Rotten Mango - #355: Man Kept A 9-Year-Old Girl In His Room For 10 Years Without His Mom Noticing
Episode Date: May 5, 2024That was it. He was going to kill her. Sato, a bachelor, a young man who still lived with his mother terrorized her within the walls of her own home. Sure, she could still go out, enjoy her life, bu...t Sato had control over the household in a way that made her feel suffocated. Trapped. Sato’s mother called the police on him the first time she felt that her life was truly in danger. She was sure he would kill her. At least that was the version she told the police. But when they came to her house and found a kidnapped girl in her son, Sato’s bedroom— They discovered the girl had been missing for nearly a decade. She was nine years old when she had disappeared. Still, the mother kept to her story. That she too, was held emotionally captive and it seems the police believed her. But the girl, now a young woman, remembers things a little bit differently To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Let me collect my thoughts, please.
And the staff members look over at Nate's mom,
who, you know, had called them to do the mental health check
on Nate in the first place, and they look at her like,
hello, do you know this girl?
Why is she in your house? And Nate's mom just of shrugs she's like I don't know I have never
seen her before so the staff members they assume it had to have been Nate's
girlfriend maybe he had like snuck her into the room even though he clearly
looked 25 years older than her it didn't matter to them you know love is love
right what is age? Nate is like in his 40s.
This girl looked like she was maybe 18.
What?
So they're like, love is love,
but why is she behaving so weird?
Maybe we should just take her to the hospital
because what's going on?
What's your name?
And she's not responding to that.
She just looks so panicked and she keeps looking around
and she asks Nate's mom,
can I just stay here till he gets back?
This part is so pertinent and so heartbreaking later, but that's what she asks.
So she's refusing to go home.
And even the staff is like, what's your name?
Where's your home?
We can take you home.
She's like, I don't have a home.
So like, just take her to the hospital.
We don't want to take care of this situation.
Like, let the hospital do it.
So they rush her to the hospital and finally she gets comfortable enough and she says that her name is
Fusaka Sano. We're gonna call her Sano.
And listen, this name might not mean anything to you right now,
but it meant something to everyone at the hospital because Fusaka Sano was a very
well-known missing persons case in the area.
a very well-known missing persons case in the area.
She vanished when she was nine years old and she had been missing for the past nine years.
And like, okay, I just like to put things in perspective. Nine years is a really long time. Nine years is three years longer than World War II.
Nine years is actually the first walk around the entire Earth. Took someone four years.
So nine years, you could technically walk around the Earth, the whole planet, two full times,
and have some time left over to sightsee.
Nine years was half of Sano's life.
She had been missing for half of her life, and it wasn't an easy nine years.
I mean, it was a torturous nine years.
Throughout her captivity, Sano was forced to tase herself with a stun gun, like a taser, over and over and over again. And eventually she started willingly doing it
to herself. You're like, why? Does she have Stockholm syndrome? Well let's backtrack
a bit first. To who the hell this Nate guy is, because we hate Nate. Which by
the way, the warning signs were there. Nate was a problem child. This was not a
situation where everyone's like, our good neighbor Nate? We would have never guessed. He's so
nice. No, everybody kind of hated Nate. Nate's dad, let's call him James because
I couldn't find his name online, but James is an interesting person. He got
married, had five kids, and when James was 60 his wife passed away. Now I guess
James decided that there was still some fuel
in his good old crusty tank,
so he puts himself back in the market.
He's trying to date again.
And listen, I don't know if it's the raising gas prices,
but it worked out.
James manages to marry a beautiful 30-year-old woman,
half his age, and the two go on to have a kid, Nate.
Now, the family dynamic was interesting.
James the dad is the breadwinner. He
makes good money, he likes the finer things in life, he purchased this big old western style house
with a huge second floor. That's super fancy back then. So he built this beautiful nursery,
you know he had a child, Nate. It's ironic because this room, this nursery that Nate used as a child
would later be hell on earth for another kid.
Decades later.
So with this lavish house and nursery, Nate did not have a good relationship with his parents at all.
I don't know if it was the fact that James was old, so James was like,
I've already been there, done that with all my other kids.
Am I really trying to do it again with this new one?
I don't know if he was just tired.
I don't know, right?
