There have been literally hundreds of cases of females being abducted to be held as sex-slaves or (occasionally) held for other purposes, e.g. to provide cheap labour. Chiefly, though, the sexual element is present in some form or other. Here is a selection of stories:

SHORT-TERM CAPTIVITY IN A BEACH HOUSE.

On May 23, 1973, two teenage girls were reported missing from the area near Folly Beach, Charlestown, South Carolina. They were Sherri Jan Clark, 15, and Alexis Ann Latimer, 14. Their last known whereabouts was at a beach house belonging to the parents of Alexis. They had been cleaning it. Months went by and no trace of the girls was found; it was as if they vanished off the face of the earth. Then, on September 27, a young woman escaped the attentions of a would-be rapist in the same area. At the time, however, she did not report this to the State police, only to Naval officers.

On February 12, 1974 at about 5 pm someone discovered a teenage girl bound to a tree in a shopping centre. She was unharmed but had been through an ordeal. A man had threatened her with a gun as he compelled her to submit to being tied to the tree.

A few days later, on February 21, another teenage girl went missing. Mary Earline Bunch, 16, was last seen by some friends, after which she simply vanished like the first two girls. About seven weeks later a young female visitor to the area reported to police that a man had tried to abduct her off the street. She had managed to break free and escape. By now it was becoming apparent that there might be some connection between these various assaults and disappearances.

The very next day, April 12, a policeman happened to be investigating another matter at a remote part of the local beach when he passed an isolated cottage, and as he did so heard the sounds of someone in distress. Investigating further he discovered three teenage girls below the cottage, all tightly bound and gagged. One had managed to loosen her gag. These were not, however, the missing girls but three more!

They had, they told police, been held up on the beach by a man with a gun, who then proceeded to tie them up. When police examined the rope used they thought it looked identical with the rope used on the girl left tied in the shopping centre.

When a sketch of the wanted man was published someone contacted police to tell them that he had noticed his pet dog acting strangely at one place on the beach. Police soon began digging and the body of Mary Earline Bunch was uncovered. She had been bound hand and foot with the same rope as had been used on the other girls. Eventually the State police were led to the girl who had escaped being raped. She identified the man as being the one who had approached her. He had bound and gagged her first, then removed the gag again and they had a discussion as to whether or not she would allow him to have intercourse with her. She had told him she was willing provided he untied her. The suspect had untied her but became flustered when he could not achieve an erection and it was obvious he had problems associated with the need to bind the girl. Somehow she had managed to talk her way to freedom!

The suspect was a sailor at the nearby Naval base, Richard Raymond Valenti, 32, who was interviewed by investigators and charged with several counts of assault and three of murder. He later reportedly assisted them in uncovering the bodies of the other two missing teenagers.

According to police Valenti told them he felt strong sexual urges that came over him when he had reduced females to a state helplessness. In each case he had forced them to partly undress and had bound both their wrists and ankles. He had also tied them in more than one manner. He would first tie a girl with her hands in front of her, then with them behind.

Finally he had indulged in the ultimate fantasy. He had forced the girls to stand on a chair in the shower recess and tied a rope about their necks, passing it over an overhead pipe. He claimed he would have untied them again, after they had experienced the fear of hanging, but in their panic, according to his account, they knocked the chair over and hung in the noose. Their feet were 'almost touching the floor,' he claimed, as he sat watching them die.

During the trial Valenti's wife testified that her husband had a fetishist interest in ropes and she had once discovered him naked on the bathroom floor, fondling a length of rope while he masturbated. A doctor told the court that Valenti had 'a serious mental disorder which is the desire to control women in bondage.' Valenti was found guilty on two counts of murder and given two life sentences.

THREE DAYS OF VERY CRUEL IMPRISONMENT

'Maria Hines' was the name given in a court case to a young woman who fell into the hands of a man with sex-slavery on his mind. Her real name was suppressed to protect her. She may have been kept captive, like many others, for an indefinite period had her captor lived in a cottage somewhere more-or-less alone. Certainly Maria was kept in a manner that made escape seemingly impossible. As it happened the man who took her did not have a really good place in which to keep his sex-slave - a trailer home - and that was Maria's salvation. Maria was a young American Indian woman who in 1972 was to experience just three days of imprisonment. But they were very long days, having regard to the manner in which she was kept.

