Category: default || By jt3y

Another day, another weird news story to send folks at 201 Lysle Blvd. reaching for their Maalox. Yesterday, Our Fair City made national and international headlines again with the news that a 24-year-old woman who went missing as a 14-year-old in 1996 had been located not far from the neighborhood where she grew up.

She told police she'd been locked in a house on Soles Street for most of the last 10 years, held captive by a security guard at her former elementary school, Cornell.

According to published and broadcast reports, police learned of the case when she confided in the owner of the former UDF store on Versailles Avenue that she had been going under an assumed name for a decade, and was, in fact, reported missing as a teen-ager. She told the man that she was frightened for her safety.

The owner called police; the cops arrested the security guard and charged him what the Post-Gazette euphemistically calls "a variety of sex crimes." (The Tribune-Review reports that the charges are statutory sexual assault and three counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.)

But he hasn't been charged with kidnapping ... at least yet. (The security guard's attorney says the girl wasn't held against her will.)

Picksberg's TV news yackers reported the story as a "miracle." According to news accounts, the woman has told police that she lived in the security guard's house along with his elderly parents and his son, now in his early 20s, but they never knew she was there.

She spent much of the time locked in a bedroom, according to news accounts. Other members of his family weren't allowed to open the door; sometimes, she had to use a bucket as a toilet.

In a very thorough account in the Tribune-Review, Jill King Greenwood writes that the victim secretly dated the security guard as a girl and decided to move in with him in the hopes they would eventually marry. She agreed to keep their dalliance --- and even the fact that she was living with him --- a secret from his parents until he decided to tell them.

Writes Greenwood: "She was allowed to watch television and listen to the radio, but only with headphones so his parents wouldn't hear. She tiptoed around the room. (The suspect) made her memorize which floorboards creaked."

I guess I was incredulous when I first heard the reports. I mean, how can someone be locked in a house for 10 years with three other people without them being aware of it? Wouldn't they hear strange noises or notice food missing? When she got a chance to leave the house 10 months ago, why didn't she run for safety?

But for what it's worth, county police believe her story, and I know that truth is stranger than fiction. I also know that mental abuse --- particularly of a young person --- can be quite damaging.

Someone whose elder, "protector" and ostensible love interest began playing mind games with her --- telling her that she was worthless and forgotten --- would develop a twisted self-image and world view. If the news accounts and police reports are accurate, then it's not surprising that she would have felt powerless to help herself.

In any event, I am happy that this young lady is back home with her family, and that after 10 years, they know that she's still alive and safe. I pray that soon, she'll have her life back on track, and that her emotional scars will heal.

I also hope that the media circus that is going to revolve around this case for at least a few weeks doesn't cause more damage.

Because I have a strong hunch that all of the facts have yet to be revealed, and that this story is likely to become either clearer or stranger in the days and weeks to come. In any case, folks concerned about the city's image (including your humble correspondent) should probably stock up on that Maalox.