59. Colleen Stan – The Hitchhiking Horror
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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. We just want to say thank you to everyone who commented on YouTube. It has been helping. So thank you. Please keep commenting. Please keep engaging with our content. It helps us so much. If you want to check out our Patreon, you can just Google Patreon Murder With My Husband Patreon. Also, the link will be in the episode notes.

Do you have your 10 seconds today, Gare? Yes, I have my 10 seconds, but it's kind of for both of us. Okay. So Peyton and I, so Peyton loves pickleball.

Yes, I do. For those who don't know, Peyton really likes pickleball. So we've been playing pickleball a lot. I was just going to use that as my 10 seconds. No, that's good. Yeah, we have been playing pickleball. We're not. Well, I'm not very good, but Garrett's helping me and I really love it. But it's really hard too, but I love it. Yeah, we played two random people the other day. Yeah, we did. They came up to us and said, hey, do you want to play? And we said, sure. We don't win. No, I think we didn't get score above a four. No, we got like eight that one time. Oh, yeah. All because of me. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, so this case was suggested in, so thank you. And also our case source today is a two-part documentary series called Colleen Stan, The Girl in the Box, Part 1 and 2, and you can find that on Amazon Prime.

Our story starts in Riverside, California, where a girl named Colleen Stan was born in December of 1956. Her mother was a citrus grower, so she grew up around orange groves, which is pretty common in California. And this kind of made her city life feel awfully country because you have to have a lot of land to grow oranges.

Colleen's parents were divorced, so her and her two sisters would go visit her dad and his new family on the weekends. Bonnie, Colleen's sister, says that all three sisters got along pretty well, and Colleen loved to be outside. She liked to ride bikes, climb trees, and roller skate. Colleen actually didn't love her stepdad at her mom's house very much, and so this made living with her mom hard. So at 14 years old, Colleen Stan moved out of her mother's house and moved in with her dad, Jack.

Her sisters actually joined her like about a year after.

Around Colleen's senior year of high school, she fell in love with a boy and decided to quit school and get married. And I'm here for following your heart. I support this. But sadly, the marriage ended after only about a year. And so Colleen moved back home. But she didn't want to be home. She was a young adult. She wanted to see the world. She wanted to explore and meet new people. She had such a free spirit, which made her fit right in in the 70s.

And so Colleen decided that she would move out of California and ended up in Eugene, Oregon with some friends from Riverside. So her and her friends are like, let's move to Eugene. How old is she at this point?

She just barely graduated, or like she was out of high school, so early 20s. Her and her friends found a small apartment with only mattresses on the floor, but they were happy. On May 19th, 1977, and once again, it seems as if Garrett and I's anniversary always pops up in these cases. It's true. This is not the first time. So it's May 19th, 1977, and Colleen decided that day that she was going to make her way back to,

to california to westwood to surprise her friend for her birthday so she's in oregon and she's like i'm gonna make my way back to california to surprise my friend for her birthday it was about a 400 mile trip and colleen without a car of her own would need to hitchhike the whole way okay uh-oh as we know hitchhiking in the 70s was fairly normal if you didn't have a car

But as we know now, also, it was very dangerous. So Colleen catches a ride and makes it all the way to Red Bluff, California by the afternoon. And once dropped off there, she walked up the ramp to Highway 36. She only had about 100 more miles to go. 20-year-old Colleen stands on the side of Antelope Boulevard with her thumb out.

A car pulls off to offer her a ride, a car full of boys telling her that they will take her wherever she wants to go. Colleen says, absolutely not. Another car with a young couple pulls over, but they aren't traveling as far as she needs to go, so that doesn't work out either. It's not until a couple days later...

When Colleen's family and friends haven't heard from her, and she had never shown up to her friend's birthday in Westwood, that people begin to suspect that something had gone wrong. On the fourth day of Colleen missing, her roommates filed a missing person report with the Eugene police. Police ask around, but there is not much going on when someone goes missing hitchhiking because they have no idea where they even ended up.

where to start. They could have just ran away. There's a million strangers. There's no ties. It's hard. So days turn into weeks and nothing comes up. Colleen is still missing. Colleen's family begin their own search after about a month of no clues. They retrace Colleen's route from Eugene to Westwood, filing missing person reports with every single police station as they go along. Months go by and there is no trace of her. She literally vanished.

