Inside the Chilling Case of a Woman Held Hostage in Hotel for 2 Years — by a Man Who 'Turns into a Beast'

A California man was sentenced to 394 years to life in prison for holding a 74-year-old woman, who was once his friend, captive in a hotel room for two years. 

On Tuesday, 57-year-old Ian Edard Kroe was convicted of 33 felonies for the repeated rape, torture and imprisonment of the elderly woman, according to a statement by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office posted on X. 

At sentencing, the 74-year-old woman said to the court that she “survived beyond all odds,” after being held in multiple states over the course of two years, a statement from the district attorney’s office said. 

Kroe became friends with the elderly woman in 2016 after his mother died and she reached out to offer her condolences. The woman and Kroe’s mother had been lifelong friends, the Palo Alto Daily Post reported. 

Kroe was living in Minnesota at the time and the 74-year-old was living in New Mexico. Kroe flew out to New Mexico and the two began a four-year road trip across the West Coast, the outlet reported, citing Belmont Police. 

At some point during their trip, Kroe took over the woman’s finances, telling her that people in New Mexico wanted to hurt her. Kroe then drained her bank accounts and refused to let her out of their hotel room, prosecutors said, per the Palo Alto Daily Post. 

After that, starting in August 2020, Kroe held the woman captive at a hotel in Belmont, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area. He repeatedly raped her and forced her to perform sex acts for two years, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

Prosecutors say that Kroe threatened to kill or torture the 74-year-old woman if she tried to escape, per the outlet. The woman said she wanted to go home to New Mexico, but he wouldn’t let her go.

San Mateo District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe told the Los Angeles Times that this case was unlike anything he or his prosecutors had ever seen. “It just started out as a friendship with the victim,” he said. “Then suddenly this guy turns into a beast.”

Authorities say that the elderly woman had a phone but Kroe would always check it, making it difficult to contact anyone. On Aug. 20, 2022, the woman secretly messaged a friend living in Berkeley on social media and said she needed help and to call 911, the Palo Alto Daily Post reported. The information was vague, so it took police a few days to piece everything together. 

On Aug. 25, 2022, police found the elderly woman with Kroe in the hotel room, per the outlet who cited police. The woman was naked in bed unable to move with bruises all over her body and a broken finger.

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Prosecutors say Kroe faked illness throughout the trial to delay the court proceedings. Leading up to the trial, Kroe said he was having a heart attack and was treated by a nurse, the local outlets reported. Although he was given pain medication, authorities say he never seemed to be having a medical emergency. 

“For him, it was just game playing,” Wagstaffe said to the Los Angeles Times. “He truly does believe he’s the victim.”