Claustrophobia, the fear of tight, enclosed spaces, is one of the most common phobias
in the world.
Studies have shown that from seven to ten percent of the world population experiences
it – that’s an average of 616,000,000 people.
And if you’re one of those people, then the horrifying ordeal of Colleen Stan, also
known as the “Girl In The Box Case”, would probably be your worst nightmare.
Though the story of kidnapping, confinement, brainwashing, manipulation, and sexual abuse
you’re about to hear would be quite literally anyone’s idea of a living hell.
This is the story of the woman who was kidnapped and forced to live in a coffin-sized box for
seven years.
Warning: This video is definitely not for the faint of heart.
We’re in Redding, California.
The year is 1977.
20-year-old Colleen Stan has spent days hitchhiking down the Interstate 5 from her home in Eugene,
Oregon, to reach a friend’s birthday party in Northern California.
Colleen didn’t know it yet, but she would never reach that party.
It was May 19th - a pleasant but slightly overcast day.
Nothing in the air that day gave Colleen any indication of the horrors yet to come.
Colleen described herself as an experienced hitchhiker, and she had already turned down
two rides before accepting the ride that would change her life forever.
A seemingly-innocent blue van pulled up next to her, with a friendly-looking young man
in the driver’s seat, and his young wife riding shotgun.
In the back seat, the couple’s baby was fasted safely in its baby chair.
To Colleen Stan, these seemed like the least sketchy people she’d seen all day.
This couple were Cameron and Janice Hooker, a pair of honest, working-class lovebirds
from Red Bluff, California.
They were a young couple; Cameron was only 23 at the time of their meeting and Janice
was 19, even younger than Colleen herself.
Seeing these friendly young parents put her at ease, so she accepted their offer and climbed
into the car.
The couple drove.
What Colleen didn’t know was that she’d just walked into one of the most dangerous
cars in the state, because Cameron Hooker was a sexually-sadistic psychopath with some
truly terrifying fantasies.
What’s more, Janice Hooker was ready to help her twisted husband make those fantasies
a reality.
For years, Cameron, a lumber worker, had been physically and sexually abusing his wife with
whippings, beatings, electrical shocks, and even near-drownings.
Janice loved Cameron, in spite of the horrific violence, and wanted to have a baby with him.
That’s why this couple from hell made a dark compromise to keep their marriage afloat.
Cameron would let Janice have her baby, if she allowed him to kidnap a young girl to
be his “slave.”
On the condition that Janice would never have penetrative sex with the girl, she agreed
to help him find his perfect slave girl.
It’s even believed that the couple had previously been responsible for the disappearance and
murder of 19-year-old Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, whom they’d allegedly imprisoned, tortured,
raped, and eventually killed.
Little did Colleen Stan know, they had the exact same fate planned for her.
At first, things seemed innocent.
There was no immediate aggression, though Colleen did feel slightly uncomfortable with
the way Cameron was looking at her during the drive.
They stopped at a gas station and allowed Colleen to go get snacks and visit the restroom.
It was while she was standing in the restroom that Colleen felt a strange chill pass over
her, and some small part of her told her to just run, jump out a window, and never turn
back.
Sadly for Colleen, she didn’t follow that instinct, and she instead returned to the
car to resume her journey to her friend’s birthday party in Northern California.
The peaceful drive didn’t last long.
Cameron soon veered off the road and pulled out a knife that he held up to Colleen’s
throat.
He told her not to move or scream, or he’d kill her.
He then forced a home-made, twenty-pound wooden soundproof “head box” onto Colleen Stan
and bound her to the chair with the help of Janice.
When she was finally bound in place, they drove her thirty-one miles back to their home
in Red Bluff – stopping once to grab some fast food during the journey.
This was almost three-hundred-and-fifty miles from her home town of Eugene, Oregon, making
it even less likely the police would search for her there.
Back at the Hookers’ Red Bluff home, Colleen Stan’s seven years of hell would begin.
The “head box” she’d been forced to wear during the drive was tight, confining,
blocked out all light, and most of the flow of fresh air.
In hindsight, it was probably this first terrifying experience that prepared Colleen for the horrors
to come.
When the Hookers returned home with their new victim, they wasted no time in dragging
Colleen down to the cellar for the first battery of brutal assaults.
She was stripped naked and suspended from the ceiling by her wrists and tortured by
Cameron, who whipped and beat her mercilessly while Janice watched.
It was important for Cameron’s fantasy that his victims remained silent, and so he threatened
Colleen with violence if she made a sound during the beatings.
Janice even alleged that during the previous murder of Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, Cameron
had slashed her vocal chords to keep her quiet, though this fact was never confirmed.
Colleen’s torture continued for several hours, while the Hookers’ infant daughter
sat upstairs, totally unaware of her parents’ monstrous behaviour.
Once Cameron had had his fill of violence for the night, he and Janice had celebratory
intercourse right underneath Colleen’s suspended body.
Recounting the incident, Colleen said, “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.”
But perhaps even worse than this being a reality, Cameron and Janice had no interest in killing
her – they just wanted to dehumanise, objectify, manipulate, and torture her for years to come.
After the Hookers were done with their first night of sick games, Colleen was chained up
and hogtied inside a crate-like box for storage – the more coffin-like box that made this
case famous would come a few years later.
Though in many ways, the conditions of this cramped, sweaty crate were no better, and
Colleen was forced to spend twenty-three hours of the day trapped inside it.
The couple would only drag Colleen out of the box in order to use her in their depraved
sex games.
While Cameron was clearly the most enthused in the violence, exactly how much pleasure
Janice derived from all this is still unclear today.
It’s extremely possible that Janice was, in many ways, a victim of Cameron’s violent
and manipulative behaviour, too.