But he just
Listen James and his mom were the type that
They would throw him into the nursery and say oh look over there at your shiny new toy
Hurry close that door so he doesn't see and then the kid would walk to the shiny new toy and then look behind and his parents Are gone because they don't want to spend time with you
Like that's kind of the life that he was living and also both of his parents seem to be struggling with some sort of
undisclosed, unaddressed mental health issue and eventually Nate starts
exhibiting his own symptoms. now it's reported that he had some sort of
germophobia or OCD. I don't know. the germophobia diagnosis gets a little weird
later. neighbors also reported that Nate would obsessively wash his car non-stop
all day long.
Like it didn't even matter if it was dirty. He would just wake up in the morning and wash it all day.
Next day, wake up, wash it all day.
It was so bad that it caused him to drop out of school.
He was getting bullied. He was so stressed all the time.
He would come home and throw the world's biggest tantrum if his dad came home in slightly dirty clothes or slightly dirty hands.
Which honestly, the parents did try to help Nate.
Good for the parents. I think a lot of parents, especially in eastern cultures,
would never have taken him to like a psychiatrist, especially during this time.
But his parents did. It was actually the hospitals that were at fault.
The hospitals sat down the parents and were like,
I don't get it. What seems to be the problem here?
They're like, he's freaking out because if someone around him hasn't washed their hands, like,
he'll have a psychotic breakdown for the rest of the day.
And the hospital is like,
but is that the worst thing in the world?
He's just a clean kid!
Shit!
I wish my kid had germaphobia, am I right, doctors? Am I right?
So the hospitals pretty much just ignored the family.
Like, no matter how many times the family brought Nate,
they'd just be like, what's the big deal?
He's a clean kid and they would just release him.
I mean, yeah, the warning signs were all there.
So he drops out of high school and he decides he needs a job, right?
He starts working at a factory, which I mean, that's super messy work.
But that wasn't even the thing that he had a problem with.
One day while he's at work, he's walking.
And you know sometimes when you're walking
and you run into like what feels like a hair,
but you know it's not a hair.
It's not like full on web in your face.
It's not like in Charlotte's web right there,
but you know it's like, yeah, like one of the webs, right?
And you walk into it and it's like that cotton candy
hair feeling and you just get so agitated
because you can't see it, you can't like pull it out right well that happened to him and he ran all
the way home scrubbed himself clean until his skin was raw and he never went
back to work he was so traumatized so you're like well how does he make money
then well he just essentially was like I'm gonna move out yeah he's making no
money he can't take care of himself but he's like I'm gonna move out and his parents are looking at him like he's crazy like you can gonna move out. Yeah, he was making no money, he can't take care of himself, but he's like, I'm gonna move out.
And his parents are looking at him like he's crazy,
like you can't move out,
you can't even take care of yourself.
No, we're not gonna allow it.
So what does Nate do?
He takes it all in, and he's like, okay, if you say so.
And then he tries to set the house on fire.
I don't know why he would think that suddenly
an arsonist is fit to live alone,
it just doesn't make sense,
but he tried to light the house on fire. Thankfully. He was unsuccessful and nobody was hurt
But he was diagnosed with severe OCD and severe anxiety disorders. Basically this guy was bubbling with anxiety
He spent months in a mental health facility, which is like the most help he's ever gotten in his entire life
But nothing happened when he got out. It was just he was waiting for another mental breakdown.
He spent all of his time upstairs watching horse races and obsessing over idols,
and he convinced his parents to remodel the upstairs second floor
to make it into his own apartment with his own entrance.
So yeah, there would still be that staircase connecting the first and second floors,
but he made his parents promise that they would never come back upstairs unless he invited them.
So technically he's making it seem like it's his own apartment. And of course the parents are trying to compromise, so they're like, okay, that sounds good.
When construction started, it caused such a mess because that's kind of how construction is. There was dirt,
there was like pieces of wall everywhere, and he was so stressed by this that he called off the renovations.
So half of the upstairs was just bare, wooden sticks
inside the wall, the drywall wasn't even there.
Now, eventually, Nate's old dad ends up passing away,
and now it's just Nate and his mom in the house,
and Nate's mom literally never went upstairs.
Not even a fingerprint of hers could have been found upstairs.
And neighbors reported seeing Nate's mom with bruises everywhere
Black eyes and they would even see Nate going around punching through the windows and breaking down doors in the house
Which yeah, that's alarming, but I don't know if that's more alarming or less alarming that nobody called the police
Like nobody did
He was just blatantly doing this. so imagine how scary he was behind closed doors.
I mean, what?