After four years of a stagnant case, Colleen missing. Oh my gosh. Colleen's family had all but lost hope. That was until March of 1981 when Colleen's family got a call and who on the other end of the phone other than Colleen herself. No way. They are stunned, confused, just like you are. Colleen tells them that she's fine.

And she was coming home to visit. So when Colleen shows up to the family house with her boyfriend named Cameron, her family is so confused.

She doesn't look like herself. She's skinny. She's dressed in homemade clothes, like home-sewn clothes. Okay. She isn't acting like the Colleen they knew who had gone missing four years earlier. Four years later. Four years later, they randomly get a call from her. And she shows up and it's her. What in the world? Okay. Yeah.

Colleen's family decides Colleen is in a cult. That's where she's been. She's missing. She comes back with this strange boyfriend. She's completely different. She just dropped off the face of the earth without a clue. And now she's just randomly back. She's definitely in a cult. This,

This is where she's been and they decide not to push her on it or to pressure her for fear of scaring her away again. They don't want to be like, well, what are you doing? Where have you been? Why aren't you calling? Because they are worried that if she is in a cult, they're going to be like, you can't talk to your family anymore. So they believe if they accept her for what she's doing and don't ask a lot of questions, she will continue to visit them.

Colleen's boyfriend, Cameron, this mysterious boy or guy really who showed up with her. Yeah. How was he? What was he like? He was older than her and he didn't stay long. So they don't really know that much about him. He kind of dropped her off, walked her inside and left.

They caught up with her. You know, they go through family albums. This is what's been going on the past four years. They do tell her like, hey, we've been searching for you. We thought you were dead. Like, yeah, but they don't push it. She's like, oh, yeah. And they it just kind of left up in the air.

So Cameron comes back the next morning. Colleen sleeps there. And her boyfriend comes back the next morning to pick her up. And the family takes a photo of the couple. And this will be up on our YouTube page. I'm showing it right now. But also, if not, it will be on our social media, Murder With My Husband. And Colleen throws her arms around Cameron. And they both smile big. And then they go. And Colleen's family wonder, will we ever see her again? Like, when's the next time? She promises she'll see him again. But when's the next time?

Months go by, and then a year, no word from her. Their fear is coming true.

Another year. And another year. And they don't hear from her once again. I'm so confused. Do you have any thoughts about what's happening? I think that... I mean, I think I have some thoughts. One, a cult is actually not that far off. That seems pretty likely to me. Yeah. I have some other ones, but let's just kind of see how it plays out. So August 10th, 1984. Three and a half years after the last visit from Colleen. But seven...

And a half years from when she first went missing. Colleen shows back up at her family's front door. So four years go by and then she randomly shows up at her family's. With a boyfriend. With a boyfriend. Yep. And then she says hi, is not the same person she was, disappears. And then three more years go by and she shows up? Yep. Three and a half. So confused. Confused.

And excited, once again, Colleen's family is like, where have you been? Like, you just dropped off the face of the earth again. But they are not prepared for what Colleen tells them next. She has, like, four kids. No, but good guess. Oh, okay.

So seven and a half years ago, back on May 19th, our anniversary in 1977, when Colleen had already turned down those two other vehicles while hitchhiking that day to see her friend for her birthday. After about 40 minutes of standing on Antelope Boulevard, a blue Dodge Colt pulled over and Colleen peered in. It was a young man and his wife who was also holding their eight month old baby.

Safe enough, right? Like she's hitchhiking. This is a couple. This is a good option to take. So Colleen told them she was needing to get to Westwood, California. And the couple tells her that they are heading that way and they can totally give her a ride. Colleen hops in the back seat and is grateful to get a ride from these nice people. Small talk is pretty usual when hitchhiking. But this young couple is asking Colleen a lot more questions than normal. Where are you from? What's your name? How many family members do you have?

