So-called 'lovers' lanes' i.e., the special areas, usually a bit remote, where guys and girls make out in their cars, can be very dangerous places. Killers have often stalked couples in such isolated places and another class of criminal, intent more on abduction and sexual assault than killing, also finds ready prey in lovers' lanes.

 

The second reason may have been on the mind of one Australian abductor when he found his prey but the victim was in the end murdered. On 7th August, 1988 a teenage girl Sandra Peresan, 17, was kidnapped with her boyfriend, 18-year-old Shane Bentley, at Georges Hall (Sydney, Australia) by Van Hung Tran, 31. Tran had been convicted in 1984 of two counts of abduction, four counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of grievous bodily harm and was on parole until 1991. The couple were dragged from their car at knife-point and while Bentley was blindfolded, gagged and handcuffed to a tree, Sandra was forced to have intercourse with Tran and then stabbed seven times, dying.

Six years later two young Sydney women were each lucky to survive such a lovers' lane abduction and live. The story of what happened to the women is so startling that the crimes became known thereafter as the Lovers' Lane Abductions. It was fortunate that in both cases the two young women involved survived but they did so only after suffering many hours of captivity, rape, humiliation and despair. They were each held in such secure way they must surely have felt they would never escape. In fact, it would be impossible for them to escape, as shall be seen.

The two teenagers, from Sydney suburbs, were on different occasions taken captive by the same gun-wielding man as they sat in cars in so-called 'lovers' lanes' with their boyfriends late at night in October 1992. The intention of their abductor, who had prepared well, was evidently to keep the girls as sex-slaves but in each case he must have had second thoughts and both were eventually released. It is certain that had the abductor decided to keep the girls indefinitely they would have found it impossible to free themselves. It was almost certain also that they would never have been found by searchers as the location of their captivity has not been found even to this day.

The first victim was Belinda Hall, a 19-year-old, taken at 2 am from North Ryde, on the north side of Sydney. She was released after a 20-hour ordeal, relatively unharmed. The second was Linda Cooke, aged 18, taken late at night from Mortdale, a southern suburb. Her imprisonment lasted longer than Belinda's - almost three days and nights. But she too was finally released. There was no apparent connection between the women. The two abductions were all there were at this time but with an evident element of escalation present, one cannot help but wonder what might have happened if there had been a third women taken. She may have remained a captive for a long period.

Police eventually brought the two female victims together on October 15 and sorted through all the information for possible leads. Their accounts indicated a similar mode of operation by the perpetrator. The woman told police they had been blindfolded and gagged while in the abductor's car, their wrists being bound behind their backs and their ankles bound. In each case the boyfriend had been bound also and dumped before the women were driven off. Wire from a coathanger and grey tape were employed to restrain them. Both girls had their money and credit cards taken from them, although no attempt was subsequently been made to use the cards. After a relatively lengthy journey they arrived in what is thought to be a Sydney outer suburb, of semi-rural character. Their place of imprisonment was approached via a gravel driveway.

Taken from the car, each was forced down a pathway and stairs into an underground cellar, apparently located beneath a shed. The shed was evidently separated from another building - a house - on the property. In the cellar they were carefully fettered to a bed with chains, in such a manner that it would be impossible to free themselves. They were kept blindfolded all of the time and gagged for most of their captivity. The abductor did, however, feed them.

He had evidently planned carefully and had equipped his underground prison in such a way that he could remain in complete control of his captives at all times, even when they used the toilet pan provided for them. The girls thought the area was constructed of old bricks because there was an atmosphere that was musty and damp. Both girls could see little beyond their blindfolds but it was evident that heavy metal rings has been set into the walls to serve as convenient anchor-points for the chains that held them.

Chains ran from the wall to the bed on which the abducted girl was held. In both cases the man had put heavy gloves over their hands before tying and chaining them. He remarked that it was cold in the cellar area and he wanted to keep their hands warm. Curiously, however, their feet were left bare. Did he really want to protect the girls' hands from the cold or were the gloves intended to make it difficult for them to work at releasing themselves or perhaps scratching him? If he was genuinely concerned about the being cold he would have covered their feet as well! Or maybe he was a foot fetishist (no, the present writer was not responsible for the girls' abductions!)

A chain was also secured around the girl's neck and this too was locked to the wall. The girls' ankles were linked by a chain and from the centre of this another two chains ran to the bedposts. The object was apparently to leave enough freedom of movement in their legs to allow him to have access to their bodies for sex while still ensuring they could not escape. The girl was thus kept well trussed up, lying on her back, her hands bound in front of her and chains holding her in such a manner that there was no possibility whatever of escaping.

Their captor had even made good provision for solving a common problem faced by captors - the problem of toilet use. When the toilet was needed the girl was eased off the bed and the neck chain attached to another ring on the wall. One of the captives later remarked that the way he had hooks available the abductor was able to keep the girl in any manner he desired, including standing upright, by means of the chains and hooks had he wished to do so.

Belinda had been sitting in her boyfriend's car and had just finished a pizza when the attack occurred. The man ordered the boyfriend from the car, then tied her up, putting wide duct tape around her head, covering her eyes and mouth. She was then locked into the boot of the abductor's car and driven off. The journey took some time and Belinda cried in her frightening uncomfortable prison. The last part of the trip ran over a bumpy section of road, one of the clues seized upon by detectives in their endeavour to track down the perpetrator.

When the car stopped she was first of all dragged, her hands still bound, into an upper room, where her panties were ripped off and she was raped. The abductor asked Belinda if she had sex before. When she told him she had not he laughed loudly for a long time. He then forced her to go through a trapdoor and down some steep stairs into the basement prison and proceeded to secure her to the bed with the chains.

Belinda reported that her head was hurting when she found herself in the underground prison, probably from the tight bindings around it. Once on the bed the man ripped off her panties and raped her again. In Linda's case the abductor offered her a change of clothing. Linda was able also, while her gag was removed, to have a limited conversation with him. The abductor did not apparently strip the girls fully.

Linda's imprisonment was made more frustrating by the habit of the abductor of leaving a radio turned on near her bed where she could hear reports of police efforts to find her and of her parents' concern. At the time of the abductions, for some odd reason, police refused to comment as to whether the second victim was raped but Linda herself later told TV audiences that she had been. While one report of the abduction was actually being aired on the radio the man was raping her! He raped her six times in all throughout the period he held her captive. Once again her hands were covered with gloves while her feet, left bare, were chained as Belinda's had been.

Linda said that at one stage the man tried to be nice to her and befriend her. 'I think he took me to be his companion,' she remarked. He tried to clean her eyes but used raw antiseptic, which made them sting painfully. The girls told of how the man was particularly methodical and careful not to leave any trace of his activities. He had gone to the trouble of carefully bathing them, washing their legs, pubic regions and 'inside' them. He made sure no clues were left behind as to his assaults. Linda was finally released after suffering 67 hours of captivity.

The offender was described as being aged between 30 and 45, of mid-European background and had rough hands. He drove a 4-cylinder, 4-door sedan about 10 years old, silver in colour, automatic. Both girls were released again in the late hours of the night, dropped from a car with hands bound behind their backs and blindfolded. Obviously their abductor had taken great care not to have his face seen. By mid-1994, police reported they had reached a dead-end in their investigations, although an enormous effort was put into tracking down the abductor's house. There had been no further abductions. And today there is still no solution to this mysterious episode.

 

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