Her captor was a large man, 55-year-old LeRoy Smith, who seemed, as it transpired, to have a penchant for Indian ladies. Seized literally off the street in Phoenix, Arizona, and subdued by a blow to her head, Maria soon discovered she would experience more than just rape. She found herself dragged from the pickup truck into the mobile home, divided into two rooms. When the man finally put her down, she screamed, but he just laughed. 'No one to hear you, pretty baby. Now let's have some fun.' At this he advanced on the girl but she fought back, scratching him with her fingernails.

This enraged LeRoy and he proceeded to bind the woman's hands behind her back with some rope and to gag her. As she lay helplessly on the floor she next saw LeRoy pick up a butcher's knife and some scissors. She feared for her life but she need not have done so for LeRoy simply wanted to cut away her clothing, which he soon did, leaving her completely naked. There followed a last effort by the fearful woman to ward off an attack - with her feet. He thumped and bit her on the thigh in return and then probed her vagina with the butcher's knife. At this she fainted.

When she awoke she found herself lying on a bed and something was happening to her feet. LeRoy had wound some chain about her ankles, which then passed up through a pulley set in the trailer's ceiling and soon Maria was being hauled up, to hang like a side of beef, head down over the bed. 'That'll keep you in place,' he said, smiling into her face, 'until I get back. We can have some fun later.'

This was the start of a 3-day ordeal in which the girl was repeatedly raped, tortured and beaten. The worst was the painful hanging. Each time LeRoy finished with the girl she was re-hung and left for agonizingly long periods with the chain biting into her flesh, until her assailant was ready to satiate himself on her body again and apply a little more torment.

After the man's trial it was revealed that in the past he had been implicated in the rape of a number of other young Indian women over the years and the murder of at least one, although in this case he got off on a reduced manslaughter charge. Evidence showed that he had hung the murdered woman in the same unpleasant manner as Maria. It is certain Maria might have remained his chained and tormented prisoner for a long period had it not been that someone reported suspicious activities in the trailer home.

It is not known whether LeRoy boasted to someone of his conquest or someone had seen something but an anonymous call made to local police brought them to the trailer. After an argument at the doorway, police forced their way in and handcuffed the big man. He was in the front room, screaming out about his rights, when police heard muffled sounds. Maria was at that moment chained, and as usual, gagged, hands bound behind her back, and hanging upside-down from the ceiling.

Realizing this maybe her one hope of escape she had swung herself back and forth, banging against the walls, and uttering muffled sounds from behind the gag. The amazed policemen helped her down. She was taken to hospital to be treated, suffering from the results of beatings, biting and the cruel chains that had cut into her ankles. It was only three days of imprisonment but it was the longest three days in Maria Hines' life.

HITCHHIKED THEIR WAY INTO A TORTURE CHAMBER.

Albert Brust, 44, was a Dade County (Miami, USA) building inspector who, using his undoubted skills as a tradesperson, actually constructed inside his home a soundproofed torture chamber, where it stood one day in July 1973, waiting for victims. It was in Florida, location for many kinky crimes, where Brust lived and once the torture chamber was completed, Brust began looking around for likely subjects.

His first and last sortie netted him two captives, teenagers, a boy and a girl. Paula Gail Lee (aka Sally Dove), 15, of Kentucky, and a companion, Mark Bernard Matson, 16, were hitchhiking together. The pair had only become acquainted the day before. A white panel van pulled up and the driver, who called himself 'Eric', offered the pair not only a ride but some casual work for pocket-money at his house at South Miami. They were both short of cash and were quite happy to go along with him.

But once inside the house they suddenly found themselves confronted with a gun and realized, too late, their mistake. Brust's house was dimly lit but as the teenagers stood taking in the changed situation they could see into the man's bathroom. The walls were papered all over with huge 'pornographic' pictures, the more explicit ones coming as a real shock to the girl, who, although she was in fact a runaway, had come from a sheltered Baptist background. Now, at the point of a gun, they were instructed as to their real 'work'. They were both ordered to strip naked and perform various sex acts as instructed by Brust while he took photographs of them. If he was not satisfied with their performance, he told them, he would shoot them!

Although they were not completely inexperienced in matters of sex they were not even friends but they were soon given a crash course by their captor and learned quickly many possible sexual positions and activities. Time wore on, the man panting excitedly and snapping away with his camera. Then Mark began to think of escape and, seizing an opportunity when the photographer was, he thought, off guard, he leapt at him. But, too late, the man grabbed up his gun and pumped three bullets into the young man, killing him outright.

Paula was now on her own. Until then the activities had been going on in the main area of the house but now Paula found herself being dragged, still naked, though a large steel door at the end of the room. It was the entrance to the torture chamber. Police were later to determine that the door and the chamber were constructed of very thick panels and heavily insulated so that no sound could escape to the outside world.

