AFTER being kidnapped at knifepoint and imprisoned in a pitch-black box, Colleen Stan endured seven agonizing years of unimaginable horror at the hands of her sick captors.

She was tortured, whipped, hung from the ceiling, repeatedly raped, forced to sign a “slavery contract” and kept under the bed while the kidnappers – Cameron and Janice Hooker – even had six on top of her.

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To this day, it remains one of the most harrowing kidnapping cases in history – made all the more remarkable because Colleen miraculously survived to tell the tale.

Colleen, now 68, recalls her ordeal, saying: “I was kept in this box 22 to 23 hours a day. I don’t know how to explain what total darkness does to a human soul. I felt they were going to kill me.”

A fatal mistake

Before her nightmare began, Colleen grew up in California in “a typical middle-class family”.

But on May 19, 1977, the 20-year-old’s life changed forever.

Talking about documentary The Girl In The Box, available to watch on Hayu, Colleen says: “It was my friend Linda’s birthday. I decided to go and surprise her.

“I went down and I tried to get mine car to start that day but it wouldn’t start so I said, ‘It’s OK, I’ll hitch a ride’.”

Colleen set out on the seven-hour journey, initially getting rides from truck drivers who took her as far as they could. Then a car stopped for her.

She says: “I stick out my thumb and this young couple pulls up, about my age with a little baby.

“I assessed the situation and it seemed safe.”

As the author of Perfect Victim: The True Story of ‘The Girl in the Box’, Carla Norton comments: “Hitchhiking was very common in those days, especially for young people.”

It was a split second decision that would have dire consequences.

She says: “I told them I was going to surprise my friend so they didn’t know I was coming. They had all this information about me, and I didn’t have any information about them.”

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“If I screamed, no one would hear me”

After a few hours they stopped at a gas station and Colleen used the restrooms while the couple refueled the car.

She says: “When I got back in the car there was this strange wooden box in the back seat that wasn’t there before. It was kind of square. It seemed to have latches on it.”

The couple took a detour along a quiet dirt road and Janice took the baby down to play in a small stream.

Colleen says: “Suddenly (Cameron) jumps in from the passenger side. He’s got a big knife and shoves it down my throat and says, ‘Put your hands above your head’.”

“He blindfolds me, ties my ankles together with a rope and puts the knife back to my throat and says, ‘Are you going to do as I say?'” Of course I said yes.

“He takes the wooden box and puts it over my head and closed it and locked it on the outside around my neck so if I screamed no one would hear me.

“I was very scared and in shock. It was very suffocating, very claustrophobic, very hot.

“I was in full panic mode and scared. I didn’t know what these people were going to do to me.”

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“They had sex at her feet”

The homemade box was double walled, insulated and weighed about 20lb.

The couple then waited for the evening and smuggled her into the basement of their house.

Colleen says, “He took the handcuffs off one of my wrists and slapped this leather cuff on and hooked it to a hook in the ceiling.”

She was then stripped of her clothes and suspended from the ceiling beam – before Cameron took his Janice down and the pair had sex at her feet.

“I’ll Cut Your Vocal Cords”

The next day, Cameron chained Colleen to what he called “the place”.

She says: “He said, ‘Laugh, I’m going to cut your vocal chords, I’ve done it before.’

“He kept me on the shelf for a couple of weeks while he built another box. It was a box inside another box – a little bigger than a coffin.

“One evening he came downstairs, took me out of the box, let me use the bedpan, then he usually puts me on the grate, hands me something to eat… I had to do all that, naked. Then he hung up me and tortured me.

“He just put wires on my breasts and on the inside of my thighs. I got an electric shock. He said, ‘I’m not doing this to punish you, I’m doing this because I like it’.”

He took me upstairs to their bedroom and he tied me to their bed. I could feel them and hear them kissing over me and then suddenly he jumped on me and raped me.

Colleen Stan

Meanwhile, Colleen’s housemates inevitably became concerned and filed a missing person’s report with the police – but there was a 400-mile stretch where she could have disappeared, and not much to go on.

Seven months later, in January 1978, Cameron removed Colleen’s blindfold for the first time to sign a “slave contract,” which he said was overseen by a powerful organization called “The Company” that would harm her and her loved ones if she did it. t obey.

After that, the couple started letting her out at night to do chores around the house – and Cameron started raping her.

Colleen says: “The first rape he took me up to their bedroom and he tied me to their bed. I could feel them and hear them kissing all over me and then suddenly he jumped on me and raped me.”

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“I thought about taking my own life”

Meanwhile, Colleen’s desperate family hired a private investigator to try and find her. They refused to give up hope that their daughter was still alive, but their search proved fruitless.

Eleven months later, the Hookers moved to a rural location in a smaller mobile home with no basement, where Colleen was kept in a box under the bed – where she could hear the couple having sex above her.

In 1980, Colleen has been mentally and physically under the control of a couple for three years and for a time was given some “privileges”.

Bizarrely, at one point she was even allowed to visit her family – but said they would be hurt if she revealed the horrors of what she was going through.

Colleen says, “People always say, ‘Why didn’t you run away?’ I just felt it wasn’t an option at the time. (After signing the slave contract) I really felt like I would be hurt and other people would be hurt if I went against them.

“He told me what to say…that he was my boyfriend and we were going to get married.

“He said ‘The Company’ had created something to watch (her parents’) house and bug their phones and if I said anything people would die.

“I didn’t tell them about anything – I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

After that, the conditions Colleen was forced to live in became even worse.

She says in the documentary: “Once a day I got something to eat and then it was pretty exclusive for about three years – I was locked in the box.

“The more I whined or cried, the more excited he got. If I didn’t react, it got a little boring for him.

“I was a mess. I became very thin. Looked anorexic. My hair was falling out. After so many years had passed there was a point where I thought about taking my own life.”

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A daring escape

In 1984, Cameron’s wife Janice was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, filled with remorse for what they had done.

While Cameron was at work, she escaped with Colleen to her parents’ house, where Colleen was able to contact her family and eventually return home.

I consider this defendant to be the most dangerous psychopath I have ever dealt with… He will be a danger as long as he lives.

The judge at Cameron Hooker’s sentencing

However, she was hesitant to report her ordeal. Not knowing who she could trust, she decided not to go to the police.

Meanwhile, Jan told his pastor all about Colleen – and also an alleged murder nine years earlier, of Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, a woman who disappeared in 1976.

According to Janice, they had kidnapped Marie and held her in a similar manner to Colleen before killing her – however, Cameron never admitted this, and no charges were brought against him.

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“Life today is good”

The pastor called the police and three months after Colleen’s escape, Cameron was arrested. Controversially, Janice was offered immunity in exchange for testifying against her husband,

Police found the main box, sex magazines, restraints and a picture of the slave contract and Cameron Hooker was found guilty of a number of charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault.

He was sentenced to 104 years in prison, with the judge commenting, “I consider this defendant to be the most dangerous psychopath I have ever dealt with… He will be a danger as long as he lives.”

Colleen had a daughter in 1987 and every year she celebrates the anniversary of her return home to her family with a beach party.

“I really enjoy my freedom. Life today is good,” she says.

“You have to learn to live in the present and not let the past drag you back.”

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