While it doesn’t excuse the seven years Janice was complicit in the kidnapping and
torture of Colleen Stan, it’s clear that Cameron Hooker was a master of mind games.
Early on in the process, he established a twisted power structure between himself and
Colleen.
He conditioned her into silence using the head box, and straps across her chest that
constricted her breathing.
When just breathing became a challenge, screaming started to feel pointless.
Cameron had spent some time meticulously constructing boxes and planning his manipulation tactics
in advance.
His addiction to violent pornography had given him plenty of ideas in terms of confinement
and control.
Cameron selectively starved Colleen over time, giving her occasional meals of water and potatoes.
She was forced to urinate and defecate in a bed pan.
He made sure that Colleen would fear his presence, and his tortures grew even more painful and
elaborate.
Colleen was stretched on a medieval-style rack, and left there for hours.
She was then fed water and egg-salad sandwich, then tortured for being perceived as ungrateful
for the meal.
This was the routine Cameron established: Isolation, fear, starvation, one meal a day,
and torture.
Colleen was beginning to feel like she was losing her sanity as the days turned to weeks
and months.
On the outside, nobody suspected a thing.
The Hookers’ neighbours always thought of them as the quiet types (as is often the case
with murderers and maniacs), and never even imagined they’d be doing the things they
were doing now.
Meanwhile, back in Colleen’s hometown of Eugene, Oregon, the Stan family had reported
Colleen’s disappearance to the local sheriff’s department, but any attempts at finding her
were hopeless.
The police thought that Colleen had been kidnapped or killed by someone in Oregon, not a couple
almost four hundred miles away in Red Bluff, California.
Tom Smith, a man who Colleen had impulsively married at seventeen before breaking it off,
was considered a prime suspect.
Back in Red Bluff, Colleen was being kept on the rack for hours at a time, punctuated
by occasional torture and sexual assault from Cameron.
It was during this time that Cameron built the infamous coffin-sized box that would act
as Colleen’s prison for years to come, fitted with a sleeping back, ear plugs, and a rudimentary
ventilation system.
The box became Colleen’s world – she wasn’t allowed to bathe, she lost over twenty pounds,
she stopped menstruating.
Her faith, memories, and will to survive were the only things keeping her around.
Cameron had total physical control over Colleen, but he wanted total mental and legal control,
too.
Eight months into her confinement, Cameron presented the young and terrified Colleen
with a “Slave Contract” that appeared to be legally binding.
According to the contract, she forfeited all rights to freedom and personhood, only going
by the name “K” and referring to Cameron as her master.
She was forced to sign the contract under threat of violence.
He also convinced her that he had paid to register them with a shadowy agency referred
to as “The Slave Company”, or just, “The Company.”
Cameron told Colleen that if she ever escaped, The Company would kill not only her, but her
family.
Of course, because Colleen was young, disoriented, and afraid, and Cameron was a charismatic
psychopath, she believed him.
Over the years of her confinement, torture, and time in the coffin-sized box under Cameron’s
bed, Colleen was moulded into the perfect, obedient slave – feeling compliance was
the only way to secure the safety of herself and her family.
She was forced to do chores around the house while wearing a slave collar.
The level of control Cameron had over Colleen’s life was truly terrifying.
He forced her to go out and get a job, knowing she was too scared of him to run away.
He made her put the barrel of a gun she believed was loaded down her own throat and pull the
trigger, just to show the extent of his power.
Years into confinement, he even allowed her to visit her family – once alone, and once
with him as her new “boyfriend.”
Cameron had developed such a psychological strangle-hold on Colleen through literal years
of abuse, even without the bindings she was locked up in his chains.
Colleen would say and do nothing, fearing what The Company would do to her and her loved
ones if she rebelled.
While her family was suspicious about their daughter’s new living conditions, they ultimately
said nothing, just feeling happy to know she was alive.
After giving Colleen a little freedom for around a year, it was back in the box.
Cameron thought he was invincible.
However, what he didn’t account for was Janice.
She may have been afraid of him, but her growing resentment over his broken promises (Cameron
had sworn not to have sex with Colleen, but had raped her countless times) and guilt over
her part in the crimes drove her to action.
After consulting with her church, one day in 1984 she decided enough was enough.
On August 9th of that year, seven years after Colleen’s initial capture, Janice told her
the truth: The contract was bogus, and there had never been a Company.
Janice helped Colleen plan her escape from captivity.
She bought a bus ticket out of town with money sent by her father, and left the next day
while Cameron was at work.
She called him one last time from the bus stop and told him she was leaving, and that
his lies had no power over her anymore.
Cameron cried and begged her to reconsider, but it was too late.
She was gone.
Colleen returned to her family and her life, and with Janice’s testimony – which she
gave in return for legal immunity – Cameron was found guilty of his horrific crimes and
sentenced to over one hundred years in prison.
Colleen had undergone a fate many people would consider worse than death, but through sheer
willpower, she was able to survive.
Though her life since then hasn’t been easy – the trauma from her ordeal manifested
in PTSD and a string of failed marriages – she’s still made a positive impact, now working
as a social worker and a mental health professional.
She and Janice both live in California, though – unsurprisingly – the two do not speak.
Cameron had his latest request for parole denied in 2015, and will be eligible to apply
for parole again in 2030.
It’s likely he knows a thing or two about confinement now, too.
Thanks for watching this episode of The Infographics Show!
If you want to hear more fascinating True Crime stories about kidnapping, why not check
out “Why 8% Of People Fall In Love With Their Kidnappers?” and “These People Disappeared
And We Still Don’t Know What Happened.”
In the meantime, don’t accept any rides from strangers!