Here the girl was shackled with her arms stretched up to the wall, held by chains. The grim nature of this prison was emphasized by the special black light Brust had installed. Hanging helplessly, Paula was tortured in many ways, among them being flogged with a heavy leather whip all over her body, including her breasts, pummelled with the man's fists and sexually abused in every conceivable manner. There was no need to use a gag on the girl for the torture chamber, heavily insulated with foam rubber, kept her screams from the outside world. In any event Brust undoubtedly preferred hearing the sounds of his victim's terror. Brust had in this chamber all manner of torture devices, details of which were not fully made known by investigators, but they included a specially-constructed chair/footstool designed for anal sexual attacks. Chains hung from the ceiling and an assortment of whips was on hand.

All the while Paula remained shackled. After days of almost continuous rape and physical abuse, Paula believed she faced death. There was no way the sex maniac who held her captive would ever let her go alive. But suddenly, and unaccountably, Brust decided to free the girl. Telling Paula, 'I've taken a life, but now I'm going to give you your life,' Brust put the girl in the van and let her out in Fort Lauderdale. Before departing Brust warned her he would come after her and kill her if she told police. She ignored the warning and went straight to the police station. But Paula was in for a rude shock. She had difficulty getting the police to believe her story because she was listed as a runaway and when police contacted her mother she told them the girl was of bad character and not to believe her!

The end of this episode came about in a strange manner. Five days later police were contacted by a lady who said her neighbour, a Mr Albert Brust, had been sitting on a chair on his lawn in the rain for a long time and she thought he might be dead. In fact he'd been there for more than 24 hours. The police went to investigate. Brust was indeed dead in his chair; he had killed himself with a chocolate-milk-and-cyanide cocktail. The body of the dead youth was found in the shower recess inside the house, embedded in concrete! The hands, feet and head had been severed and were separately encased in the concrete block. Whether Brust had abducted and imprisoned anyone else in his torture chamber will probably now never be known but it is possible the young teenagers were the only ones captured by him.

Police later put together a profile of Albert Brust. He was born in New York in 1929 and at the age of 21 was convicted of abduction, assault and robbery. He learnt building and construction work while in prison serving his sentence. He had once openly boasted to someone that he had killed a man in New York. Brust kept a diary in which he wrote: 'Rape, murder, suicide. These thoughts are constantly with me . . . There is no doubt that by present standards I am mentally ill, a hopeless sociopath.' There was much more in similar vein. Among his many fantasies was one of having a woman as a sex-slave and he contemplated the pleasure of holding a girl in his torture chamber, there to do his bidding. It is possible that he had never had intercourse until he had it with his unwilling captive teenager.

Brust had kept a diary and in it he recorded how the cement holding the boy's body had failed to seal properly and the stench was overpowering. 'I have miscalculated. I know I could save the situation by a lot of disagreeable work, but the whole business is not worth the trouble.' Police found in his freezer a number of meatballs, each containing a lethal quantity of cyanide. Neighbours told police Brust was kind to stray cats - they had often seen him feeding them meatballs!

'RESPECTABLE' COUPLE KEPT TEENAGE SLAVE.

A Statesboro (Georgia) Librarian, James Dorsey and his wife Marilyn kept a teenage girl as a sex-slave for a period of 6 years. The Dorseys were highly respected citizens, Mr Dorsey not only being the local librarian but also a writer. Both had high IQs. Mrs Dorsey counselled high school students with problems and it was through contact with one of these young people, a troubled 17-year-old girl known as 'Wendy', that the saga began. The Dorseys made contact with the girl first at Swainsboro, about 400 km from Statesboro. At the time Mr Dorsey was a Sunday school teacher there and Mrs Dorsey was counselling. The girl moved into the couple's home and when they later transferred to the new city she stayed with them.

'Wendy', it transpired, had a multiple-personality problem. At times she would be 'Little Wendy', aged 5 years. At other times she would be a tough teenager, 'Trouble'. Altogether, according to psychologists, the girl had 17 personalities. In her court appearance more than one personality was heard. According to testimony the couple played 'sadistic sex games' with the young girl and so controlled her that she did not try to escape from them but retreated into one of her defensive personalities. Mr Dorsey was said to have called 'Wendy' his 'little whore', although he denied this. He did, however, admit to having had sex with the girl.

