#355: Man Kept A 9-Year-Old Girl In His Room For 10 Years Without His Mom Noticing
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at iXL.com/audio. Visit iXL.com/audio to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. - Let me collect my thoughts, please. And the staff members look over at Nate's mom who, you know, had called them to do the mental health check on Nate in the first place. And they look at her like, "Hello, do you know this girl? Why is she in your house?" And Nate's mom just kinda shrugs. She's like, "I don't know. I have never seen her before."

So the staff members, they assume it had to have been Nate's girlfriend. Maybe he had like snuck her into the room. Even though he clearly looked 25 years older than her, it didn't matter to them. You know, love is love, right? What is age? Nate is like in his 40s.

this girl looked like she was maybe 18 what so they're like love is love but why is she behaving so weird maybe we should just take her to the hospital because what's going on what's your name and she's not responding to that she just looks so panicked and she keeps looking around and she asks nate's mom can i just stay here till he gets back

This part is so pertinent and so heartbreaking later, but that's what she asks. So she's refusing to go home. And even the staff is like, what's your name? Where's your home? We can take you home. She's like, I don't have a home.

So like, just take her to the hospital. We don't want to take care of this situation. Like let the hospital do it. So they rush her to the hospital and finally she gets comfortable enough. And she says that her name is Fusaka Sano. We're going to call her Sano. And listen, this name might not mean anything to you right now, but it meant something to everyone at the hospital because Fusaka Sano was a very well-known missing persons case in the area.

She vanished when she was nine years old and she had been missing for the past nine years. And like,

Like, okay, I just like to put things in perspective. Nine years is a really long time. Nine years is three years longer than World War II. Nine years is actually the first walk around the entire Earth. Took someone four years. So nine years, you could technically walk around the Earth, the whole planet, two full times and have some time left over to sightsee. Nine years was half of Sano's life. She had been missing for half of her life.

And it wasn't an easy nine years. I mean, it was a torturous nine years. Throughout her captivity, Sana was forced to tase herself with a stun gun, like a taser, over and over and over again. And eventually, she started willingly doing it to herself.

You're like, why does she have Stockholm syndrome? Well, let's backtrack a bit first to who the hell this Nate guy is, because we hate Nate, which, by the way, the warning signs were there. Nate was a problem child. This was not a situation where everyone's like our good neighbor, Nate. We would have never guessed. He's so nice. No, everybody kind of hated Nate. Nate's dad. Let's call him James because I couldn't find his name online. But James is an

Isn't he an interesting person? He got married, had five kids, and when James was 60, his wife passed away. Now, I guess James decided that there was still some fuel in his good old crusty tank, so he puts himself back in the market. He's trying to date again. And listen, I don't know if it's the raising gas prices, but it worked out. James manages to marry a beautiful 30-year-old woman, half his age, and the two go on to have a kid, Nate.

Now, the family dynamic was interesting. James, the dad, is the breadwinner. He makes good money. He likes the finer things in life. He purchased this big old Western style house with a huge second floor. That's super fancy back then. So he built this beautiful nursery. You know, he had the child, Nate. It's ironic because this room, this nursery that Nate used as a child would later be hell on earth for another kid decades later. So

So with this lavish house and nursery, Nate did not have a good relationship with his parents at all. I don't know if it was the fact that James was old. So James was like, I've already been there, done that with all my other kids. Am I really trying to do it again with this new one? I don't know if he was just tired. I don't know, right? But he just, listen, James and his mom were the type that they would throw him into the nursery and say, oh, look over there at your shiny new toy. Hurry, close that door so he doesn't see.

And then the kid would walk to the shiny new toy and then look behind and his parents are gone because they don't want to spend time with you. Like that's kind of the life that he was living. And also both of his parents seem to be struggling with some sort of undisclosed, unaddressed mental health issue. And eventually Nate starts exhibiting his own symptoms. Now it's reported that he had some sort of germophobia or OCD.

I don't know. The germophobia diagnosis gets a little weird later. Neighbors also reported that Nate would obsessively wash his car nonstop all day long. Like it didn't even matter if it was dirty. He would just wake up in the morning and wash it all day. Next day, wake up, wash it all day. It was so bad that it caused him to drop out of school. He was getting bullied. He was so stressed all the time. He would come home and throw the world's biggest tantrum if his dad came home in slightly dirty clothes or slightly dirty hands.

Which honestly, the parents did try to help Nate. Good for the parents. I think a lot of parents, especially in Eastern cultures, would never have taken him to like a psychiatrist, especially during this time. But his parents did. It was actually the hospitals that were at fault. The hospital sat down the parents and were like, I don't get it. What seems to be the problem here? They're like, he's freaking out because if someone around him hasn't washed their hands, like he'll have a psychotic breakdown for the rest of the day. And the hospital is like, but is that the worst thing in the world?

He's just a clean kid. Shit. I wish my kid had germophobia. Am I right, doctors? Am I right? So the hospitals pretty much just ignored the family. Like no matter how many times the family brought Nate, they'd just be like, what's the big deal? He's a clean kid. And they would just release him.

