Where Is Colleen Stan Now? Inside Her Life 48 Years After the Shocking ‘Girl in the Box’ Kidnapping

The harrowing story of Colleen Stan’s “Girl in the Box” kidnapping captivated the country in the 1980s when she escaped and named her abductors, Cameron and Janice Hooker.

On May 19, 1977, 20-year-old Colleen was hitchhiking on the way from her Eugene, Ore., home to a friend’s birthday party when she was picked up by a couple, Cameron and Janice, who had their baby in the car. The child in the backseat made Colleen think they were a “safe” option, as she told CBS News in 2009.

After 30 minutes, Cameron pulled over and threatened to kill Colleen while holding a knife to her throat. He bound and gagged her and placed a homemade wooden “head box,” which weighed 20 lbs. according to Snapped Notorious: Girl in the Box, over her head.

“I thought I was going to die,” Colleen told PEOPLE in 2016. The Hookers kept Colleen imprisoned in their Red Bluff, Calif. home for seven years. She was kept in a coffin-like box for up to 23 hours a day, released only to be beaten, raped and tortured.

Cameron told her that a group called “The Company” would hunt her down and kill her if she tried to escape, and forced her to sign a slave contract that he claimed was from the group. Years later, Colleen eventually made a miraculous escape and has gone on to share her story.

Here’s everything to know about the “Girl in the Box” kidnapping and Colleen Stan’s life now.

Who is Colleen Stan?

Colleen was 20 years old when she was kidnapped while hitchhiking in California. She earned the moniker the “Girl in the Box” for the torture she faced at the hands of her kidnappers, Cameron and Janice, who kept her locked in a box for up to 23 hours a day.

Not much is known about Colleen’s life before her 1977 abduction and subsequent captivity. However, during her ordeal, her family theorized that she had joined a cult.

Under Cameron’s supervision, Colleen was allowed to visit and call her family three years into her captivity, but her sporadic, inconsistent contact and appearance made them believe something was wrong — and she never told them the truth about what was happening to her. They assumed she had joined a cult, as Colleen told Closer in 2008.

“I was so scared of Cameron and The Company that even when I was alone with my parents, I didn’t tell them where I’d been for three years,” she told the outlet, adding that Cameron posed as her fiancé. “We mostly talked about everything I’d missed out on – special occasions and family news. They were convinced I’d joined a cult.”

What happened after Colleen was kidnapped?

After kidnapping Colleen in 1977, Cameron and Janice subjected Colleen to torture, rape and abuse throughout the seven years they kept her in captivity.

Colleen was also repeatedly electrocuted and whipped by Cameron, often while chained to basement rafters or a homemade “rack,” according to court documents. She was kept in a box under the couple’s waterbed and only let out for a few hours late at night.

Eventually, the Hookers let Colleen out of the box more regularly, as she performed chores around the house and babysat the couple’s two children, according to court documents, and she later got a job as a hotel maid a few miles away from the house.

Colleen didn’t try to escape at first out of fear of “The Company” — a group Cameron told her would kill her if she attempted to flee.

Colleen told PEOPLE in 2016 that she got through the experience by focusing on all her happy memories of her family and friends. “I learned I could go anywhere in my mind,” she said. “You just remove yourself from the real situation going on and you go somewhere else. You go somewhere pleasant, around people you love. Whatever makes you happy.”

How did Colleen escape?

Colleen escaped from the Hookers in 1984 with the help of one of her abductors.

That year, Janice confided in a pastor about the past seven years of keeping Colleen hostage. The religious leader advised that both she and Colleen, as well as Janice and Cameron’s children, should leave him and turn him into the authorities, according to court documents.

While Cameron was at work, Janice took her children and Colleen to her parents’ house, where Colleen called her father.

“I don’t know why she waited so long, and really until this day I don’t know exactly why,” Colleen told PEOPLE in 2016, adding that she believed Cameron did something that made Janice “fear for her life and made her decide that we needed to get out.”

