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After the couple were finished, Cameron restrained Colleen in the basement on a rack and put the box on her head as well. That night proved to be one of the most horrific for Colleen as she could barely move or breathe. She later recalled, “To me, it was a nightmare. I could not believe that this was happening to me.
I’d never heard of people doing such things, and I could not understand what I’d done to deserve this treatment. I thought I was going to die.” The next morning, Cameron removed Colleen’s restraints, but unfortunately, her momentary relief was short-lived. Cameron starved her for the entire day before finally offering her a meager meal of potatoes and water.
Then he hung her again and subjected her to torture. Colleen’s next meal was an egg salad sandwich and water. She didn’t have much appetite and felt full after the first sandwich, but when she declined to finish the second one, Cameron became infuriated. He hung her up and whipped her as a punishment for her alleged defiance, as he put it.
When she was finally taken down, she forced herself to finish it. Consecutive days went by in more or less the same manner. A single meal a day, torture, isolation, and constant threat. Colleen later recalled, “Sometimes I thought I was just going to go crazy.” After Colleen had been missing for a few days, her family grew increasingly worried.
Colleen’s parents also came to know that she never made it to her friends in Westwood. On May 23rd, 1977, just 4 days after she’d been kidnapped, a missing person’s report was filed for Colleen. She was described as 5 ft, about 135 lb, with long, straight brown hair and blue eyes. At the time, both of Colleen’s biological parents were divorced and remarried, both living in Riverside, California.
Colleen herself had just married 22-year-old Tom Smith before she turned 17, but their marriage only lasted a year in Ohio. She had since moved in with friends in Eugene who had become her adopted family. Tom was an obvious suspect for the police, but he had never bothered to contact Colleen before, so there was little reason to think he would suddenly abduct her now.
Colleen’s mother Evelyn made frequent calls to the sheriff’s department in Eugene, but they had no new leads. With no clue where their missing daughter might be, the family began to fear the worst. Either she’d been killed or perhaps she had been abducted by a religious cult. >> On the other hand, the days for Colleen were harrowing and depressing.
She saw very little of Janice or her baby. For 23 hours a day, she was restrained. Cameron would come frequently to torture her. Sometimes he would take photographs and film those sessions. Even held her head under water until she lost consciousness. Whenever Colleen asked him when he planned to let her go, Cameron would reply, soon.
He had no intention of doing so. He also realized that keeping Colleen chained to the rack all day could damage her health irreparably. He had to think of some other way to restrain her and keep her under his control. His answer to this was a wooden box constructed to look like a coffin. But unlike a coffin, this one held a living human being inside.
This wooden box became Colleen’s entire world. Cameron had placed a sleeping bag inside and installed a blower for air circulation, but temperature control was nonexistent. Soon, Colleen adapted to tell the time of day simply by feeling the temperature inside the box. She was denied basic human rights like hygiene. She lost about 20 lb.
She stopped menstruating. But Cameron’s fantasies were growing even wilder and darker. His torture sessions became more frequent and increasingly cruel. He used heat lamps to burn her skin. He even electrocuted her. That followed strangulation and the whipping always there. Cameron became aroused through these sessions and essayed Colleen orally and then assaulted her with implements.
One day, Cameron decided to put Colleen to work. He had made a corner in the basement into what he called the workshop. There, Colleen was given a nutcracker and was forced to shell nuts. Months came and went. Colleen turned 21, but even on her birthday, she remained locked in the coffin. After eight months of relentless torture, Cameron devised a new psychological strategy to ensure Colleen would never attempt escape.
He had discovered an article in underground S&M newsletter titled, “They Sell Themselves Body and Soul When They Sign the Slavery Contract.” The article gave him an idea. He’d create a contract with Colleen that appeared to be legally binding, but in reality, it was a psychological weapon designed to bind her to him through fear and false legitimacy.