I mean, yeah, the warning signs were all there. So he drops out of high school and he decides he needs a job, right? He starts working at a factory, which I mean, that's super messy work, but that wasn't even the thing that he had a problem with. One day while he's at work, he's walking.

And, you know, sometimes when you're walking and you run into like what feels like a hair, but you know, it's not a hair. It's not like full on web in your face. It's not like in Charlotte's web right there. But, you know, yeah, like one of the webs. Right. And you walk into it and it's like that cotton candy hair feeling and you just get so agitated because you can't see it. You can't like pull it out. Right. Well, that happened to him.

And he ran all the way home, scrubbed himself clean until his skin was raw and he never went back to work. He was so traumatized. So you're like, well, how does he make money then? Well, he just essentially was like, I'm going to move out. Yeah, he's making no money. He can't take care of himself, but he's like, I'm going to move out. And his parents are looking at him like he's crazy. Like you can't move out. You can't even take care of yourself. No, we're not going to allow it.

So what does Nate do? He takes it all in and he's like, okay, if you say so. And then he tries to set the house on fire. I don't,

I don't know why he would think that suddenly an arsonist is fit to live alone. It just doesn't make sense. But he tried to light the house on fire. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful and nobody was hurt. But he was diagnosed with severe OCD and severe anxiety disorders. Basically, this guy was bubbling with anxiety. He spent months in a mental health facility, which is like the most help he's ever gotten in his entire life. But nothing happened when he got out. It was

He was waiting for another mental breakdown. He spent all of his time upstairs watching horse races and obsessing over idols. And he convinced his parents to remodel the upstairs second floor to make it into his own apartment with his own entrance. So yeah, there would still be that staircase connecting the first and second floors, but he made his parents promise that they would never come back upstairs unless he invited them. So technically he's making it seem like it's his own apartment.

and of course the parents are trying to compromise so they're like okay that sounds good. when construction started it caused such a mess because that's kind of how construction is. there was dirt, there was like pieces of wall everywhere, and he was so stressed by this that he called off the renovations. so like half of the upstairs was just bare wooden sticks like inside the wall. like the drywall wasn't even there. now eventually nate's old dad ends up passing away

And now it's just Nate and his mom in the house. And Nate's mom literally never went upstairs. Like not even a fingerprint of hers could have been found upstairs. And neighbors reported seeing Nate's mom with bruises everywhere, black eyes. And they would even see Nate going around punching through the windows and breaking down doors in the house, which, yeah, that's alarming. But I don't know if that's more alarming or less alarming that nobody called the police like nobody did.

He was just blatantly doing this. So imagine how scary he was behind closed doors. I mean, what? And one of the things that none of the neighbors suspected was that Nate had big plans. He wanted to kidnap a little girl. Nate starts stalking the local schools for the past, I don't know, maybe like a couple years. And he's like working up the courage to find the perfect victim. He thought that they would be around nine years old and he could just snatch them from like the school parking lot.

So one day he sees a group of four nine-year-olds walking around the school parking lot, and one of them had separated from the group. So he just pounces on her, and he tries to drag her into the car, but thankfully one of her friends starts screaming, and is like, hey, put her down! And he puts her down, freaks out, drives away in the car. Now, this is like an elementary school parking lot. I mean...

They're going to call the police and the police are going to find out who Nate is. And they do. Now, this is the confusing part. The police arrest Nate and they say, we looked up your records. This is actually your first time trying to kidnap a nine year old. So what that tells us, the police officers, is that you're probably never going to do it again.

I don't even understand the logic there. You're saying that he tried once and failed and you're going to give him practically no consequences. And then you still think that he's not going to try again. Yeah. How do you even know that's his first time? Exactly. First time getting caught. Exactly. So it's, it's the, the,

it's crazy he's almost treated better than someone who's never done it before and you and I both know that the mother forker is gonna try again and he does so 27 year old Nate starts prowling the outskirts of a town in his car and he realizes that his mistake the first time was that he went to a school zone which of course there's gonna be a lot of people a lot of witnesses this time he's prowling the

quiet farm roads to see if any young girl was walking home he lives in like a really small town in japan so a lot of girls would be walking home now he sees this little nine-year-old sano walking alone he pulls up behind her and sticks a six-inch knife up to her and starts threatening her and he tells her be good and don't say a word

sona was so scared to scream so she didn't say anything nate opens up his trunk throws her in there and just starts doing circles he starts driving for like hours in circles to throw her off right because they lived in the same town and she's confused lost in you know complete pitch blackness and when you're nine a car ride like that in the trunk it's gonna feel like centuries you're gonna feel like you're on the other side of the world at this point

And in the middle of the car ride, Nate would park the car and tie Sando up and blindfold her. So when he got to the house, he would sneak her up to the second floor and he told her, you don't want to end up killed like all those other kidnapped girls do you? You are never going to leave this room. You are going to live here forever. And if you break that promise and if you try to do something to change it, I'm not going to need you anymore. I have no problem burying you in the mountains or sending you floating away in the ocean. So you better just stay quiet.

