Colleen Stan (born December 31, 1956)[1] is an American woman who was kidnapped and held as a sex slave by Cameron and Janice Hooker in their Red Bluff, California home for over seven years, between 1977 and 1984.
[2] Janice was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony, while Cameron was found guilty on multiple charges and sentenced to 104 years in prison.
[11] On the first night of her kidnapping, Stan was strung up by her hands, physically attacked by Cameron, and left blindfolded and suspended while the pair had sex below her.
[12] After her kidnapping, Stan stated that she was tortured and kept locked in a box 23 hours a day until she was given a contract and forced to sign herself into slavery for life in January 1978.
[13] She further stated that Cameron led her to believe that she was being watched by a large, powerful organization called "The Company" which would painfully torture her and harm her family if she tried to escape.
Following this, the Hooker family moved to a mobile home in Red Bluff with Stan, where she was kept locked in wooden boxes under the couple's water bed.
[18] Stan said that her faith in God and belief in a chance of escape helped her survive;[19] her greatest fear, which Cameron "reinforced" daily, was of "The Company".
[20] To avoid painful punishments, Stan tried to comply with his commandments,[21] which later led to her being allowed to go out to jog, work in the yard, care for the family's children in the mobile home,[22] and help him build bigger accommodations—like an underground dungeon—for more slaves.
[15] Her family thought she was involved in a cult because of her homemade clothes, lack of money, and absence of communications over the years; they did not want to pressure her, fearing she would stay away forever.
[31] She informed Lt. Jerry Brown of the Red Bluff Police that Cameron had previously kidnapped, tortured, and murdered 19-year-old Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, who had disappeared on January 31, 1976, from Chico, California.
[37] After the trial, Stan studied for an accounting degree and,[38] as reported by Mara Bovsun in a March 9, 2014, New York Daily News article, "tried to move on to a normal life, but misery followed her—a string of failed marriages and a troubled child, now in jail.
On September 10, 2016, a television movie based on the case, titled Girl in the Box, premiered on Lifetime starring Addison Timlin as Colleen, Zane Holtz as Cameron, and Zelda Williams as Janice.
The case is documented in the book Perfect Victim: The True Story of the Girl in the Box (1989), by prosecutor Christine McGuire and Carla Norton,[43] and referenced in Kathy Reichs's novel Monday Mourning (2004).
[46] In 1996, the American rock band Elysian Fields released a song titled "Jack in the Box" for their debut studio album, Bleed Your Cedar, which was made available for purchase that same year.
[47] In 2012, a short opera piece composed by Patrik Jarlestam and Jonas Bernander was based on the kidnapping, and premiered in Stockholm, under the name of Den 4444:e dagen (The 4444th day).
"The Apartment", a 2012 episode of the SyFy series Paranormal Witness, told the story of the disappearance of Marie Spannhake, and includes a cameo mention of Stan's kidnapping.