It was 1977 when Colleen Stan, then a twenty-year-old, decided to hitchhike from her house in Eugene, Oregon, to a friend’s house in California to attend her birthday party.
An experienced hitchhiker, she knew that she shouldn’t take the first ride that stopped for her, and when (after letting two potential rides pass) a young couple with a baby invited her to jump into their car, she thought that she had taken by far the safest choice available.
Little did Colleen know that these harmless-looking couples were the murderer and rapist Cameron Hooker and her accomplice and wife, Janice and that Colleen was getting into a trap of which she wouldn’t be able to get out of until seven years later, in 1984.
Hop along, reader, as we review the ten most-striking and blood-curdling facts about the story of the kidnapping of Colleen Stan, the Girl In The Box, who still lives somewhere in the state of California.
10 /10 She Wasn't The First Victim
A year before, Colleen went into that car. However, yet another revolting crime had been committed by the Hookers.
Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, nineteen at the time, disappeared in Chico, California, kidnapped by the Hookers in the same way.
However, they only prevented her from leaving when she was already getting down from the vehicle. Cameron had brought her to her home, where he hung her from the basement’s ceiling, shot her on the stomach with a pellet gun, and strangled her slowly.
Her body was never found, but Colleen would often look later at a photograph of her that the Hookers kept near their bed, the indirect sight from her box.
9 /10 A Sick Agreement
This was due to a sick agreement between Cameron Hooker and his wife: he would stop using her for his extreme sexual practices, which often bordered on rape or were rape, and he would instead get another person to serve him for this purpose (at first this prevented him having penetrative sex with the victims, but this ban would later be lifted).
Such had been Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, but he had killed her within a day: another victim had to be found.