In 1977, 20-year-old Colleen Stan was abducted and held prisoner in Northern California, spending most of her time in a wooden box underneath her captor's bed. She was often only allowed out for beatings, rape, and torture. Incredibly, Stan was able to survive her horrifying ordeal, and she escaped from her captor's home in 1984 and returned to her family, too terrified by the experience to report the years of abuse and assault to the police.
She became known as the girl in the box, and her story shocked people around the world. Despite her story sounding like something of an urban legend, her story is true. The terrifying details of what happened to Stan - and the crimes of her captor Cameron Hooker - are both disturbing and fascinating.
14 Facts About 'The Girl In The Box,' A Terrifying Case Of Abduction And Torture,
She Was Allowed To Visit Her Family - But Was So Brainwashed She Told Them She Was Fine
After being held captive for more than three years, Cameron Hooker took Stan to Oregon to visit her parents in March 1981. Incredibly, the young woman was so frightened by her captor's threats of The Company, she didn't tell her mother and father that she had been abducted and forced to sign a slave contract.
Instead, Stan introduced Cameron Hooker as her fiancé, never letting her family know she was being held against her will. Her parents even took a picture of the "happy couple" to document being reunited with their daughter and meeting the man they thought she intended to marry.
Stan's parents were concerned for their daughter, mainly because they thought she had joined a cult, but they weren't aware of the years of abuse she had suffered.
She Was Forced To Sign A Slave Contract
After being held captive by the Hookers for several months, Stan was forced to sign a slave contract, effectively agreeing to give up her own free will. The agreement required Stan to obey Cameron Hooker's every wish and command and allow herself to be treated as the man's personal property.
In addition to forcing Stan to sign the slave contract, Cameron Hooker told the young woman her name was "K," not Colleen, and she was made to call him "master", an exercise that helped Hooker dehumanize his captive even further.
She Was Kidnapped By A Couple When She Was Hitchhiking
On the morning of May 19, 1977, 20-year-old Colleen Stan decided to hitchhike from her home in Eugene, OR, to Northern California to attend a friend's birthday party. She spent most of the day accepting rides from various strangers, slowly making her way to her destination, when she was picked up by a young couple, Cameron Hooker, 23, and his 19-year-old wife Janice.
Stan had turned down a number of rides before getting into the Hookers's blue van, largely because she believed the couple, who were traveling with their 8-month-old daughter, was less dangerous than some of the other people who offered her a lift.
However, just 30 minutes into the journey, the vehicle stopped in a remote area, and Cameron Hooker held a knife to Stan's throat and forced a contraption on her head that was designed to isolate her from the outside world.
She Escaped After 7 Years In Captivity
After being held captive for seven years, Stan finally felt it was safe for her to flee the Hooker's home. She was helped, in part, by Janice Hooker. After she realized her husband was probably going to leave her for Stan, Janice Hooker told her Cameron wasn't a member of The Company, the fictional criminal slave organization Cameron said was real. When Stan realized members of The Company wouldn't her hunt down and kill her and her parents if she left, the young woman escaped with Janice Hooker's help and encouragement.
In 1984, Janice Hooker dropped Stan off at a bus station, and the young woman who had been kept as a slave for seven years, called her father and got money to buy a ticket back to her home in Oregon. Stan also called Cameron Hooker to tell him she had escaped, and he reportedly cried when he she told him she'd left.
She Was Forced To Wear A 20 Pound Hinged Box On Her Head
After abducting Stan, Cameron Hooker threatened her with a knife, gagged her, tied her up, and forced a heavy hinged box on to the 20-year-old's head. Hooker, who was a skilled carpenter, had constructed the 20 pound wooden box so that it would fit closely to the head of the wearer, and it was lined with soundproofing material, making it impossible for Stan to see and difficult for her to hear.
Hooker spent a significant amount of time designing and constructing the box, and he had it in the van when he was driving around with his wife and daughter, indicating a lot of premeditation on his part.
She Was Brainwashed By Her Captors And Was Told A Secret Organization Was Watching Her
Cameron Hooker convinced the young woman it would be pointless for her to try to escape, because if she ever managed to break out of captivity, a secret organization called "The Company" would find her and kill her and her family. Cameron Hooker was able to convince Stan he was a member of The Company, an international criminal organization that enslaved women like herself.
Stan was so fearful of this fictional organization that even when she had the opportunity to escape from the Hookers's home, she was too afraid to leave.
She Was Forced To Sleep In A Coffin-Like Box
After her first night of torture, Stan was forced to sleep in a wooden box Cameron Hooker constructed to keep the young woman from being able to escape. The box had the dimensions of a crate, so Stan was unable to lie down. Instead, the 20-year-old was forced to sleep sitting up inside the box, bound by chains.
Eventually, the couple moved from their house to a mobile home, so they didn't have a basement to keep their prisoner. Cameron Hooker dealt with this dilemma by constructing another box, which was approximately the same size as a coffin, which allowed Stan to sleep lying down. However, the Hookers placed this box underneath their waterbed, and despite the air holes Cameron had added to help Stan breathe, during the summer months it routinely reached over 100 degrees inside the box.
She Had Been Kidnapped To Take The Place Of Her Captor's Wife
One of the reasons Janice Hooker allowed her husband to abduct, torture, rape, and hold Stan captive was because it meant Cameron would no longer subject her to horrific beatings. According to Janice Hooker, shortly after she met Cameron, she was brainwashed and routinely tortured and abused, so she agreed to let her husband kidnap a woman to keep as a sex slave.
However, it's impossible to know if this was Janice Hooker's sole motivation for helping her husband kidnap, torture, and enslave Stan.
She Was Repeatedly Tortured And Raped
When Stan arrived at the couple's home in Red Bluff, CA, she was forced into the basement where she was brutally raped and tortured. On the night she was kidnapped, Stan was suspended from the cellar's ceiling while Cameron Hooker savagely beat her while his wife Janice watched. Then, the Hookers had sex on a table underneath Stan who was still hanging from the ceiling by her wrists.
During the time she was held captive in the couple's home, Stan was stretched on a rack, regularly whipped and beaten, deprived of food, burned, routinely raped, and repeatedly electrocuted.
She Was Confined To The Box For 23 Hours A Day
For the first few years she was held captive, Stan was usually allowed out of the box for only an hour or two each day, often just to clean the Hookers' house or babysit their children. The couple had two young daughters, and neither of the girls realized Stan was being held against her will. In fact, the Hookers' daughters didn't even know Stan lived at their house, much less stayed underneath their parents' bed in a wooden box, because Cameron and Janice told the girls Stan went to her own home every night.
Being confined to this small space for so many years, coupled with the abuse and torture she suffered, left Stan with chronic medical problems, including severe back and shoulder damage.