscious. Later the man made her use a bedpan, which he himself emptied. Then the headbox was clamped on again and she was locked up in the box.
This went on for weeks. When she became dirty and unkempt, he made her climb into the bath. He raised her knees and held her head under water until she began to choke. He did this over and over again, taking snapshots of the naked, choking girl in between. After that, her female jailer tried to comb her hair, then gave up and snipped off the knots and tangles with scissors.
The man’s name was Cameron Hooker, and he had been born in 1953. He was a shy, skinny boy who had no close friends. When he left school he went to work as a labourer in a local lumbermill. His only reading was pornography, particularly the kind that dealt with flagellation and bondage. His daydream was to flog nude women who were tied with leather straps. When he was nineteen, he met a plain, shy fifteen-year-old named Janice. She was delighted and grateful to be asked out by this quiet, polite youth who drove his own car and treated her with respect. So far she had fallen in love with boys who had ignored her or treated her badly; in fact, the worse they treated her, the more she adored them. Cameron Hooker was marvellously different. When he explained that he wanted to take her into the woods and hang her up from a tree, she was frightened but compliant. It hurt her wrists, but he was so affectionate when he took her down that she felt it was worth it. In 1975 they married, and she continued to submit to strange demands, which included tying her up, making her wear a rubber gas mask, and choking her until she became unconscious. Finally, he told her of his dream of kidnapping a girl and using her as his ‘slave’. Eventually, she agreed. She wanted a baby, and longed to live a normal life; perhaps if Cameron had a ‘slave’, he would stop wanting to whip and throttle her. It sounds incredible but, as we shall see later, such total compliance of a medium-dominance woman to a high-dominance male is by no means unusual.
That is how it came about that Colleen Stan was kidnapped on that May afternoon in 1977, and taken to their basement in Oak Street, Red Bluff, where she was to spend the next seven years.
After a month or so, Janice felt she could no longer stand it. The idea of holding someone captive sickened her. What was worse was that the captive was an attractive girl. Even though her husband had agreed that there would be no sex between him and his ‘slave’, it was obvious that he was deriving from Colleen the same sexual satisfaction that he derived from tying up his wife. Janice decided to weaken the ties with her husband. She went to stay with a sister, and found herself a job in Silicon Valley. She returned every weekend, but this brought about the situation she had been trying to avoid. Left alone with his ‘slave’ for the whole week, Cameron Hooker gave way to temptation. He made Colleen perform oral sex on him, reasoning that he was not going back on his bargain so long as there was no vaginal intercourse. He also burned her with a heat lamp, administered electric shocks, and throttled her until she blacked out. Six months after the kidnap, he started giving her small tasks, such as shelling walnuts or doing crochet. The Hookers sold the results of her labours in the local flea market.
In January 1981, Hooker discovered an article in an ‘underground’ newspaper about a company of white slavers who made girls sign a slavery contract, and decided that Colleen should do the same. And on 25 January Colleen was made to sign a long document declaring that she handed herself over, body and soul, to her Master, Michael Powers (alias Cameron Hooker). She had to agree to obey every order cheerfully and instantly, to maintain her body parts in such a way that they should always be open to him – for example, she was never to wear panties, and to make sure that, when in the Master’s presence, she always kept her knees apart. Finally, after protest, Colleen signed – and was told that her new name was Kay – or K – Powers.
Now she was allowed to come upstairs and help with household chores, but if Cameron came in and shouted ‘Attention’, she had to strip off her clothes and stand on tiptoe with her hands above her head. Soon after this, Janice herself suggested to her husband that he should have sex with his slave. Perhaps she would hoping that he would cite his original agreement and refuse; in fact, he promptly brought Colleen up from the basement, spreadeagled her naked on the bed, with a gag in her mouth and her wrists and ankles tied to the corners, then raped her. Janice, meanwhile, rushed off to vomit in the bathroom. After that, Colleen was put back in the box.
A point came when he decided that he would prefer to live in a more secluded place. He gave notice of leaving to his landlord, and bought a trailer on some land beyond the city limits. Nearby ran the Interstate 5 highway – which, in two years time, would earn itself a new and sinister significance as its name became associated with a random serial murderer known as the I.5 killer. Underneath a large waterbed, Hooker constructed a kind of large rabbit hutch, which was to be Colleen’s home. Colleen was moved in – blindfolded and handcuffed – one afternoon, and immediately confined in her new quarters.
Now life became a little freer. She was let out for an hour or so every day to perform her ablutions and help with the chores. She made no attempt to escape – Hooker had told her all kinds of horror stories about what happened to ‘Company’ slaves who tried to run away: having their fingers chopped off one by one was the least of them. To remind her that she was his slave he periodically hung her from the ceiling and flogged her with a whip. He also burned her breasts with lighted matches. There were compensations. In the autumn, Hooker went up into the mountains to cut wood on the land of the company that employed him; he took his slave with him. He made her work; he also made her swim in a pond and run along a dirt road. When she was ‘disobedient’, he tied her down on a kind of mediaeval rack and ‘stretched’ her. This excited him so much that he stripped naked and made her perform oral sex. On another occasion he raped her on the ‘rack’. Janice was not told of these sexual episodes. Soon after this, the slave was made to drink most of a bottle of wine, then to perform oral sex on Janice; it made her sick.