And this was the beginning of nearly a decade of captivity. Obviously, Sano's family realizes that she's missing. And that night, this huge search party of like 200 something police officers, volunteers, they had helicopters, they searched vacant homes, shipping containers. They put up close to 20,000 missing posters, but there was no sign of Sano. Now, this is the infuriating part. You're thinking, okay, well,

Nate was on the police record less than a year ago for trying to kidnap and essentially rape a nine-year-old girl. So surely the cops are going to interview him, right? With the other sex offenders. No, the cops were like, well, he's probably doing a really good job in life now because, you know, he got caught last year. So why would he do it again this year? I mean, that doesn't make sense. He's probably still shaken up from being caught that he's a good law-abiding citizen. He probably doesn't even want to kidnap little girls anymore.

Instead, the police put all their resources in trying to find Sano and started investigating a potential North Korean rogue operation. They were like, North Korea took her. Yeah, because the pal down the street is an absurd suspect, but North Korea...

that's a good one that's like a i think that's the one so for the next nine years and two months sano is held captive most of the time her legs and arms were tied up 24 7 which is literal hell like the cia doesn't even do this in their stress positions so do you know the cia stress positions

We've talked about it before briefly, but essentially they put you in this box where you can't sit, you can't lay down, you can't crouch and you can't stand up. So you're putting stress on all of your muscles for hours at a time. And imagine the cramps. Imagine the misery. Like the CIA loves a good stress position. But this is worse because she couldn't even move a single muscle.

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Nate would make superficial stab wounds on Sano dozens of times to scare her, like, hey, this is going to be worse if you ever try to escape, or if you even scream. Nate would beat her relentlessly, most of the time for no reason at all. She had no idea why she was being beat. Nate's favorite thing to do was beat Sano near her eyes so that her eyes would swell up and she wouldn't even be able to open them. And he would always say, this is two birds, one stone. I beat you up and now you can't run away because you can't see.

Now, the part where I question Nate's germophobia is because it's said that Sano showered maybe once during his entire her entire nine years of captivity. They also peed and pooped in plastic bags and they would just leave the poop bags in the hallway of his makeshift second floor apartment, which listen, I don't know how often he cleaned them, but I just can't imagine the smell. I genuinely can't imagine a germaphobe doing that.

Now, the other torture at first, Nate fed Sano really well, three times a day. It is like a mix of instant foods, breads, sugars. But then he saw this bruise on her leg, which I mean, he had beaten her a ton. So I don't see why he was so damn shocked over a bruise because you just beat her like yesterday. There's going to be bruises. But he accused her of having diabetes.

like that bruise is from diabetes so he starts restricting her food intake in a way to help her diabetes he cut out all carbs and sugars suno is nine she's supposed to be growing but she was a dangerous 84 pounds pretty much until she was 19 years old coupled with the fact that 99 of the next nine years in captivity suno is chained in the dark with no exercise onto the bed

Her muscles started atrophying. She could barely walk. Her leg muscles were so weak. At this point, Sano couldn't even escape if she wanted to. She physically could not. And that's just the physical aspect. Nate would mentally abuse her heavily. He had this game where he bought a stun gun, like one of those tasers, and he would taser over and over again while she bit down on a towel.

And this is the weird part. This is the weird part, right? So he would say, I'm going to stop when you stop screaming. So of course, in the beginning, as he's tasing her, she's screaming, right? So he's saying, I'm going to stop when you stop screaming. So she practiced and clenched every muscle in her body to stop the scream. But then as he progressed with this, the more she could do that on the first tase. But if she didn't scream at all, he would do it until she screamed.

So he would tase her until she screamed and was like, okay, now I'm going to stop when you stop screaming. So there was really no winning with it. And because there was no winning, Sana was so desperate of all the pain that she asked to tase herself under Nate's supervision because she thought that if she got comfortable enough, she could desensitize herself to the pain, which is just so freaking heartbreaking and infuriating.

And you're like, okay, well now with all this screaming, there's no way that Nate's mom has no idea that he's just holding a woman captive. Like, what do you mean? She's just downstairs watching QVC? I don't think so. It's hard to say if his mom knew. I'm gonna gear towards the fact that she probably knew, but this guy is also beating his mom. And yeah, tasing his mom at one point. So she is a victim as well. To be fair, I do feel for his mom. She did try to get her help for her son. She is also battling mental illness herself. But at this point...

she still should have done something yeah like like the fact that she called someone right to take him away yeah but that was nine years later and she could have done that exactly the first day exactly and nine years later but yeah nobody is disagreeing that he doesn't need mental health evaluation but you should have called the cops first

Like, if my son had someone held captive, I wouldn't be calling the mental hospital. I would be calling for an arrest warrant. To me, it doesn't make sense, right? I don't know how this mom lived with it. And in order for Sano to survive in captivity, she developed a strong disassociative disorder. She was just super disconnected to everything. Her mental development did not pass the age of nine, the day that she was kidnapped. She was just super disconnected to everything.