And Colleen begins to feel uneasy pretty soon after getting in the car. The couple stops for gas and Colleen gets out and goes to the bathroom. And she has a thought while in the bathroom to just walk away. Don't get back in the car. Find another ride. Like you're feeling a little uneasy, but she ignores it. She's like, okay, you're overreacting. And she continues. She just goes back out and gets in the car. And when Colleen gets back in the car, she notices that the couple had moved

She's not sure where from a small wooden box sitting in the backseat next to her. So it's on the seat and it's just like a wooden box. The couple, their baby and Colleen continue on the trip. And then the man suddenly tells Colleen, Hey, we were actually going to stop at some ice caves. Do you mind? And also, do you want to join? And Colleen agreed. She feels stuck. This is her ride. They're in the middle of nowhere at this point. And so she's like, sure, I guess I can like, yeah.

ride along with you while you go to these ice caves. And so when they pull over for the presumed stop that would be these ice caves, the man and his wife promptly jump out of the car and the wife brings the baby over to a stream that's nearby the road and begins playing in the stream with the baby. And so Colleen is kind of unsure. So she's taking her time. And as she goes to get out of the car, the man opens the rear door for her.

And then as Colleen goes to step out, she notices that the man is holding a knife in his hand. Oh, of course he is. So he puts Colleen's hands behind her back and he handcuffs them. Colleen is like, what is happening? Like, is this really happening to me right now? Like, did this guy really just open the back door and get in here with me and is handcuffing me? Yeah. And so with the knife against her throat, the man asks Colleen if she will do what he tells her to do. Colleen says yes.

He then lays Colleen down on the rear seat and this is when the little box that they had put in the back near her started to make sense.

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And the man opened the box up, stuck Colleen's head in the box and closed it back up. So her neck was sticking through the circle part that she saw in the box. So she has a wooden box over her head in the backseat. So she literally can't speak because she has this head restraint gag device that's covering her mouth. And now she has this box over her, which is super claustrophobic. Her head's literally stuck in a wooden box.

The man undoes Colleen's sleeping bag that she had packed up with her and was hitchhiking with and lays it over her body in the back seat. Cause keep in mind, he laid her down.

So the wife gets back in the car and says nothing. And this is when Colleen realizes that she knew he was going to do this. The wife knew that the husband had planned this and everything, and she had been in on it and wasn't saying anything. Can you imagine how scary that is? Oh my gosh. I have the chills right now. Yeah. So Colleen is just sitting in the back of the car and this couple drives around until it gets dark outside.

Now, I'm going to just warn you, this next part of the story is going to be a little bit more graphic than our other stories. So if you don't want to hear that, you can either skip ahead or just move on to a different story.

So this car ride literally from hell eventually stops and the man takes the wooden box off of Colleen's head and walks her up to a back door on a house blindfolded. He takes her to the basement of the house, stands her up on a stool, undresses her, takes her handcuffs off and switches them out with leather restraints.

that he then hooks to the ceiling. So she's on a stool. Her arms are hooked up to the ceiling. I'm thinking of where this is going. He then kicks the stool out from underneath her. So she's hanging by her arms, which I don't think we can even imagine how painful that would be. Yeah.

The man then gets a whip out and uses it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And there are some S&M magazines on the table in the basement. So we kind of can feel where this is going. And then the wife comes downstairs, obviously after putting the baby to sleep and the couple begin to engage in sexual acts while Colleen is strung up. The man in the basement that had kidnapped Colleen that day was 23 year old Cameron Hooker.

He was a lumber mill worker and his wife was 19 year old Janice Hooker. And they were without regret taking all of Colleen's innocence away in that moment. When Cameron came and unhooked Colleen, she was relieved that,

but it didn't last long. Cameron put the wooden head box back on Colleen, blinding her. She couldn't see. So he took the blindfold off and put the head box back on. He then stuffed her into another box from the neck down where he had chained. She, he chained her up in the box. She was chained by her legs and her arms inside the box.

Oh my gosh. This is crazy. So she's chained inside a big box with a little square cut out at the top for her head to peep through. And then where her head's out, there's another box on top of her head. So it's two boxes. And then Cameron went upstairs and he leaves Colleen alone in those boxes chained up overnight. Think about the position she's in with her neck poking out. Do you know how uncomfortable it would be to sit there for 12 hours chained up like that?