And one of the things that none of the neighbors suspected was that Nate had big plans.
He wanted to kidnap a little girl.
Nate starts stalking the local schools for the past, I don't know, maybe like a couple years.
And he's like working up the courage to find the perfect victim.
He thought that they would be around nine years old, and he could just snatch them from like the school parking lot. So one
day he sees a group of four nine-year-olds walking around the school
parking lot and one of them had separated from the group. So he just
pounces on her and he tries to drag her into the car but thankfully one of her
friends starts screaming and it's like hey put her down and he puts her down
freaks out drives away in the car. Now. This is like an elementary school parking lot. I mean
They're gonna call the police and the police are gonna find out who Nate is and they do now
This is the confusing part the police arrest Nate and they say we looked up your records
This is actually your first time trying to kidnap a nine-year-old
So what that tells us the police officers is that you're probably never gonna do it again.
I don't even understand the logic there.
You're saying that he tried once and failed,
and you're gonna give him practically no consequences,
and then you still think that he's not gonna try again?
Yeah, how do you even know that's his first time?
Exactly, first time getting caught.
Exactly.
So it's crazy, he's almost treated better
than someone who's never done it before.
And you and I both know that the mother forker is going to try again, and he does.
So 27 year old Nate starts prowling the outskirts of a town in his car,
and he realizes that his mistake the first time was that he went to a school zone.
Which of course there's going to be a lot of people, a lot of witnesses.
This time he's prowling the quiet farm roads to see if any young girl was walking home.
He lives in a really small town in Japan,
so a lot of girls would be walking home.
Now, he sees this little nine-year-old, Sano,
walking alone.
He pulls up behind her and sticks a six-inch knife up to her
and starts threatening her.
And he tells her, be good and don't say a word.
Sano is so scared to scream, so she didn't say anything.
Nate opens up his trunk, throws her in there,
and just starts doing circles.
He starts driving for like hours in circles
to throw her off, right?
Because they lived in the same town,
and she's confused, lost in complete pitch blackness,
and when you're nine, a car ride like that in the trunk,
it's gonna feel like centuries.
You're gonna feel like you're on the other side of the world at this point. And in the middle of the car ride like that in the trunk, it's gonna feel like centuries. You're gonna feel like you're on the other side of the world at this point. And in the
middle of the car ride, Nate would park the car and tie Sando up and blindfold
her. So when he got to the house, he would sneak her up to the second floor and he
told her, you don't want to end up killed like all those other kidnapped girls do
you? You are never gonna leave this room. You're gonna live here forever and if
you break that promise and if you try to do something
to change it, I'm not gonna need you anymore. I have no problem burying you in
the mountains or sending you floating away in the ocean, so you better just stay
quiet." And this was the beginning of nearly a decade of captivity. Obviously
Sana's family realizes that she's missing and that night this huge search party of like 200-something police officers, volunteers, they had helicopters, they searched vacant homes, shipping containers, they put up close to 20,000 missing posters, but there was no sign of Sana. part. You're thinking, okay well Nate was on the police record less than a year ago
for trying to kidnap an essentially 9 year old girl, so surely the cops are
gonna interview him right? With the other offenders. No. The cops were like, well
he's probably doing a really good job in life now because you know he got caught
last year so why would he do it again this year? I mean that doesn't make sense.
He's probably still shaken up from being caught that he's a good law-abiding Because you know he got caught last year, so why would he do it again this year? I mean that doesn't make sense
He's probably still shaken up from being caught that he's a good law-abiding citizen. He probably doesn't even want to kidnap little girls anymore
Instead the police put all their resources in trying to find a Sano and started investigating a potential North Korean rogue operation
They were like North Korea took her yeah, cuz the pile down the street is an absurd suspect, but North Korea
That's a good one. That's like a I think that's the one so for the next nine years and two months
Sano is held captive most of the time her legs and arms were tied up
24-7 which is literal hell like the CIA doesn't even do this in their stress positions
So do you know the CIA stress positions? We've talked about it before briefly, but essentially they put you in this box
where you can't sit, you can't lay down, you can't crouch, and you can't stand up.
So you're putting stress on all of your muscles for hours at a time,
and imagine the cramps, imagine the misery.
Like the CIA loves a good stress position,
but this is worse because she couldn't even move a single muscle. making it a crime-ity. Each week, Investigators Slater brings us a wild and thoroughly researched true crime case. I'm here to digest it all and react just like you probably are right there on
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Nate would make superficial stab wounds on Sano dozens of times to scare her like, hey, this is going to be worse if you ever try to escape or if you even scream.