The whole time she was bored and understimulated. This is very different from a lot of the other cases that we cover where a lot of people will be, a lot of victims will be held captive. And within a year or so, maybe a couple of months, they'll get a book or a newspaper or a radio, right? Sano for eight something years of her captivity never was allowed to read newspapers or listen to the radio.

So she was left incredibly understimulated and bored. And I heard from a lot of victims, like if you read their books and their testimonies, they always say that boredom is worse than the torture sometimes. And it's all made even more heartbreaking when you realize that when Nate was caught, Sano begged to stay in his house because she was there for nine years and she didn't even know what to do. Like this was what she thought life was.

So she's like, yeah, like I'm going to go out there and then what? Nate would later say that Sana was just his friend, not his victim. He said, I thought that I would want to keep her forever because we would talk about horses and races and cars. And I genuinely did like her. I felt like she was actually a girl my age. She was irreplaceable to me. So I was never going to let her go.

Side note, this is not a defense for Nate, but he did not sexually assault Sano. He literally kept her there as a hostage and tortured her physically and mentally and emotionally. So this is where it's weird. What? Yes, I've never heard of a case like this because let's say Nate really wanted a friend, right? This is really sick and twisted, but let's say he wanted a friend. I don't think that he would torture her physically. Torture physically is almost like a power thing and rape is a power thing. So it's weird to me, like,

Yeah, that's really. Yeah. But it's not like he was torturing her as like, I need to do this so you don't run away, but I don't really want to do this. He was getting off on the torture. Yeah. Like tasing her. That is so weird. Yeah. Never heard that before. Yeah. Some people suspect that he had something for watching people kind of decline. Yeah.

I don't know if that's true. That's like a theory that I've seen on the internet. It's like watching someone become more pale and more atrophied. And I don't know, because people are confused by this. Like, what do you mean? Like, what is he really getting out of this? So Nate gets caught and he's arrested and charged with kidnapping. Now the maximum sentence is 10 years, literally an eye for an eye, which is just so sad.

sick considering how long he kept Sano captive. I don't really believe in this because you made the choice to kidnap Sano. So an eye for an eye doesn't even make sense. I don't like when people argue an eye for an eye because if you made the choice to do something bad to me, it should be worse than an eye for an eye for you.

So it's only 10 years for his case? Yeah, maximum would be 10 years. For kidnapping? Yeah, and holding her hostage for nine years. Nine and a half years. What? What if someone kidnapped someone for 20 years? I guess just 10 years. It's not even an eye for an eye. It's like an eye for a punch in the face.

So the prosecutors, they tried to add on any more charges they could justify to increase his prison sentence. And in the end, it didn't work. Nate was sentenced to a maximum of 11 years. But this caused so much outrage online, even in prison. I mean, people were upset. This guy is going to have a better time in prison than Sano. Sano was kept captive for nine years. She didn't ask for this. He essentially asked for this when he decided to break the law.

Yeah. And she was a kid. Yeah. None of this made sense. Now there was so much outrage that the penalty for confinement for kidnapping was increased from 10 to 15 years. Wow.

which is nothing, but it was too late for freaking Nate because he was released in 2015 at just 52 years old. He's dead now. He moved into like a government housing. He was on welfare. So that's great. Still getting support from the government. And within two years, he ended up passing away. His cause of death is undetermined, but he was just found dead in his apartment.

Meanwhile, Sana tries to live a normal life and she's trying to put on weight. She has to learn to walk again. She has severe PTSD. She has social anxiety. The only people that she felt comfortable with in her entire life after this point were her family. And one day on a beach trip with her dad, he ends up drowning in front of her eyes and she was unable to rescue him. So she watched her dad die in front of her face. And it was just this other added layer of trauma.

And here is the infuriating part. There was a lot of online discourse that included a conversation of, well, what if Sana wanted it? Who said this? Yeah. They were saying that Nate had mentioned in interviews that he had sometimes left the front door of his house unlocked. So does that mean that she could have just walked out, but she didn't? Coupled with the fact that she asked if she could stay online,

What if she wanted it? To which that I say, first of all, she couldn't even walk because her leg muscles were atrophied. And second of all, how would she freaking know that the front door was unlocked? And third of all, how does she like? Like how have any one of these people been kidnapped?

For nine days. Yes. This is the same energy of, well, I would never be kidnapped because I would karate chop black belt shoot my potential kidnapper. It's like. Or people say, I would never be in that shoot, in that position. You don't know until you know. Listen, we all want to pretend to be like, we're so brave and stuff. And like, sometimes I say that too, but like, let's be real. It happens to everyone. And like, when you are in a stressful situation, freeze your mind.

freeze or flight flight or flight like you are you kidding so like yeah put your eyeballs on the table before you talk about sono like that what are you even saying but this was discourse online like she didn't want to leave so that must mean that she wanted it and this was in 2015 this wasn't even like the 1900s this wasn't even like in the 80s where you're like oh well we've evolved 2015

I want to talk to you guys about today's case because it's so freaking mind-boggling that this even happened, that this took place, that this is a crime that someone committed. So this is the most what the fork plot twist kidnapping case that we've covered in a while and yes again nobody fakes their own kidnapping. It's not bizarre in that sense, it's even more bizarre and unexpected. Let's talk about Julianne Bushwald and Carolyn Watson from Australia.