So Colleen felt so scared the first night. She could not breathe in the head box. She was gasping for air. The only air she's getting is by the space by her neck. So her wrists are aching so bad. She prayed over and over to get enough air to not die. And when the morning came, she was so exhausted from literally fighting to live all night long. Yep.

The next morning, Cameron removed the head box and chained Colleen to the top of a table by her arms and wrists in each corner. He then put the head box back on her and he left her there. So Colleen started to figure out this is what this is going to be. I'm never really going to see the light of day. My head's always going to be in this box and there's just going to be new ways of torturing me. As the days went by, Colleen tried her best to keep track of time. She could feel the temperature changes throughout the morning to night. There was no windows in the basement and

And so she was like, okay, it's hotter. Now it's colder. That's a day. And that's how she was keeping track of the days. She was suspended and whipped almost every night as well as put in the box every single night. She was also stretched on a homemade stretcher controlled when the world. Yes. Controlled when she could eat, when she could go to the bathroom. It took a couple months.

For Colleen to realize that staying alive meant not fighting back and just obeying Cameron doing whatever he asked her to do. So she's still alive.

In this basement. And this is only after a couple of months of it happening. Yes. And she saw her family four years later with Cameron. With Cameron. What in the world? So after about three months, Cameron built a cage underneath the cellar stairs that she could stay in. So she's in the basement and underneath the stairs in the basement, he decides that she can stop sleeping in the box and

And she can move into a cage that he built underneath the stairs. She could work under there. He would make her shell walnuts like all day. But for Colleen, this was a blessing because she finally got the blindfold off. She no longer had the head box on and she got to use her hands. She got to do something. And so for her, this was like, okay, it's getting better, right? Like this is getting better. Even though I'm still in a cage, at least I can like do stuff. I'm not just sitting here blindfolded all the time.

So for months, she had not been able to see locked up in the box majority of her day. So now she can see. And as you can imagine, her eyes are probably not well adjusted. It went from being black to actually being able to see during the day. So by January of 1978, Colleen had been missing for eight months when Cameron handed Colleen a contract that made her his personal slave for life.

With all these details attached. It's like a real piece of paper. He's like, you need to sign this contract to be my slave for life.

And so Colleen signs it because Cameron doesn't really give her a choice. Cameron told her that he was part of this secret organization called the company and that everyone, every man that was a part of this, this organization called the company had slaves and that this, the company was powerful. They were powerful people. This is so weird. And if she disobeyed him, even if she ran away, the company would find her and kill her. So it wasn't just him. She needed to be scared of.

So once Colleen signed it, she was assigned a new name and she was also taken out of the basement. Sometimes during the day, they gave her a nightgown to wear and she could do chores around the house. So basically they were brainwashing her so she wouldn't run away. Yes. Yes. Scaring her. Oh, the company, the company. Even if we give you more freedom, you can't go because they're everywhere. They have eyes. They've got things bugged. Like that's what he was telling her.

And so she goes upstairs and works as doing house chores as a slave, as well as also being a bondage slave for him whenever he felt the need. Okay, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work. You still aren't sleeping, you still hurt, and you're stressed out.

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So she was not allowed to speak unless spoken to. She couldn't look anyone in the eyes. She had to address Cameron as master and Janice, his wife, as ma'am. Janice told Colleen that if she ever tried to run away, she might as well be dead. That's how powerful the company is. They would kill her family if she ever tried to escape. Janice, the wife, hated Colleen. I can't believe the wife was in on this too. Well, she hated her. She treated her like you're the girl that my husband sleeps with.

This is insane. Insane. So about one month later, Cameron took Colleen to his and Janice's bed and tied her up.

And Janice on one side, Cameron began sexually assaulting Colleen for the first time. And then he put her back in the box. And this was a big deal because Cameron and Janice had agreed that he could have a bondage slave as long as sex was reserved for her, his wife. But obviously this is not the case anymore. He just raped Colleen in front of Janice. So it's no longer just this bondage slave. It's now also a sex slave.