Nate would beat her relentlessly, most of the time for no reason at all. She had no idea why
she was being beat. Nate's favorite thing to do was beat Sano near her eyes
so that her eyes would swell up
and she wouldn't even be able to open them.
And he would always say, this is two birds, one stone.
I beat you up and now you can't run away
because you can't see.
Now the part where I question Nate's germophobia
is because it's said that Sano showered maybe once
during her entire nine years of captivity.
They also peed and pooped in plastic bags and they would just leave the poop bags in
the hallway of his makeshift second floor apartment, which listen I don't
know how often he cleaned them but I just can't imagine the smell. I genuinely
can't imagine a germaphobe doing that. Now the other torture, at first Nate fed
Sano really well three times a day. It was like a mix of instant foods, breads,
sugars, but then he saw this bruise on her leg,
which I mean, he had beaten her a ton,
so I don't see why he was so damn shocked over a bruise
because you just beat her like yesterday.
There's gonna be bruises.
But he accused her of having diabetes.
Like that bruise is from diabetes.
So he starts restricting her food intake
in a way to help her diabetes. He cut out all carbs and sugars
Sano is 9. She's supposed to be growing but she was a dangerous 84 pounds pretty much until she was 19 years old
Coupled with the fact that 99% of the next nine years in captivity Sano is chained in the dark with no exercise onto the bed
Her muscles started atrophying. She could barely walk. Her leg muscles were so weak. At this point,
Sano couldn't even escape if she wanted to. She physically could not. And that's just the physical aspect.
Nate would mentally abuse her heavily.
He had this game where he bought a stun gun, like one of those tasers, and he would taser over and over again while
she bit down on a towel.
And this is the weird part. This is the weird part, right? and he would tase her over and over again while she bit down on a towel.
And this is the weird part, this is the weird part, right?
So he would say, I'm going to stop when you stop screaming.
So of course in the beginning, as he's tasing her, she's screaming, right?
So he's saying, I'm going to stop when you stop screaming.
So she practiced and clenched every muscle in her body to stop the scream.
But then as he progressed with this, the
more she could do that on the first tase. But if she didn't scream at all, he
would do it until she screamed. So he would tase her until she screamed and was
like, okay now I'm gonna stop when you stop screaming. So there was really no
winning with this. And because there was no winning, Sano is so desperate of all
the pain that she asked to tase herself under Nate's supervision because she
thought that if she got comfortable enough, she could desensitize herself to the pain.
Which is just so freaking heartbreaking and infuriating.
And you're like, okay, well now with all this screaming, there's no way that Nate's mom has no idea that he's just holding a woman captive,
like what do you mean she's just downstairs watching QVC? I don't think so.
It's hard to say if his mom knew.
I'm gonna gear towards the fact that she probably knew,
but this guy is also beating his mom.
And yeah, tasing his mom at one point.
So she is a victim as well.
To be fair, I do feel for his mom.
She did try to get her help for her son.
She is also battling mental illness herself.
But at this point, she still should have done something.
Yeah.
Like, like the fact that she called someone, right?
To take him away.
Yeah.
But that was nine years later.
And she could have done that the first day.
Exactly.
And nine years later, but I, yeah, nobody is disagreeing that he doesn't
need mental health evaluation, but you should have called the cops first.
Like if my son had someone held captive, I wouldn't be calling the mental hospital,
I would be calling for an arrest warrant. To me, it doesn't make sense, right? I don't know how
this mom lived with it. And in order for Sano to survive in captivity, she developed a strong
disassociative disorder. She was just super disconnected to everything. Her mental development
did not pass the age of nine, the day that she was kidnapped.
The whole time she was bored and understimulated.
This is very different from a lot of the other cases that we cover where
a lot of people will be, a lot of victims will be held captive.
And within a year or so, maybe a couple of months,
they'll get a book or a newspaper or a radio, right?
Sano, for eight-something years of her captivity,
never was allowed to read
newspapers or listen to the radio. So she was left incredibly under stimulated and
bored. And I heard from a lot of victims like if you read their books and their
testimonies they always say that boredom is worse than the torture sometimes. And
it's all made even more heartbreaking when you realize that when Nate was
caught Sano begged to stay in his house
because she was there for nine years and she
She didn't even know what to do. Like this was what she thought life was
So she's like scared to even yeah, like I'm gonna go out there and then what?
