In , Cameron Hooker seized year-old Colleen Stan and held her prisoner in his Northern California home for seven years. He predominantly kept Stan in a wooden box underneath the bed he shared with his wife, Janice Hooker.
Initially, Cameron only released Stan from her confinement to beat her and force her to engage in intimate relations. After extended psychological coercion, Stan became a live-in babysitter and sex slave for the couple.
Stan was able to survive her horrific ordeal and escape in with the help of his wife. She returned to her family but was too terrified to report the years of abuse and assault to the police. She became known as "the girl in the box," and her story shocked people around the world. The true details of what happened to Stan - and the crimes of her captors - appear almost like an urban legend.
On the morning of May 19, , year-old Colleen Stan decided to hitchhike from her home in Eugene, OR, to Northern California to attend a friend's birthday party. She spent most of the day accepting rides from various strangers, slowly making her way to her destination, when a young couple - Cameron, 23, and his year-old, wife, Janice - picked her up.
Stan had turned down a number of rides before getting into the couple's blue van, largely because she believed the couple, who were traveling with their 8-month-old daughter, were less dangerous than some of the other people who offered her a lift.