I'm not gonna lie to you, their relationship was questionable from the get-go. So Julian was 25 years old, Caroline was 17 years old, and they had been dating for two years? Yeah, so that means she would have been 15 and he was 23 years old. Yeah, so side note, very questionable on Julian's part. Caroline did nothing wrong, I'm just saying, okay? Now, it's not clear where they met. Some sources say that they met at church, which would kind of make sense. It seemed like the two of them spent a lot of time at church.

They were devout Christians. They took their faith super seriously to the point where they had been dating for two years, never even kissed each other. They had never done anything more than just hold hands, which is saying a lot because, you know, when you're 17...

And 25 that's you know, you get it both of them just wanted to save everything until they got married even their first kiss Definitely their first time and it was fine because you know They were planning on getting married very very soon the minute that Carolyn turned 18 and she graduated high school They were going to get married. So until then all they had to do is keep it in their pants, you know Keep busy keep busy studying praise the Lord go on dates and that's it. I

No, really. That's like all they could do because they both came from a super small rural town where literally nothing happened. Like nothing was going on. There was not much to do in the area. There was no crazy dates for them to go on. So they would just spend most of their time in nature, hiking, picnics, driving around in Julian's car. So March 4th.

was going to be one of those uneventful dates, right? Julian comes, picks up Caroline, and his plan is to take her to a part of his family's really big property. And they were going to picnic next to this waterfall and just enjoy each other's presence. I mean, it sounds like a really cute date. They live in Australia, by the way. So it's going to be really picturesque.

But the thing about Australia is that when nighttime comes, it doesn't matter how nice it was during the day. Once nighttime comes, freezing cold, freezing cold. There's so many animals. There's so much wildlife. It's just scary. Like a kangaroo could pop out of nowhere, punch you in the face. You could get bitten by a venomous spider. I'm not even exaggerating. It's crazy.

The kangaroos are jacked up chads, so you have to be careful. So they were smart. They're like, we're not going to even wait till nightfall. We're going to come home by 3 p.m. That's what Carolyn told her parents. So they start driving and on the way to the waterfall, Julian spots some roadkill on the side of the road. It's not even...

on the road it's like in the woods on the side he's like oh it's my lucky day okay so this part is interesting but julian really likes roadkill he would stop driving anytime he saw roadkill or a dead animal on the side of the road and he would just start investigating which

Which I think is interesting. I'm assuming that there was a really good reason for it. Okay, so he's not trying to bring home and eat it. No. Have you guys seen that show like roadkill? They make food out of roadkill. So he's just investigating. He completely stops the car. Middle of nowhere road. And he goes to study the jigsaw puzzle remains of whatever animal was on the side. And Carolyn didn't think it was strange. He did this a lot.

She didn't really care for the roadkill, so she just stayed in the passenger seat. And she could actually—she couldn't actually see the animal. The animal was, like, in the woods. It was off near the trees. So she's keeping herself entertained in the car. And just to draw you a picture of it, from where Carolyn was sitting in the car, she could not see Julian anymore. But that's not really a big deal, right? Because they're in rural Australia countryside. She knew it was safe. Nobody was going to be here.

Or was it? Julian said while he was bent over studying the roadkill, he heard like the crunching of leaves behind him. Like the crumpling. And it was footsteps, but it was heavy footsteps. It definitely wasn't Carolyn. It was very...

it sounded like a larger person like a man someone with a bigger stature a figure someone was loudly stomping up and it was getting closer and closer and louder to him and he went to turn around to see who was walking up behind him and before he knew it he got bonked on the side of the head and knocked out cold

He couldn't even register what the hell was going on, so he couldn't even scream for Carolyn to run. Nothing. So Carolyn is blissfully unaware in the car. It's not like Julian screamed, alerted her, nothing. She's in the car and she looks up and sees a man dressed in all black with a balaclava over his head. And she's like,

Oh my god. I don't know who this man is, but something is definitely wrong. This is not normal. And he's looking straight at her. She can see from the holes where his eyes are cut out. So a balaclava is just holes in the eyes and everything else is like a ski mask. He's headed straight to her, like power walking to the car. She opens the passenger side door and she tries to run out before he gets to her. But he's so fast. He drags her out of the car, shoves her face down onto the ground, hog ties her.

So, you know what that is? It's like when you're on your stomach and your arms and your legs are tied behind your back but together. And he duct tapes her mouth shut and stuffs her in the trunk of Julian's car. She's desperately trying to listen to what the hell is going on. Her heart probably sank when she heard the door to the car slam shut and the engine starts revving. So now the kidnapper is driving off with her in the trunk. They were leaving Julian. She doesn't even know where he is.