And on a regular basis, Cameron would force himself on Colleen after this, but it was also a secret from his wife and he always wore a condom, didn't want to get her pregnant. Almost a year after being kidnapped, Cameron moved his family to a mobile home out of town. And this mobile home didn't have a basement for her to go sleep in at night. So he built a ventilated box that was kept underneath the couple's bed. Think of like an oversized coffin.

And that's where Colleen was kept, under their bed. Oh my gosh. Yes, it just got worse. The basement was better than this. It's just horrible. She was using the bathroom in this coffin. She would hear everything going on above her.

So just imagine how torturous and degrading that would be. So this is when Colleen found out that Cameron had, you know, also tortured his wife because she would sleep underneath them and she could hear what he would do to her. And also Janice got pregnant and had another child at this house on the bed above Colleen while Colleen was in the coffin below listening.

And as time went on, Colleen was given more freedom. She took care of the kids sometimes. She did more chores around the house. And even from time to time, she was allowed outside and she would see neighbors. The couple told neighbors that she was a live-in babysitter. And so no one was suspecting that she actually slept underneath their bed in a box and was assaulted whenever they wanted to.

So finally they stopped putting her in the box and they started locking her in the bathroom at night with a chain around her neck, which was just another step up for Colleen because she no longer had to be in this dark box underneath the bed laying down all the time. During all of this, Colleen was actually allowed to read the Bible and God was her light in the darkness at this time. Like he was her saving grace. That seems so weird that they let her read the Bible. Yeah. Weird, huh? Yeah. After four years of being in captivity,

In March of 1981, Cameron told Colleen that the company had called and said that it was time for Colleen to go home and see her family. He told her they bugged everyone's phone and they would be monitoring the visit. There would be cameras in the house. He said, if you say anything, they will come in immediately. They are waiting outside and they will kill everyone. Colleen believes, you know, this is true. She believes everything.

This is about power for Cameron, proving that he still controlled her, even if she was around her family, giving her the ultimate freedom after kidnapping her. So Colleen wanted to say something to her family when she went. But she couldn't. She couldn't. She really believed the company was outside waiting to kill them. So she sat back and she played her role and she played her part and

The next day when Cameron came to pick her up, she posed for a picture with him. And this picture does confuse people because her arms are around Cameron. She's smiling. Cameron's smiling. But Colleen says it's because she was taking what she could. Once she walked out the door, it wouldn't be until three and a half more years that she would see her family again. Okay. So now I'm confused because she comes back three and a half years later and tells them this and

And tells them this. So where do we go wrong? So what happened in between those three years? I'm about to tell you. Okay. When they got home from that visit, things took a turn for the worse for Colleen. And she's not sure if it was because Janice was upset that Cameron had taken her to visit her family or if it was something else. No matter what it was, Cameron began keeping Colleen in the box coffin underneath the bed once again. And it was...

a lot of times, sometimes only letting her out for an hour a day. So she would sometimes sit, lay down in that box, a coffin underneath their bed for 23 hours a day. That's so unhealthy too. Like that's just so horrible. But Colleen wouldn't give up. She was like, I'm not going to die. Even though she wanted to, she was going insane in the box. She was like, I'm not going to give up. So by age 27, Colleen had been held captive for seven and a half years and

The kids were now old enough to go to school and Cameron would go to work every day. And so it ended up just being Janice home alone with Colleen most days. And Janice actually began taking Colleen out of the box when she was home and they ended up reading the Bible together. And then they started doing it pretty actively after that.

The dynamic kind of began shifting between Janice and Colleen. Like they were friends. They started to become friends. And Janice was like, this needs to end. Like what we've been doing to you is not good. Oh, she realizes this seven years later. Yes, seven years later. Give me a break. So in May of 1984, Cameron lets Colleen sleep on the living room floor for the first time in years after

Colleen is not sleeping in a box at night. And Colleen and Janice begin going to church together. They're going out. They're going shopping together. And they finally decide that it would be okay if Colleen gets a job cleaning hotel rooms nearby during the day. So Colleen's going out by herself during the day, but she is told that the company's watching her every move.