Nate would later say that Sano was just his friend not his victim
He said I thought that I would want to keep her forever,
because we would talk about horses and races and cars, and I genuinely did like her.
I felt like she was actually a girl my age.
She was irreplaceable to me, so I was never going to let her go.
Side note, this is not a defense for Nate, but he did not sexually assault Sano.
He literally kept her there as a hostage and tortured her physically and mentally and emotionally. So this is where it's weird. What?
Yes, I've never heard of a case like this because let's say Nate really wanted a friend, right?
This is really sick and twisted. But let's say he wanted a friend
I don't think that he would torture her physically torture physically is almost like a power thing and is a power thing
Mm-hmm. So I know it's weird to me, like... Yeah, that's really...
Yeah!
But it's not like he was torturing her as like
I need to do this so you don't run away
but I don't really want to do this.
He was getting off on the torture.
Like tasing her.
That is so weird. Never heard that before.
Some people suspect that he had
something for watching people
kind of decline.
I don't know if that's true. That's like what I've a theory that I've seen on the internet.
It's like watching someone become more pale and more atrophied and I don't know.
Because people are confused by this. Like what do you mean? Like what is what is he really getting out of this?
So Nate gets caught and he's arrested and charged with kidnapping.
Now the maximum sentence is 10 years.
Literally an eye for an eye, which is just so sick considering how
long he kept Sano captive.
I don't really believe in this because you made the choice to kidnap Sano.
So an eye for an eye doesn't even make sense.
I don't like when people argue an eye for an eye because if you made the choice to do something bad to me, it should be worse than an eye for an eye for you.
So it's only 10 years for his case? Yeah, maximum would be 10 years. For kidnapping?
Yeah, and holding her hostage for nine years. Nine and a half years. What? What if someone kidnapped someone for 20 years?
Oh, yes, just 10 years. It's not even an eye for an eye. It's like an eye for a punch in the face.
So the prosecutors, they tried to add on any more charges
they could justify to increase his prison sentence.
And in the end, it didn't work.
Nate was sentenced to a maximum of 11 years.
But this caused so much outrage online, even in prison.
I mean, people were upset.
This guy is going to have a better time in prison than Sano.
Sano was kept captive for nine years.
She didn't ask for this.
He essentially asked for this when he decided to break the law.
Yeah.
And she was a kid.
Yeah.
None of this made sense.
Now there was so much outrage that the penalty for confinement for, um,
kidnapping was increased from 10 to 15 years.
Which is nothing, but it was too late for freaking Nate because he was released in 2015 at just 52 years old.
He's dead now. He moved into like a government housing, he was on welfare, so that's great, still getting support from the government.
And within two years, he ended up passing away. His cause of death is undetermined, but he was just found dead in his apartment.
Meanwhile, Sano tries to live a normal life, and she's trying to put on weight.
She has to learn to walk again.
She has severe PTSD.
She has social anxiety.
The only people that she felt comfortable with in her entire life after this point were her family.
And one day, on a beach trip with her dad,
he ends up drowning in front of her eyes
and she was unable to rescue him.
So she watched her dad die in front of her face.
And it was just this other added layer of trauma.
And here is the infuriating part.
There was a lot of online discourse
that included a conversation of,
well, what if Sana wanted it? What? Who said this? Yeah, they were saying that Nate had mentioned
it in interviews that he had sometimes left the front door of his house unlocked. So does that
mean that she could have just walked out, but she didn't? Coupled with the fact that she asked if
she could stay, what if she wanted it? To which that I say, first of all, she couldn't coupled with the fact that she asked if she could stay What if she wanted it to which that I say first of all she couldn't even walk because her leg muscles were atrophied and second
Of all how would she freaking know that the front door was unlocked and third of all how does she like like how have any?
One of these people been kidnapped for nine days
Yes
This is the know energy of well I would never be kidnapped because I would karate chop black belt shoot my potential kidnapper
It's like what people say I would never be in that shoot in that position
Yeah, you don't know until you know, listen
We all want to pretend to be like we're so brave and stuff and like sometimes I say that too
But like let's be real that happens to everyone and like when you are in a stressful situation freezer
freezer flight flight or flight like you are you kidding?
So like yeah, put your eyeballs on the table before you talk about Sano like that. What are you even saying?