The nature of the sexual assaults was not spelled out but the couple were charged, among other things, with aggravated sodomy and sexual battery. Both claimed any sexual acts had been consented to by 'Wendy'. The case against Mrs Dorsey was tried in October 1991 and she was found guilty and given a 15 years' jail sentence. Mr Dorsey stood trial in June 1992 and he, too, received a 15-year sentence.

SIX MONTHS CHAINED IN AN UNDERGROUND DUNGEON.

It was a case that eerily prefigured one in recent times in Austria. Early in 1976 in the Vancouver, B.C. (Canada) area, a 12-year-old girl, Abby Drover, was abducted by Donald Alexander Hay, 43, and locked up to a filthy underground dungeon, where she was kept prisoner for six months, at times being chained to the wall. Abby was to be Hay's sex-slave.

Hay lived only five houses away from the Drover family and all the time the police and family had searched for the missing girl she was being kept in the prison under his garage. The dungeon was a concrete pit, evidently constructed for the purpose by the alleged offender, measuring only 2 metres square. There was a short bunk and chains were attached to the wall at the head of the bed.

Police had eventually located Abby in her prison cell, by which time she was emaciated and physically weakened as she had not been fed regularly. She had also been tortured in unspecified ways, according to reports. Her tormentor, who used the girl for his sexual pleasure from time to time, often left her alone for days on end with only a small amount of snack food to eat. On the floor of the cell police found several wet shopping bags with what they took to be soiled toilet paper in them.

Abby told police that she was chained from time to time when Hay left her. She had, however, been supplied with a radio and some books to read. Police also found a note Abby had scrawled, which read: 'I believe in God and I do believe in friends. I just wish you would be my friend.' Abby has two older sisters. One of them, Kathy, 17, told reporters that Abby forgave her tormentor what what he had done 'but thinks now he should die for it.' Canada, however, has no death penalty. Hay was, instead, sentenced to life imprisonment for 'abduction, forcible confinement, and sexual assault.'.

At a parole board hearing in 2001 Hay, then aged 66, was refused parole. The board ruled that Hay had not accepted full responsibility for his heinous crime and had not expressed enough sympathy for his victim. Abby, now a 38-year-old mother of five, attended the hearing. She later commented: 'I'm very worried about him getting out of jail and I'd like to make sure he doesn't . . . He's an alcoholic and a pedophile. and that doesn't change.'

FRENCH GIRL KEPT NAKED AND BOUND FOR MONTHS.

Louise Ducroix (not her real name; this was suppressed by the French court) was a young woman from Grenoble (France) who fell into a trap and found herself a captive sex-slave - to a man she knew well, a man she had trusted. On December 15, 1977, Louise, a 23-year-old young female with well-developed breasts (a fact mentioned as it may have contributed to her subsequent miseries), met up with a young man who, although about five years older than Louise, had attended the same school as she had. Jean-Pierre Vercelly was a street sweeper and was married and had children - three young boys.

A liaison developed as a result of that street meeting and an infatuated Jean-Pierre soon suggested that Louise move in with the family. Curiously Jean-Pierre's wife, Chantal, did not object when the young woman arrived on the doorstep of their third-floor apartment. On the same night that the newcomer joined the family circle, after the children had gone to bed, Jean-Pierre stripped a not-unwilling Louise and had intercourse with her in the living-room. Chantal did nothing; merely commented that Louise had better obey her husband. Time passed and the strange arrangements continued. Sometimes Louise even shared the bed with the husband and wife.

About three months later Jean-Pierre lost his job so he was now around the house more often than before. One day a new, and for Louise, frightening, turn of events occurred. She had dressed and was about to leave the apartment to see a movie when suddenly Jean-Pierre ordered her not to leave and instead to take off all her clothes! Further, he announced that she was no longer to leave the apartment at any time without his permission. When the somewhat startled girl failed to obey she found herself being beaten to the ground and finally beaten into unconsciousness.

When Louise recovered she found herself naked and being anally assaulted on the floor. All this took place while Chantal looked on. Then Louise was dragged into a bedroom, gagged and bound hand and foot with electrical wire and left naked and tied to the radiator. This was to be her situation for many weeks, although when she was brought out of the bedroom, where the boys could see her, she was given some clothing to wear. But from now on she was treated as a slave, abused on a daily basis, beaten, scratched, cut and burnt with cigarettes. Most of the time she was kept in the bedroom, naked, gagged, and attached to the radiator. At night she was tied by both her wrists and ankles to the end of the couple's bed, still naked.