And Janice and Colleen kind of become like sister wives. Like, I don't know how to explain it, but they form this bond together over the fact that Cameron is like acting as their husband kind of, but Cameron's not acting like Colleen's husband. Obviously she's a victim in this situation, but they start to form that bond a little bit. And Janice ends up going to their pastor and kind of describing the situation, but not like she's a slave, more like,

We have this love triangle going on. Do you think this is okay with God? And the pastor's like, no, God does not approve. Janice decides to go to Colleen's work after that. And she tells her, hey, the company and that slave contract you signed and the underground network he's told you about, it's not real. There is no company, sweetie.

And so Colleen's world is rocked. Like she has, she fully believed that there were men watching her every move all the time, that there were men sitting outside the house when she went to visit her family, that if she ever disobeyed Cameron or tried to escape, that she would be killed instantly.

So August 10th, 1984, the next day after Janice tells her that the company she takes off, Colleen buys a bus ticket. The company wasn't real. She wasn't actually a slave bound by a contract. She calls Cameron from a pay phone at the station and tells him, I'm not your slave. I know the company's not real and I'm leaving and there's nothing you can do about it.

So after 2,641 days, Colleen gets on a bus and leaves for home. Holy crap. She's overwhelmed. Yeah. But she's physically free.

But is she mentally free? Colleen refuses to go to the police after telling her family all about this, about the last seven and a half years as a slave. Is she just scared? She's just scared. And so much time has been taken away from her. And she also says, no one's going to believe me. I had a job. I came home and saw you guys.

no one is going to believe that I was there as a slave. No one's going to believe that I was mentally enslaved by these people when I had as much freedom as they had given me. Like she's like, no one's going to believe me and I'm embarrassed and I don't want to go.

Janice reached out to Colleen after the wife and begs her, please, please don't go to the police. Like, I'm glad that you're home with your family, but please don't go to the police. Screw her. Right. And give Cameron a chance to to change. Like we giving you all this freedom. He was moving on. Give him a chance to change. That's ridiculous. She's crazy. She almost made it seem like Cameron let her go. Not that Colleen had escaped.

Cameron wasn't ever going to let her go. He was just giving her more freedom to prove that he had all this control over her, no matter how much freedom he gave her. Can't believe that the wife is okay with this for seven years, then goes, it's fake. Yeah, it's fake. It's bad. I'm sorry. Like, yeah. So Colleen's like, don't worry. I'm not going to the police. They're not going to believe me anyways. Colleen tries to move on. She struggles, obviously, though she was depressed, anxious. She felt unworthy. She's also sick. Yeah.

because you can't sit in a box for almost seven and a half years and be physically well. She felt like a stranger in her own home. She would go to work with her dad every day because she didn't want to be home alone. She ended up getting a job at a local hospital cleaning and she tries to wrap her head around dating, but she's like, I don't think I could ever date again.

Around this point, Janice calls Colleen after picking up her kids and leaving Cameron. So Janice leaves Cameron. She's like, I'm done. I'm leaving him. And she calls Colleen and she says, hey, I picked up the kids. I've left Cameron. Oh, and by the way, I went to the police and told them about you so you can expect a visit from them. What? Yes.

Janice had told police that her husband, Cameron had abducted Colleen Stan and held her as a sex bondage and house slave for seven and a half years. And that on January 31st, 1976, eight years earlier, about a year before they abducted clean, Cameron had also kidnapped 20 year old Mary Elizabeth Spanicky, who was still listed as a missing person. Oh, and he had killed her. Oh,

Oh, so this wasn't the first time. Wasn't the first girl. She was hitchhiking a block away from her home when Cameron and Janice stopped and picked her up and they subdued her. They boxed her head up in the head box. They tied her up and they took her to Red Bluff, back to the house. And while there, she was screaming and wouldn't stop screaming. And so Cameron said, I'll cut your vocal cords if you don't stop. She didn't stop. He cuts her vocal cords and accidentally kills her. Because you can't really cut someone's neck. Like there's an artery there. Yeah.