But this was discourse online like she didn't want to leave so that must mean that she wanted it and this was in 2015
This wasn't even like the 1900s this wasn't
even like in the 80s where you're like oh well we've evolved 2015 I want to
talk to you guys about today's case because it's so freaking mind-boggling
that this even happened that this took place that this is a crime that someone
committed so this is the most what the Forelock Plot twists kidnapping case that we've covered in a while,
and yes again, nobody fakes their own kidnapping.
It's not bizarre in that sense. It's even more bizarre and unexpected.
Let's talk about Julian Bushwald and Carolyn Watson from Australia.
I'm not gonna lie to you, their relationship was questionable from the get-go.
So Julian was 25 years old, Caroline was 17 years old, and they had been dating for two years?
Yeah, so that means she would have been 15 and he was 23 years old.
Yeah, so side note, very questionable on Julian's part.
Uh, Caroline did nothing wrong, I'm just saying, okay?
Now, it's not clear where they met. Some sources say that they met at church, which would kind of make sense. it seemed like the two of them spent a lot of time at church. they were devout christians.
they took their faith super seriously to the point where they had been dating for two years,
never even kissed each other. they had never done anything more than just hold hands, which is saying
a lot because you know when you're 17 and 25 that's you know you get it both of them just wanted to save everything until they got married
even their first kiss definitely their first time and it was fine because you
know they were planning on getting married very very soon the minute that
Carolyn turned 18 and she graduated high school they were going to get married so
until then all they had to do is keep it in their pants you know keep busy keep
busy studying praise the Lord,
go on dates, and that's it.
No, really, that's like all they could do
because they both came from a super small rural town
where literally nothing happened.
Like nothing was going on,
there was not much to do in the area,
there was no crazy dates for them to go on.
So they would just spend most of their time in nature,
hiking, picnics, driving around in Julian's car. So March
4th was gonna be one of those uneventful dates, right? Julian comes, picks up
Caroline, and his plan is to take her to a part of his family's really big
property, and they were gonna picnic next to this waterfall and just enjoy each
other's presence. I mean it sounds like a really cute date. They live in Australia
by the way, so it's gonna be really picturesque, but the thing about Australia that when nighttime comes it doesn't matter how nice it was during the day once nighttime comes
freezing cold
Freezing cold there's so many animals. There's so much wildlife
It's just scary like a kangaroo could pop out of nowhere punch you in the face. You could get bitten by a venomous spider
I'm not even exaggerating. It's crazy. The kangaroos are jacked up chads so you have to be
careful so they were smart they're like we're not gonna even wait till nightfall
we're gonna come home by 3 p.m. that's what Carolyn told her parents so they
start driving and on the way to the waterfall Julian spots some roadkill on
the side of the road it's not even on the road it's like in the woods on the
side he's like oh it's my even on the road, it's like in the woods on the side.
He's like, oh, it's my lucky day. Okay, so this part is interesting, but Julian really likes roadkill.
He would stop driving anytime he saw roadkill or a dead animal on the side of the road, and he would just start investigating.
Which I think is interesting. I'm assuming that there was a really good reason for it.
Okay, so he's not trying to bring home and eat it no have you guys seen that show like roadkill yeah they make food out of roadkill so he's just
investigating he completely stops the car middle of nowhere road and he goes
to study the jigsaw puzzle remains of whatever animal was on the side and
Carolyn didn't think it was strange he did this a lot she didn't really care
for the roadkill so she just stayed in the passenger seat and she could actually
she couldn't actually see the animal the The animal was like in the woods.
It was off near the trees. So she's keeping herself entertained in the car, and just to
draw you a picture of it, from where Carolyn was sitting in the car, she could not see Julian anymore.
But that's not really a big deal, right? Because they're in rural Australia, countryside,
she knew it was safe, Nobody was going to be here.
Or was it? Julian said while he was bent over studying the roadkill, he heard like the crunching of leaves behind him, like the crumpling, and it was footsteps, but it was heavy footsteps. It
definitely wasn't Carolyn. It was very, it sounded like a larger person, like a man, someone with a
bigger stature, a figure. Someone was loudly stomping up
and it was getting closer and closer and louder to him and he went to turn around
to see who was walking up behind him and before he knew it he got bonked on the
side of the head and knocked out cold. He couldn't even register what the hell was
going on so he couldn't even scream for Carolyn to run nothing. So Carolyn is
blissfully unaware in the car. It's not like Julian screamed, alerted her, nothing.