They were in the car for a really, really long time before they finally stopped. And Carolyn felt like, you know, she knew her fate. Whoever this was, was going to R-word her and then unalive her and leave her for dead in the Australian countryside. If not, she would freeze, starve to death, be attacked by wild animals, bitten by venomous insects. Honestly, what's worse? Like, it's hard to say. Either way, she felt like she was going to be R-worded and unalived.

the car stopped and the kidnapper drags her out of the trunk throws her onto the ground and she closes her eyes while he starts approaching her with this shiny knife but instead of killing her like she thought he was going to he cut off all her clothes he pulled the duct tape off her mouth so now she's naked and still hogtied and she's confused you know is she gonna get assaulted she didn't really know but he vanished for a second and he comes back with a shovel and right next to her he starts digging a grave

- Oh my gosh. - And can you imagine like the emotions that you're feeling when you're experiencing someone dig, you're on the ground, you see them digging right next to you and you know it's your grave, like it's big enough to be a grave.

She's thinking, am I going to be buried alive here? Like, am I going to be R-worded and then buried alive? I mean, either way, it was not looking good. Since the duct tape is off her mouth, she's begging him, you know, please let me go. I'm not going to tell anybody, please. Like, I have family that love me. Like, I promise I won't. She's begging, begging. She's saying she'll do anything. She's trying to appeal to his humanity. Nothing. He won't even respond to her. He was just grunting away, digging the grave. Caroline felt like all she could do now was pray.

So she prayed and prayed and prayed. She prayed that her faith would save her from whatever this man had planned for her. And then her prayers came true. Literally, it was like an act of God. The man stopped digging and just disappeared into the bushland.

She was so relieved momentarily, but she realized she was still left helpless, hogtied, naked, and it was going to be nighttime soon where the temperatures were going to be dropping below freezing. The situation was only going to get worse when the sun set. Plus, she had no idea if the kidnapper was going to come back. And if he was even going to come back alone, what if he had come back with other people? What if he had bigger plans? So she's freaking out. But all she could do was literally lie there like bait and wait.

And eventually she heard a voice and she recognized the voice. It's a boyfriend? Julian. What? He's like, Caroline. And she hears him calling her name and it's getting closer and closer. And he emerges from the trees completely naked, tied up. He's not hog tied, but his legs and his arms are tied together. So he's like hopping. He's hopping around and he looks like he's been through it. Okay. He looks like he's seen some.

And the two, they hop towards each other and they come up with a plan. The knife that the kidnapper had used to take off all of Carolyn's clothes was left behind. So they were going to use it to free each other and then get out of there before the kidnapper comes back. Because, I mean, it felt like he was going to come back. Why else would he go through all this trouble to leave them naked and tied up? Like he didn't get anything out of it yet. So he's going to come back.

So they free each other and they start to make their way through the woods. Julian manages to find some supplies around where the kidnapper had left the car. So they had a sleeping bag in the car, a few things to eat, some extra clothes. And that was about it. Like they were still hours away from home. Even if they drove, like think about it. Like they were semi-naked. They have to walk because the keys are not in the car. They're sore. It was going to be a long time till they get home. If they make it home, that is.

Meanwhile, at home, Julian's mom is getting worried about where the hell he is. Julian is not the type to come home late, especially without calling. So she starts pacing the room. She has no way to contact him. He's not picking up the phone. Carolyn's not picking up the phone. So she starts walking around her property, hoping that she would see Julian's car coming in the distance somewhere. But all she found was a little bottle.

Like one of those messages in a bottle, like those glass bottles. You know what I'm talking about? It was like wish bottles. Yeah, it was really weird. Like it looked like it had been stuffed through their fence for them to find. And like a piece of paper was stuffed into the bottle, like a message in a bottle. And she's like, OK, this is really weird because nobody litters around here. I mean, like I told you, they live in rural Australia. Nobody comes onto their property this deep. So she carefully gets the bottle, takes the letter out. And she was even more worried and confused when she read the letter.

It said, you bloody can't leave us alone. So now your son and girl have gone walkabouts. Meaning like, they're gone. You'll get Julie and Carolyn back after we finished our business in the area. But only if you behave yourselves. And don't shit us around again. Tell everyone that you're on holiday. Don't you dare talk to the cops again. And you'll get your kids back.

us again and you'll never see your kids because we will fuck the girl to death and your son will really enjoy the torture and the sacrifice to our god to pay him back 180 times the hurt he did to us when we pick them up this is your last warning do what we say and you'll get your kids back alive

What? Does she know what they're talking about? No, like, what do you even mean call the cops again on us? Like, it was so weird. She's like, what? I've never called the cops. So Julian's mom freaks out, calls the cops. And the letter was covered in satanic symbols and pentagrams. But one part of the letter stood out. Don't call the cops again. Again? The cops are like, you never called us, right? Who even wrote this letter?

Go to your happy place for a happy price. Go to your happy price, Priceline.

And then the cops were told and they were reminded that Carolyn's parents had called the police a couple months ago. They had gotten a letter literally like a month ago and it was left on their porch overnight. The piece of paper, again, was covered in pentagrams and satanic symbols and it read, "'Mind your own bloody business and stay away or I will make your life a misery and destroy you and your family. Christians are our enemies.'"

