A woman has opened up on how she was kidnapped and kept in a coffin for seven years- only to be let out to be beaten or raped.
Colleen Stan was just 20 when a decision to hitch-hike to a friend's birthday party led to the start of her horrific ordeal.
It ended with her spending 23 hours a day in a specially made coffin-like box having to endure dehydration, starvation and sweltering temperatures.
On the night she set out Cameron Hooker, 23, was on the prowl for a 'slave' to fulfil his sick desire and picked her up with partner Janice at the side of the road.
A strange box on the seat next to her had been specially made by lumber mill worker Hooker with sound-proofing inside.
This was his infamous 'head box' he put her in after bounding and gagging her in a nearby layby.
The terrified young woman was driven 300 miles from Eugene, Oregon, to the couple's home Red Bluff, California.
Colleen was suspended from the rafters in chains and sexually assaulted before Hooker had sex with his partner Janice beneath her as a 'celebration'.
She told Closer: "“I was terrified.
"Janice watched as Cameron tortured me and then they had sex in front of me. I was convinced they were going to kill me."
Her ordeal was retold in the film The Girl In The Box, revealing how she was caged in a box for 23 hours a day and only let out to be raped, tortured, beaten, electrocuted or stretched on a rack.
It slid under the couple's waterbed so the sick pair would have easy access to her.
A campaign of brainwashing soon began with Colleen being convinced of a sinister organisation called The Company that would kill her if she escaped.
She was made to sign a 'slave contract' to allow her more time out the box to take care of the couple's housework.
So deep was her brainwashing that three years in she was allowed to visit her Mother but was too scared to speak out with her parents believing them to be a couple.
The scheme began to unravel when he made Colleen his second wife, and a furious Janice told her 'The Company' wasn't real.
She also claimed Hooker had sexually assaulted her and tortured her too from the age of 15- only stopping when she agreed to find him a 'slave.
Janice eventually freed Colleen dropping her off at a bus station and fleeing with her children in 1984.
Colleen did not go to the police and maintained contact with Hooker, who she hoped would 'reform'.
But Janice reported him three months later.
In turn she was granted immunity in return for her testimony.
Hooker was jailed for 104 years but could be due for parole as early as this year due to Covid-19.
Colleen, now 62, has struggled to move on and suffered a series of failed marriages.
“Your life is just in limbo when you’re in captivity,” she said. “Once you get that freedom back and you have that choice again, it’s just like the gates open… And you just run for it.
"I have to accept the fact that it happened because it did. I don't let it affect my life now because to me, it's over."