Early in 1980, after nearly three years of captivity, Colleen was allowed an amazing excursion. She was permitted to dress up in some of Janice’s clothes, make up her face, and accompany Janice to a dance. There they met two men and went home with them. Janice vanished into the bedroom with one of them, while Colleen stayed talking to
the other. Cameron Hooker apparently suspected nothing, and his wife’s liaison continued for the next two months, until it fizzled out. After that, Janice, still unsuspected, had another short affair.
Colleen was also allowed more freedom – she was allowed to go out and jog on her own. Incredibly, she still made no attempt to escape – Hooker had brainwashed her into seeing herself as a well-behaved and loyal slave. As a reward for obedience, she was allowed to write to her sister – without, of course, including a return address – and even, on one occasion, to telephone her family, with Hooker standing beside her monitoring everything she said. She told them she was living with a couple who were ‘looking after her’. When they wanted to know more, her Master made her hang up. Soon after that he took her on a visit to his own family, on their ranch outside town. This passed off so well that he decided to take the ultimate risk, and allow her to go and see her own parents, who lived in Riverside, Southern California. In March 1981, he drove her to Sacramento, and ordered her to wait in the car while he went into an office block that belonged to the sinister Company who owned her. When he came back, he told her they had granted permission to visit her family. The visit to Riverside was brief, but went off perfectly. Hooker was introduced as her fiancé Mike, who was on his way to a computer seminar. Colleen Stan spent the night in her father’s home, then visited her mother – who lived elsewhere – without divulging where she had been for four years, or why she had failed to keep in touch. The following day, her Master rang her and announced he would be arriving in ten minutes to take her home. Colleen was upset that Hooker had broken his promise to allow her to spend a full weekend with her family, and sulked all the way back to Red Bluff. When they got back, the Master decided that enough was enough. The slave’s period of liberty came to an end, and she was put back into the box.
This period lasted another three years, from 1981 until 1984. On one occasion, out of sheer frustration, she kicked out the end of the box and climbed out. She had no thought of running away – the Company would be sure to track her down. Oddly enough, when Hooker came home from work he was not angry, as she expected, but simply repaired the box.
The relationship between Hooker and his wife was becoming increasingly tense – she disliked being tied up and whipped. At one point she left him for a few days and went to stay with her brother. When she came back, she and Cameron had a long, honest talk; she confessed about her two early affairs – her husband seemed indifferent – while he admitted that he had been having sex with Colleen. (This deeply upset Janice.) Then, in an attempt to repair their marriage, they began reading the Bible together. Colleen had already found refuge in the religion of her childhood, and now she joined in the prayer sessions. Cameron, meanwhile, worked on a kind of underground bunker that would be a dungeon for the slave. It was completed in November 1983, and then Colleen was installed. When the winter rains came, howerer, the dungeon began to fill with water, and they had to take her out again and let her back indoors.
Janice and Colleen, whose relationship in the past had often been stormy – Janice was inclined to boss her around – had now become close friends as well as fellow Bible students. Cameron Hooker still flogged his slave – on Company orders – but was also treating her better, giving her more food, and allowing her to babysit with his two daughters. And in May 1984, seven years after her abduction, he sent her out to find a job. She was hired at a local motel as a maid, and proved to be such a hard worker that she soon received promotion. One day, another maid offered her a lift home, and went into the mobile home; she was puzzled when Colleen told her that a small backpack contained everything she possessed. Cameron Hooker came home while Colleen, Janice and the maid were talking, and stared at them with such hostility that the maid felt uncomfortable and left.
Colleen believed implicitly that she was the slave of ‘the Company’; she often mentioned it to Janice, and Janice felt increasingly guilty and uncomfortable at having to support her husband’s lies. Her new religious faith made it difficult. It became harder still when she and Colleen – with Cameron’s permission – began to go to the local church together. Cameron tried to turn the Bible to his own advantage, quoting the passage from Genesis in which Abraham went to bed with his wife’s maid Hagar, and suggesting that Janice should take the same liberal attitude towards Colleen. As usual, he finally got his way; he even persuaded Janice to share the bed, and entertain him with lesbian acts with Colleen. Janice was so upset by the new situation that she asked Cameron to strangle her – something he did frequently, but only to the point of unconsciousness. He agreed, but either lost courage, or was suddenly struck by the thought of the inconvenience of disposing of the body; at all events, Janice woke up to find herself still alive.