So Caroline's dad went to the police, but everybody just brushed it off, telling her dad that it was all a harmless prank by kids who thought they were edgy, you know? Now the cops are like, okay, we gotta take this seriously. They launch a massive search and start the investigation right away. They start searching Julian's whole property, the surrounding bushland, and where the waterfall where they were supposed to go on the picnic, but they found nothing.

They searched on foot and air. I mean, to be fair, it's not like they found nothing in the sense like they searched everywhere and they found nothing, but the terrain was really rough, so it's hard for them to make progress. So maybe it was smarter for them to try and figure out who the kidnappers were so that they could be more efficient with their search. Now, the police studied the symbols on the letters, and some of them actually pointed to a group, a supposed cult called the Order of the Nine Points.

They're not really Satanists. They're just like Nazis. I'm not kidding, okay? Like all their important dates and how they celebrate is all centered around Hitler's birthday, like the date that he was born. So I'm like literally saying they're Nazis. Like I'm not saying it as like, oh my God, they're Nazis. No, they're like really Nazis. They claim to like human sacrifices. They're super conservative, right-wing, really extreme, just straight terrorists, honestly.

And they were founded and primarily operate in the UK. So Australian authorities were confused because, of course, they had heard of them. But to their knowledge, there's no members in Australia. But maybe this is their big Australian debut because cults like to make an entrance. This is how they were going to tell the country that they were here to stay. They had opened up a membership here by kidnapping an innocent Christian young couple from a rural town. That sounds like something a Satanist cult would do, right? Right. According to the general public.

Or maybe it was a different group of kidnappers that were just pretending to be a satanic cult so that they could throw the attention elsewhere and get away with it. Listen, the police had a lot of ideas, but they had no solid leads. If it wasn't the cult, if it was someone random, like they needed to know more. They go to the couple's church. They start asking around, see if the couple had any enemies, any problems. And the pastor was relatively chill. He's talking to the police the whole time and he's like, eh.

Listen, you know, Satanic Cold is a really good story. I get it. It makes sense, but I don't think it is. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I think they ran away together. What? Why would you think that? Well, just last week, I sat down with them and they talked to me about how badly they wanted to get married, but they were disappointed that it wasn't legal until Carolyn was 18. They were in a hurry to be married because, well, I think they were...

You know, they were both waiting to have sex till marriage, you know? Their souls were waiting for marriage to do anything else, even kiss. And that's why I think they ran away, hoping to get married somewhere, somehow, so they could have sex.

Okay, the pastor is honestly a bit wild. He really did say that. So now the police are even more confused. But like, come on, that's so bizarre. There's got to be more to the story. If that's the case, who left the satanic letters? Were they just a coincidence? So they were stumped. They truly had no leads till a week later. The couple stumbled onto a stranger's farm. They had made it out. It took them a full week.

And they were in bad shape. So it didn't look like they ran away. Like both of them were badly sunburned on all of their body. They were malnourished, dehydrated. Their whole bodies were covered in open sores and blisters. Their feet were completely cut up. I mean, they were suffering. The farmer thought that he saw a horror movie show up on his farm. Like it was scary. What are these two doing? He rushes them to the hospital. And the police were curious.

What on earth happened? Like we're ready to catch these satanic kidnappers. So they talked to Julian first and he tells them the whole story. Like he was bent over studying the roadkill. He got hit on the head and he doesn't remember much. He woke up in the bushlands and he heard his girlfriend crying. So he hopped over to her and they spent the past week fighting through the wilderness to get back home, to get back to safety. They were just constantly worried, honestly. Like they kept looking over their shoulders that the kidnapper was going to come back.

Meanwhile, Carolyn remembered a bit more since she was never knocked out. She told them about the grave digging and everything and she also told the police, "You know, there were some struggles for sure." What do you mean? "Like once I reunited with Julian, we were kind of busy fighting off the venomous spiders and the snakes and it was really cold, like really really cold at night and he suggested that we have sex to keep warm or else we would die."

And God wouldn't mind if we were having sex before marriage because we were doing it to stay alive. Right. It's no longer a sin because it's life or death. But I said no. And I just feel kind of conflicted about it. But we did have some serious conversations about how we should get married soon. But I just really want to wait till I'm of age and after I graduate high school. Anyway, it was just like a really crazy trip. Like it was a crazy whole thing.

The police are like, "What?" So the investigators, they hit the ground running. I mean, they're still looking for these kidnappers. The couple mentioned a few spots on a map and they found the leftover tools. The knife, the shovel, other supplies that the kidnapper had left behind. And they thought maybe, okay, this is all gonna point back to some sort of cult or something. But in the end, can you guess who it pointed back to? To Julian. It sounded like he pretended to be this masked man, right? Yes.

But she didn't recognize him at all? He never spoke. Oh, that's why. He didn't talk. Yes, remember? He was just grunting and moaning. Yeah. And the police were just sitting down thinking, like, you don't think it's weird, Julian, that everything that the kidnapper used were things in your car? Yeah.