They rolled her up and they took her out of, out to the car where they drove to highway 44, found a side road. They dug a grave and they buried her. This is what she tells police. Okay. And then about a year later, they abducted Colleen and kept her for seven and a half years that they were originally wanting to keep Mary for seven and a half years. Um,

But she had died. Well, longer than seven and a half. Yeah, they were going to keep her forever, right? So Janice tells police that she met Cameron when she was 15 years old and that she didn't know any difference than this brutal sex life and this bondage life that he had created. And it took her a long time to realize that this wasn't normal. She was tired of the torture that he was putting on her. So she agreed to help him kidnap a woman to take her place so that she wouldn't have to be the one sitting in the box.

And she wouldn't have to be the one being tied up. So she was pretty brainwashed as well. As well. So Janice was actually offered immunity to testify against her husband and to find the remains of Mary. Okay. That's a hard, that's just a hard conversation. That's a whole nother, yeah. But they could never actually pinpoint the place where they buried Marie. She could never re-find it. And so this means that they only had Janice's word about what happened and Cleen's.

So when police call Colleen and they meet with her, she tells them her story and about a picture that she had actually seen in the basement in those first couple months. And she could see it next to her purse that was there from when they had taken her. He put all her belongings in a corner and there was a picture in the corner. And that picture was of Marie. The girl in the picture was Marie, this girl that he had kidnapped before her.

So on November 18th, 1984, Cameron Hooker is arrested for the abduction and torture of Colleen Stan. Police searched the trailer and they find the head box. They find the stretcher. They find the bondage material. And they also find a hole like a dungeon hole that he had been building in the floor of the backyard shed, meaning that he was planning on moving Colleen from the living room to this hole in the shed in the backyard. So the torture wasn't over. Yeah.

Trial was hard, obviously. Colleen didn't have much outrage against her captors. She was kind of like cold. And the state had to prove that she was still a slave despite the seemingly obvious freedom she had. She went to work. She left. She saw her family. She mentally was still a slave, though. And they had to prove that, though, because how easy is it for the defense to go, hey, hey.

Like she, she had every ability to leave. She was choosing to be here because the statue of limitations had run up from when the time he had kidnapped her. He could get off if they could prove that she was a willing participant by this point. Cause they said, Oh no, he did kidnap her. That's true. But she turned into a willing participant and you can't hold him accountable for that. That's how they're going. Correct.

Colleen had actually learned how to bottle her emotions for years. We now know that's how she survived. He killed another girl for screaming. So Colleen had just shut down. She just did what she was told to do. And so reliving her trauma at trial would be no different. When she got up on stand, she didn't shed a tear. She had no outrage. She just shut down, answered the questions, got through. It was very blunt.

but this was hard because the jury wanted to see a slave. They wanted to see someone who had suffered, someone who was traumatized. And she was just very to the point, like this is what happened. But we have to understand she had been, this is how she had been for the last seven years.

So the biggest impact at trial was Colleen talking about life in the box. They brought the real boxes in and they had other people climb in and show what it would be like to spend 23 hours a day in a coffin underneath someone's bed. They had Colleen explain how she couldn't breathe in the box. She was starving. She was going to the bathroom in the box and how insane that would make someone. Yep.

She explained the torture of being shocked, being burned, being stretched, all these horrible things at trial. She had to do this. So the defense comes back and they surface some letters that Colleen had actually written to Cameron during and after her enslavement. And they're trying to prove that she had become a willing participant. Okay. Because in these letters, she does show some affection for her captor. Okay.

And there's also the picture of her with her family and Cameron that makes it, it shows that she, you know, she's happy. And what does this mean? And that she had a job and she was saying nothing. It was so hard. So Cameron said that they consistently told each other they loved each other towards the end of the enslavement and that Janice and her actually had a relationship and it was like this threesome and they were all happy and she wasn't a slave anymore.

And Colleen feels like she was the one on trial. She probably did love Cameron for doing the bare minimum. And this is some complex psychology here. Oh, yeah. I mean...

everything's messed up. Yes. It's hard because when he gives her a Bible, when he lets her go get a job, when he lets her out of the box, when he lets her sleep on the floor in the living room, this is brainwashing. This is coercion. And this can be misconstrued as love. Thank you so much, Cameron, for moving me out of the box under your bed and letting me on the living room floor. I think he's starting to love me.