She's in the car and she looks up and sees a man dressed in all black with a
balaclava over his head and she's like, oh my god, I don't know who this man is.
But something is definitely wrong. This is not normal and he's looking straight
at her. She can see from the holes where his eyes are cut out.
So a balaclava is just holes in the eyes and everything else is like a ski mask.
He's headed straight to her like power walking to the car.
She opens the passenger side door and she tries to run out before he gets to her, but he's so fast.
He drags her out of the car, shoves her face down onto the ground, hog ties her.
So you know what that is?
It's like when you're on your stomach and your arms and your legs are tied behind your
back but together.
And he duct tapes her mouth shut and stuffs her in the trunk of Julian's car.
She's desperately trying to listen to what the hell is going on.
Her heart probably sank when she heard the door to the car slam shut and the engine starts
revving. So now the kidnapper is driving off with her in the trunk. they were
leaving Julian. she doesn't even know where he is. they were in the car for a
really really long time before they finally stopped and Carolyn felt like
you know she knew her fate. whoever this was was going to R word her and then
unalive her and leave her for dead in the Australian countryside.
If not, she would freeze, starve to death, be attacked by wild animals, bitten by
venomous insects. Honestly, what's worse? Like it's hard to say. Either way, she
felt like she was gonna be R-worded and unalived. The car stopped and the
kidnapper drags her out of the trunk, throws her onto the ground, and she
closes her eyes while he starts approaching her with this shiny knife
But instead of killing her like she thought he was going to he cut off all her clothes
He pulled the duct tape off her mouth. So now she's naked and still hogtied and she's confused
You know, is she gonna get assaulted?
She didn't really know but he vanished for a second and he comes back with a shovel and right next to her
He starts digging a grave
And can you imagine like the emotions that you're feeling when you're experiencing someone dig you're on the ground
You see them digging right next to you, and you know, it's your grave like it's big enough to be a grave
She's thinking am I gonna be buried alive here? Like am I gonna be r-worded and then buried alive?
I mean either way it was not looking good since the duct tape is off her mouth, she's begging him.
You know, please let me go.
I'm not gonna tell anybody, please.
Like I have family that love me.
Like I promise I won't.
She's begging, begging.
She's saying she'll do anything.
She's trying to appeal to his humanity, nothing.
He won't even respond to her.
He was just grunting away, digging the grave.
Caroline felt like all she could do now was pray.
So she prayed and prayed and prayed.
She prayed that her faith would save her from whatever this man had planned for her.
And then her prayers came true.
Literally, it was like an act of God.
The man stopped digging and just disappeared into the bushland.
I mean, she was so relieved momentarily, but she realized, I mean, she was still left helpless,
hog-tied, naked, and it was going to be nighttime soon
where the temperatures were gonna be dropping below freezing.
The situation was only going to get worse when the sun set,
plus she had no idea if the kidnapper was gonna come back
and if he was even gonna come back alone,
what if he had come back with other people?
What if he had bigger plans?
So she's freaking out, but all she could do was literally lie there like bait and wait.
And eventually she heard a voice and she recognized the voice. It's a boyfriend? Julian. What? He's
like Caroline! And she hears him calling her name and it's getting closer and closer and he emerges from the trees
Completely naked tied up. He's not hog-tied, but his legs and his arms are tied together. So he's like hopping
He's hopping around and he looks like he's been through it
Okay
He looks like he's seen some and the two they hop towards each other and they come up with a plan
The knife that the kidnapper had used to take off all of Carolyn's clothes was left behind so they were going to use it
to free each other and then get out of there before the kidnapper comes back
because I mean it felt like he was gonna come back. Why else would he go through
all this trouble to leave them naked and tied up like he didn't get anything out
of it yet so he's gonna come back. So they free each other and they start to
make their way through the woods. Julian manages to find some supplies around
where the kidnapper had left the car.
So they had a sleeping bag in the car, a few things to eat, some extra clothes, and that was about it.
Like they were still hours away from home. Even if they drove, like think about it, like they were
semi-naked, they have to walk because the keys are not in the car, they're sore.
It was gonna be a long time till they get home, if they make it home that is.
Meanwhile, at home, Julian's mom is
getting worried about where the hell he is. Julian is not the type to come home late, especially
without calling, so she starts pacing the room. She has no way to contact him. He's not picking
up the phone. Carolyn's not picking up the phone, so she starts walking around her property, hoping
that she would see Julian's car coming in the distance somewhere. But all she found was a little bottle. Like one of those messages in a bottle,
like those glass bottles, you know what I'm talking about?