On 9 August 1984 Janice made her decision. She went to speak to Colleen at work, and told her the truth: that there was no ‘Company’, that she was not a slave, that Cameron was merely a pervert. Colleen was stunned. Her first reaction was to quit her job. Then she and Janice called on the pastor of their church, and gave him a confused outline of the story. He advised them to leave Hooker. But it was too late in the day for Colleen to take a bus to her family in Riverside. Instead, they picked Cameron up from work as usual, and went back to the mobile home. That night Janice pleaded that she felt ill, and she and Colleen slept on the floor together. As soon as Cameron had gone to work at 5 a.m, they began packing, and fled to the home of Janice’s parents. Colleen wired her father to ask him to send her a hundred dollars. The next day she took the bus to southern California. Before she left, she telephoned Cameron to tell him that she knew he had always lied to her, and that she was leaving; he cried. Then Colleen went home to begin a new life.
For Janice, there was no new life. Cameron begged her to go back to him, promising to reform, and she gave in. But she took him to see the pastor, who advised him to burn his pornography and bondage equipment. He said he would. He even kept his promise, and made a bonfire of them in the back yard, but within a short time he began building up his collection of porno magazines again. Meanwhile, back in Riverside, Colleen had told her family about her seven-year ordeal. She rejected the idea of going to the police. She and Janice had talked over the telephone – they kept in touch daily – and Colleen agreed that Cameron deserved another chance. She even talked to Cameron and agreed not to go to the police. With his wife back at home and his former slave in Riverside, he must have felt perfectly safe.
Janice had now found another confidante – a doctor’s receptionist. It was to her that, on 7 November 1984, she finally poured out the truth. Her new friend sent her back to talk to the pastor. And the pastor, when he finally heard the whole story, talked her into ringing the police.
What Janice Hooker had to tell them was not simply the story of Colleen Stan’s seven-year ordeal. She had been keeping a more sinister secret. In January 1976, more than a year before Colleen had been abducted, they had offered a lift to a girl in the nearby town of Chico. She told them her name was Marliz Spannhake, and that she was eighteen years old. When the time came to drop her off at her apartment, Cameron had grabbed her and driven off to a lonely spot, where the girl had been tied up, and her head clamped in the ‘head box’. Back at home, Hooker stripped off her clothes and hung her from the ceiling. Then, perhaps to stop her screams, he cut her vocal cords with a knife. He tortured her by shooting her in the abdomen with a pellet gun, and finally strangled her. In the early hours of the morning, they drove into the mountains, and Hooker buried Marliz Spannhake in a shallow grave.
The police were able to verify that a girl named Marie Elizabeth Spannhake had vanished one evening in January 1976; but although Janice accompanied them up into the mountains, they were unable to locate the grave. That meant that there was not enough evidence to charge Cameron Hooker with murder. Two detectives flew down to Riverside to interview Colleen Stan, and as they listened to the story of her seven years of torment, they soon realised that they had enough evidence to guarantee C
ameron Hooker several years in jail. Hooker was arrested on 18 November 1984.
The trial, which began on 24 September 1985, made nationwide headlines; the ‘Sex Slave’ case seemed specially designed to sell newspapers. The jurors learned that Hooker was to be tried on sixteen counts, including kidnapping, rape, sodomy, forced oral copulation and penetration with a foreign object. The prosecutor, Christine McGuire, had hoped to be able to introduce the Spannhake murder as corroborative evidence of Hooker’s propensity to torture, but had finally agreed to drop it if Hooker would plead guilty to kidnapping. Hooker’s attorney, Rolland Papendick, made no attempt to deny that Colleen Stan was abducted against her will, but argred that she had soon been free to leave, and that she had stayed voluntarily. The evidence, he said, showed that Colleen loved Cameron, and had stayed for that reason. His argument was that Janice had regarded Colleen as a rival who would supplant her, and had therefore told her about ‘the Company’ to get rid of her. Even after her return to Riverside, said Papendick, Colleen had frequently telephoned Cameron Hooker. And that is why, suspecting that Cameron meant to desert her and move to Riverside, Janice had finally decided to turn him in. In the witness box, Janice admitted that she knew Colleen was in love with Cameron, and that she wanted to have a baby. The jury’s sympathy was obviously beginning to waver towards Cameron. But when a doctor described the scars on Colleen’s wrists, ankles and thighs – including electric burn marks – and a psychiatrist talked about brainwashing, it began to swing in the other direction. Even so, when the prosection and defence had presented their closing arguments, the case seemed balanced on a knife edge. On 29 October 1985 the jury retired; on 31 October – Hallowe’en – they filed in to deliver their verdict. Cameron Hooker had been found guilty on ten counts, including kidnapping, rape and torture. On 22 November Judge Clarence B. Knight delivered the sentence. After describing Cameron Hooker as ‘the most dangerous psychopath that I have ever dealt with’, he sentenced him to several terms of imprisonment amounting to a hundred and four years.