That's not love. We know that's not love. But when you've been a slave for seven and a half years, you can get really confused. And this is evidence. This is factual evidence. This isn't like this is psychologists saying this is totally possible. So after two days of deliberation, the jury found Cameron Hooker guilty.

guilty on all accounts. The judge sentenced him to 104 years and called him the most dangerous psychopath he'd ever dealt with. He really is. Like he's a literal psychopath. Yes.

I, a part of me feels that at trial, Cameron was like, well, she could have left. So maybe she did. Maybe she was willing. Like, I feel like he probably convinced himself of that too. What a crazy person. Insane. So Colleen actually goes on and has a daughter.

But life has not been easy for her since this whole thing. She is on her fourth husband and she says it's been hard for all of her husbands because they can't really be helpful in this situation. Like she's like, this is just a part of me. It's traumatic and it's changed who I am. And it's hard. They say, oh yeah, yeah, we can handle this. And then it just becomes too much. So Colleen still has pain and,

physical pain every single day from sitting in a box for so many years of her life. Her hair has begun to fall out. She basically doesn't have any hair because of the lack of vitamin D that she didn't have for so long. She was inside for so long that her hair has died sooner. She had to have shoulder surgery from being hung so often by her shoulders. She has spinal issues. She

from laying down for too long. Her spine started to grow funky. Colleen hopes that her story helps people move on from whatever is keeping them back because she works at that every day. She says that she works at not letting this keep her back, that she has dreams and hopes and it's hard, but she tries to choose every day to follow those dreams and hopes instead of sitting back and remembering this stuff.

Let's not forget also about Marie, the other possible victim. Her family still does not have closure and no one has been charged with her disappearance or murder because they can never find her body. And so her remains are out there somewhere. So if you know anything, please call the Chico police. Cameron's next parole hearing is in 2022.

Next year. Why would he even get a parole hearing? Because he wasn't sentenced to those many years without parole. How is that even possible? So he already had one parole hearing and...

and he got denied, but his next one is in 2022 and he will be 68 at that time. And in California, there is a rule that you have to demonstrate bad behavior inside of prison as well to stay in. So Colleen can't just go to the hearing and go, this is what he did to me. Please keep him in Cameron. Also, they also have to check a box saying that he's

Like had bad behavior in prison as well. So he he would have had to do something bad in prison as well to stay inside. It can't just be not bad enough that he killed or killed someone. That's the rule in California. Someone for your outside crimes just can't lead for themselves. So Colleen is going to the hearings to testify, which sucks for her.

It sucks that she has to go relive that every single time just to keep him in prison. And there are petitions that you can sign to, you know, also help keep him in prison. So that's coming up in 2022 and we will keep you guys updated on that. But I really hope for Colleen's sake that he stays in so that she doesn't have to worry about,

all you know about him being out because she said that she's been able to move on because she knows that he's away and that she doesn't ever have to face that again oh my gosh that one was oh that was i'm sorry to include such brutal detail but colleen shares this story she shares this story personally she shares this detail i think the thing was like it was hard for me when listening but then as you got towards the end i had to realize like

This is her story. This is her story. She's chosen to share. Yeah. And she says she keeps sharing this story, which is why we're sharing it today in hopes of helping other people. Exactly. And so we will honor her story. And that's why I don't didn't, you know, there was worse detail, but that's why I did share more detail than normal because it's her story and she tells it this way. So I'll tell it this way. Yeah.

Remember Marie and her family too. Keep them in your hearts as well as Colleen. But that was the story of Colleen Stan, the girl in the box. Man, that one was rough. I don't know how to explain it. That was just a crazy one. Insane. I just think it goes to the complexity of the human mind. I'm glad she's alive. I just hope.

You know, I hope she's okay. Yeah. I mean, she, she, I mean, I don't know if you'll ever be okay. That's what I mean. I did like watch interviews with her and of her being vulnerable and honest to the camera and she's strong. Obviously, I don't think most people could survive what she survived for the seven and a half years. Oh, totally. Totally.

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