Colleen Stan Research Paper

Colleen Stan “The Girl in The Box.” Held in a box 23 hours a day and abused when she wasn’t inside, Colleen Stan became known as “The Girl in The Box”. She had to endure this for 7 years with threats from an organization called “The Company”, living to tell her story. “Presents” Colleen Stan was held in the basement of Hooker's house for the first 5 months of her captivity. She was kidnapped because Hooker had bonding fantasies and his wife was unwilling. So Hooker and his wife came to an agreement that Hooker could get a slave to enact his fantasies on. Colleen was suspended from the ceiling and tortured. During this time, a wooden box made by Hooker was placed over her head. She was kept in almost total darkness for days, taking the box off

During this time, Colleen started doing piecework for Janice's employer. Her wage was signed over to Hooker. During some of these nights that Colleen was free, she helped Hooker build a hole in his backyard while Janice, at her husband's instruction, stood guard. The hole was later lined with cinder blocks, this project took 2 years to complete. During the time that she was kept in the bathroom, Hooker began to commit more violent sexual acts against Colleen. Colleen often asked Hooker to allow her to contact her family. She was allowed to make a few telephone calls to her family, under Hooker's supervision. After some time, Janice found out that Hooker planned to go to Riverside, but out of fear she didn’t protest. A week before the trip, Colleen was forced to tell the neighbors that she was leaving, only to be smuggled back into the house and put back in the box. As a test of her obedience, Hooker had Colleen place a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger. The gun was empty. Eventually, Colleen was taken to Riverside where at a stop in Sacramento, Hooker visited “The Company”

After being confined for 7 years, she had to adapt to how her family had changed and one of the biggest challenges was re-establishing a relationship with her parents after she saw them while in captivity and didn’t expose her situation. Because of her years in captivity, she received a large amount of physical and psychological damage. To help her with her psychological issues, she went to years of therapy to overcome her trauma. She also had constant stiffness in her back and arms due to laying down for years and being suspended by her arms while in bondage. She received a lot of media coverage and did interviews with multiple news outlets. Colleen also wrote multiple books such as Colleen Stan, the Simple Gift of Life, and the popular Perfect Victim. There are similarities to room in this regard to the Colleen Stan case. They both needed extensive medical help due to psychological and physical trauma. Colleen and Ma both received a lot of media coverage due to the well known nature of media outlets wanting to get a good story and publicizing these women's experiences. Both of these women also faced family troubles after they escaped their captors. Ma found out that her parents had separated, and Colleen found that forming bonds with her family again to be a difficult task due to their lesser trust in her. Both of them also did interviews on the