Like the shovel was already in your car. The knife was already in your car. Like they're yours. So you're telling me that these kidnappers found you guys in rural Australia where there's nobody, no victims to hunt for and they were so ill prepared that they did not even bring their own knife? They just...

hoped that you had a shovel and a knife in your possession? And what did they get out of kidnapping you? Like, it just doesn't make sense. They didn't rob you. They didn't assault you. They didn't send you a message. They just tied you up. They spent all their energy digging a grave with your shovel and then left? I mean, let's talk about it. It's weird. And the wound on the side of your head, the doctor said, is not severe enough for you to have knocked out like you claimed you had. So come on. We won't get mad if you tell us the truth. We know that you're lying.

Julian snapped and he starts confessing to the whole thing. He had stashed shovels and knives in the woods. He lied about the roadkill. He was the one that was masked. He was the one that tied up Caroline, you know, ripped off her clothes, dug the grave, and then went and tied himself up, came out of the bushes to act like he was also a victim. But do you want to know why? He wanted to do it. Yeah. He wanted to have...

Sex. So he he knew that Caroline would never like she is not the type to fall under pressure, like in the heat of the moment, like she was steadfast in her faith. So he created a situation where he thought she would have sex out of necessity.

which is to stay alive. They had to have sex in order to stay alive in the cold, dark nights. But Caroline refused. She stayed true to her beliefs. The guy kidnapped his own girlfriend, traumatized her for over a week. And like, I don't know, I guess he wouldn't know. But no amount of adult playtime, like no amount of sex, if I'm being honest with you, is enough to withstand, first of all, being a horrible person,

person and traumatizing your loved ones but also having blisters all over your body being sunburned having your own feet completely torn up and potentially being killed by a spider in the bushlands like no amount of adult fun time is that fun

He kidnapped his girlfriend to try to lose their virginities. That's not even love. Like, he definitely doesn't love his girlfriend. But the weird dedication of it all makes it so bizarre. And a lot of people theorize that if Julian gets out, like, this is some really weird sexually deviant behavior. Like, this is not a normal person. Like, I just want to lose my V-card. So the guy was charged with kidnapping and kidnapping with intent to marry someone. Yeah. Wait, wait. That's a real charge? Yeah.

So kidnapping with intent to marry someone. Yeah, doesn't that feel like our whole relationship? Yeah, that's what he was charged with. And it wasn't just trauma that Caroline had. She had been tied up for such a long time that she had severe damage done to her back, neck and arms. And Julian was found guilty on all charges. He was released on bail. And before sentencing, he escaped Australia. Like, I'm not even kidding. He dyed his hair.

This is the questionable one. I think he's so... Crazy. Creative. Yeah, oh yeah. He comes up with these like creative solutions. Yeah. Let me just try it this way. Yeah, and it's all like so sick and twisted, but it is really...

out of this world creative and not in a good way yeah like in a really bad way like who the it's like one of those moments where you're like a criminal why do you spend so much time coming up with this like you could have just done the normal thing yeah and gotten similar results like why are you doing all of this yeah so he dyed his hair and this is the questionable phrase he and i don't know what this means he darkened his skin he bought a fake indian passport and he pretended to be an indian man did it work

He got to Singapore, okay? Then he was caught in Singapore, extradited back to Australia, and he was given seven years and nine months for kidnapping Carolyn, with an extra six months for attempting to flee. Julian and his lawyers complained about how his sentence was too harsh, when really it wasn't. The maximum sentence the court could have given him was 25 years, but they gave him seven. His appeals were thankfully dismissed, and he was sent to a prison where he is now eligible for parole.

So technically, he could be released anytime soon. I don't know. Again, this case is so creepy because it's just, it's such a bizarre, desperate reason to kidnap someone, like someone that you allegedly love. And the whole thing gives me nice guy killer vibes. Like he would rather traumatize his girlfriend for the rest of her life than wait a few months to consensually get what you want. The length that someone is willing to go just to do it, that is alarming. Yeah.

And the fact that he made this whole phrasing where he was a nice guy, he went through the trauma with her. It's like this, no, like we're doing it to stay alive. You and me, we're both like in this crazy situation.

It's like that TikTok that's like, you know, the best way to bond with someone is to go through something traumatic. That's why they say on your first date, you should go to like a not traumatic, but to experience something scary together. That's why they say you should go on a roller coaster your first date. I don't know if this is true. I don't know about this one. No, but that's what I feel like he was thinking, you know, like, oh, I'm on the same like trauma. Wait, so what is that TikTok saying? That's saying like everybody should go do something crazy together. Like on a roller coaster the first date because the adrenaline.

The adrenaline together apparently bonds you if you guys both feel that adrenaline rush at the same time. It's weird. You get motion sickness. So I feel like for a first date, you gagging over a trash can at the amusement park would not be. I don't know. I just I'm so confused for this. Like the fact that he risked going to jail. I can't even imagine how the horrible feeling of being in a relationship with someone like him would be.

I just hope that Carolyn is fine and she's recovering well. And I hope that she doesn't lose faith in relationships because there are actual nice people out there. Julian is just not one of them because what the fork? And that is it for today's case.