A woman was held captive in a box for a staggering seven years after a couple kidnapped her.
Colleen Stan’s harrowing story as “the girl in the box” began in 1977 when she was hitchhiking in Oregon.
The young woman, who was 20 at the time, turned down ride offers from two previous drivers but accepted one from 23-year-old Cameron and 19-year-old Janice Hooker, as reported by CBS News.
She deemed the seemingly innocent couple, who had their child in the backseat, as a safe option, however, she was wrong as they ended up imprisoning her for almost a decade.
Shortly after Colleen accepted the ride, Cameron pulled over in a secluded wood and placed a 20-pound “head box” on the young woman before driving to the Hookers’ isolated home, where the victim was taken to a cellar and subjected to years of perpetual sexual assault and violence.
“He liked to whip me with whips,” Colleen revealed to CBS News. “He had electro-shocked me. He had burned me. He had done many things.”
Cameron gave her the new name “K,” and told her at the time of her captivity: “I’m in control and Colleen no longer exists. You are now K. You are my slave,” per the outlet.
He forced her to sign a “slave contract” stating she had to do anything he wanted, from sex to the more mundane activities such as chores or looking after his children, according to Daily Mail.
The sadist even created a coffin-sized box with holes in it and forced her to climb in before pushing the box under the couple’s bed every night for up to 23 hours a day.
Cameron had convinced Colleen that if she ever escaped a mysterious organization known as “The Company” would find her and hurt her family, which is why she stayed obedient for many years.
She was so fully under his control that she didn’t tell her family about the abuse she was suffering at the hands of Cameron when she visited them during her captivity.
In an interview with PEOPLE, the brave woman explained how she kept her sanity during the chilling seven-year ordeal.
“I learned I could go anywhere in my mind,” she said. “You just remove yourself from the real situation going on and you go somewhere else. You go somewhere pleasant, around people you love. Whatever makes you happy.”
The turning point in the woman’s heartwrenching story came in 1984 when Cameron told his wife Janice that he wanted to make Colleen his second wife and bring in more female slaves.
Janice revealed to Colleen that Cameron wasn’t part of The Company and that no one would come after her or her family. Shortly after, Colleen got on a bus and called Cameron to tell him that she was leaving him.
Despite escaping his clutches, Colleen continued to call Cameron in the hopes that he might reform but that didn’t work so three months after she left, Janice reported her husband to the police.
Cameron was sentenced to 104 years in prison, with his wife accepting immunity to testify against him.
Colleen, who is now married and a grandmother, suffered chronic pain from her years of confinement and underwent extensive therapy upon returning home, per Crime + Investigation.
“Thirty years have passed, I’m better, I’m healed, I’m doing good, I’ve got on with life, and then things like this come up and it has a way of pulling you right back to that event,” she told USA Today when her abductor was up for parole in 2015.
A Lifetime movie on her horrific ordeal, titled The Girl In The Box, is available to stream through Prime Video.