Punishments were given for any infractions of the rules set out by her captor. If she so much as looked out of a window she was beaten cruelly and she was compelled from time to time to perform striptease acts in front of Jean-Pierre or to masturbate using a variety of objects, such as bananas, bottles and a plastic penis. She was also compelled at times to crawl on all fours to him as he sat on a seat, then perform oral sex on him. Later Jean-Pierre forced his wife, who otherwise remained aloof from these activities, to sit in her underwear on the lounge while Louise had to crawl up to the lounge and perform cunnilingus on her.

Then another strange turn of events occurred in the story. One day Jean-Pierre and Chantal were absent with their children and Louise managed to loosen her bonds sufficiently to escape. She fled from the apartment and from Grenoble to freedom in Paris. However, within two weeks Louise became homesick and returned to Grenoble, to her own apartment, which she still had. The very next day Jean-Pierre appeared on her doorstep and demanded that she return with him to captivity! Under threat of being murdered if she didn't obey Louise meekly returned to her slave status. Immediately she was being treated as always - kept naked for long periods, forced to perform all sorts of sex acts, beaten and burnt. As well as ordinary beatings Louise was whipped and sexually tortured.

When she was restrained her 'master' now bound her so tightly to the radiator with the electrical wire that there was no possibility of escape, so tight indeed that deep and permanent wounds were cut into her flesh. Yet still she escaped once more! It appeared that the wires within the plastic covering had frayed from much use. By now Jean-Pierre had burnt her papers and destroyed her clothing so she ran from the apartment barefoot and clutching a towel about her otherwise naked body. She was taken in at a woman's refuge and given assistance but Louise did not tell the truth about her imprisonment and made no effort to contact police. So even then another strange turn occurred in this story.

About a week later the local newspaper announced that a man had drowned in the river. He was named as Jean-Pierre Vercelly and had apparently left a suicide note saying that 'Louise no longer loves me. I cannot face life without her. Forgive me Chantal.' Police were, it was stated, still searching for the body, having merely located an empty car and the note. Soon after this Louise left the refuge to return to her own apartment. She never reached it. Jean-Pierre had faked his death and was waiting for her. In a brief space of time she was once again a slave in his apartment, where she faced even greater cruelties than before.

Once again stripped naked, tightly gagged so the neighbours would hear nothing, she was and made to perform the range of sex acts Jean-Pierre enjoyed. Then Jean-Pierre took each of Louise's hands and, using a strong machinist's vise he had purchased for the purpose, he crushed them. His aim was to hinder any attempt on Louise's part to loosen her bonds. After this, Louise was again kept bound hand and foot in between sessions of torture. Jean-Pierre was by now finding it difficult to invent new 'games' with which to extract some sadistic pleasure from his captive. But among other torments clothes pegs were attached for long periods to Louise's clitoris and her breasts were continually burnt with cigarettes.

Then one morning the children were sent away and Jean-Pierre began to torture Louise in earnest. No longer was Louise able to perform to his satisfaction some activities such as masturbation, because of the state of her crushed hands. So badly were they swollen that she could now only eat by putting her head into a bowl. Because of this she was required to eat away from the children, so they did not see her. But Jean-Pierre still had a few ideas to work on. Burning off all her pubic hair was one. Inserting a burning cigarette into Louise's anus was another. Naturally the girl was kept helplessly bound and tightly gagged while all this took place.

That afternoon Jean-Pierre went drinking with companions and later returned to the apartment, announcing that he was passing Louise over to a pimp who would sell her into an African brothel. Louise, lying then on the floor naked but now without bindings, showed no immediate reaction. However when Jean-Pierre left the room Louise suddenly sprang to life and bolted into the bedroom. There she managed, using her mouth, to slide a bolt across, locking herself in. Soon Jean-Pierre was trying to get her to come out, warning her she would be punished if she didn't. Then he began to force the door. Louise now tried to use her broken hands to open the window latch. Just as she managed to do so Jean-Pierre burst through the door. It was too late; she leaped out of the window and fell to the pavement below.

Remarkably, in this very remarkable saga, Louise lived through the fall. Even her spinal cord wasn't damaged. Remarkably also the very next day Jean-Pierre and Chantal actually visited her in the hospital. They were trying desperately to cover up what had really happened and Louise had been quietly threatened with death if she told police the real story. It was thought at first that Louise had attempted suicide and this belief was strengthened when Louise refused to explain the condition of her hands and other aspects of the matter. However finally through a nurse the truth came out and the husband and wife were indicted on criminal charges of kidnapping, torture and deprivation of liberty.

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