The feelings Colleen experienced when she finally escaped were overwhelming. “My first feeling when I was free and reunited with my family was just, I was so filled with joy,” Colleen said. “It was just like my cup was overflowing with joy.”

Where is Colleen now?

Since her escape, Colleen has attempted to live a normal life, though the impact of her captivity still remains with her.

Closer reported in 2008 that Colleen was living in northern California, working as a secretary. Eight years later, Colleen told PEOPLE that she was still living in the southern state, having just married for the fourth time, and was raising her then-2-year-old grandson. She said that she had had a wonderful life since she escaped, and was grateful to be alive.

“Your life is just kinda in limbo when you’re in captivity, and once you get that freedom back and you have that choice again, it’s just like the gates open, and you just run for it,” Colleen shared.

Every year on August 10 — the day she escaped from the Hookers — Colleen and her family, including her daughter, have a party on the beach to celebrate, as Oxygen reported in 2021.

“I thoroughly enjoy my freedom. Always, always, always. Life today is good,” Colleen said in the Oxygen documentary Snapped Notorious: Girl in the Box. “You have to learn how to live in the now and not let that past drag you back.”

Where are the Hookers now?

In November 1985, Cameron was convicted for kidnapping and sexual assaults, and sentenced to 104 years in prison, per the Los Angeles Times. During his sentencing, the judge on the case called him “the most dangerous psychopath I have ever encountered.”

He was incarcerated at the California Institute for Men in Chino, Calif., per Record Searchlight, but was released on parole to the Department of State Hospitals in 2021, according to Red Bluff Daily News.

The Tehama County District Attorney in California has lobbied to get Cameron designated as a “sexual violent predator,” the proceedings of which delay his hearing and parole eligibility, per Record Searchlight.

Colleen lobbied for the designation, as she did not want Cameron released into the world. “He’s just an evil person,” she told local California news outlet KRCR in 2021. “I would really love to say that he is a different person … but he’s not.”

In April 2024, Cameron’s hearing to determine whether he will be designated a sexually violent predator was delayed again to August 2024. Pending that outcome, his next parole eligibility hearing won’t be until 2030, per The Mercury News.

Though Janice was involved in the kidnapping and torture of Colleen, she faced no charges, as she agreed to testify against Cameron in exchange for immunity. “I felt like I didn’t have any choice,” she said at Cameron’s trial, explaining that he threatened her life if she didn’t participate in Colleen’s torture.

Which movies and documentaries are about Colleen Stan’s kidnapping?

Multiple documentaries, books and a full-length movie have been released depicting Colleen’s kidnapping and torture.

At the time of Cameron’s trial, the case was highly publicized, resulting in a 1989 book written by a district attorney who prosecuted the case titled Perfect Victim. Then, in 2009, Colleen published a memoir about her kidnapping, written by Jim Green but told through her first-person perspective.

In 2013, the Investigation Discovery series Dangerous Persuasions included an episode about Colleen called “Seven Year Slave,” and in 2016, the A&E Crime Central documentary series Girl in the Box featured first-hand testimony from Colleen and police officials involved in the case.

That same year, Lifetime released a two-hour movie about Colleen’s ordeal. The movie’s director, Stephen Kemp, met Colleen while filming the Dangerous Persuasions docuseries, which he also directed, and sparked the idea for a movie.

“[I was] struck by both her and her story,” Kemp told PEOPLE in 2016. “I was very surprised it hadn’t been sampled as a drama before, so I began the process of developing the script.”

Colleen was on set for the movie, meeting the actors and watching the filming. She told PEOPLE that the lead actor who played Cameron was afraid to meet her, thinking she would be angry with him for playing the role of her captor. “I met him and I said, ‘Hon, somebody had to play him.’ I said, ‘I feel bad for you that you had to play this guy,’ ” Colleen said.

In 2021, Oxygen also released a documentary special, Snapped Notorious: The Girl in the Box, which included first-hand accounts from Colleen about her experience.