It was like wish bottles. Yeah, it was really weird. Like it looked
like it had been stuffed through their fence for them to find and like a piece of paper
was stuffed into the bottle like a message in a bottle. And she's like, okay, this is
really weird because nobody litters around here. I mean, like I told you, they live in rural Australia. Nobody comes onto their property this deep.
So she carefully gets the bottle, takes the letter out, and she was even more worried and confused
when she read the letter. It said, you bloody can't leave us alone. So now your son and girl have
gone walkabouts. Meaning like they're gone. You'll get Julie and Carolyn back
after we finished our business in the area,
but only if you behave yourselves.
And don't shit us around again.
Tell everyone that you're on holiday.
Don't you dare talk to the cops again.
And you'll get your kids back.
Shit us again and you'll never see your kids
because we will fuck the girl to death
and your son will really enjoy the torture
and the sacrifice to our God to pay him back
180 times the hurt he did to us when we pick them up.
This is your last warning.
Do what we say and you'll get your kids back alive.
What?
Does she know what they're talking about?
No like what do you even mean call the cops again on us?
Like it was so weird.
She's like what?
I've never called the cops.
So Julian's mom freaks out, calls the cops, and the letter was covered in satanic symbols and pentagrams but one part of the letter
stood out. Don't call the cops again? Again? The cops are like you never called
us, right? Who even wrote this letter?
And then the cops were told and they were reminded that Carolyn's parents had called the police a couple months ago. They had gotten a letter literally like a
month ago and it was left on their porch overnight. The piece of paper again was
covered in pentagrams and satanic symbols and it read, mind your own bloody
business and stay away or I will make your life
a misery and destroy you and your family. Christians are our enemies.
So Caroline's dad went to the police, but everybody just brushed it off, telling
her dad that it was all a harmless prank by kids who
thought they were edgy, you know? Now the cops are like, okay, we gotta take
this seriously. They launch a massive search and start
the investigation right away.
They start searching Julian's whole property, the surrounding bushland, and where the waterfall
where they were supposed to go on the picnic, but they found nothing.
They searched on foot and air.
I mean, to be fair, it's not like they found nothing in the sense like they searched everywhere
and they found nothing, but the terrain was really rough, so it's hard for them to make
progress.
So maybe it was smarter for them to try and figure out who the kidnappers were so that they could be more efficient with their search.
Now the police studied the symbols on the letters and some of them actually pointed to a group, a supposed cult,
called the Order of the Nine Points. They're not really Satanists. They're just like Nazis.
I'm not kidding, okay? Like all their important dates and how they celebrate is all centered around Hitler's birthday, like the date that he
was born, so I'm like literally saying they're Nazis, like I'm not saying it as
like, oh my god they're Nazis, no they're like really Nazis. They claim to like
human sacrifices, they're super conservative, right-wing, really extreme,
just straight terrorists, honestly? And they were founded and primarily operate
in the UK, so Australian authorities were confused because of course they had heard of them
But to their knowledge, there's no members in Australia
But maybe this is their big Australian debut because Colts like to make an entrance
This is how they were gonna tell the country that they were here to stay
They had opened up a membership here by kidnapping an innocent Christian young couple from a rural town
That sounds like something a Satanist cult would do, right?
Right? According to the general public?
Or maybe it was a different group of kidnappers that were just pretending to be a Satanic cult
so that they could throw the attention elsewhere and get away with it?
Listen, the police had a lot of ideas, but they had no solid leads.
If it wasn't the cult, if it was someone random, like they needed to know more.
They go to the couple's church. They start asking around.
See if the couple had any enemies, any problems.
And the pastor was relatively chill. He's talking to the police the whole time and he's like,
Listen, you know, satanic cult is a really good story. I get it.
It makes sense, but I don't think it is. I'm just gonna be honest with you.
I think they ran away together.
What? Why would you think that?
Well, just last week, I sat down with them and they talked to me about how badly they
wanted to get married, but they were disappointed that it wasn't legal until Carolyn was 18.
They were in a hurry to be married because, well, I think they were both waiting to have
sex till marriage, you know?
Their souls were waiting for marriage to do anything else even kiss and that's why I think they ran away
Hoping to get married somewhere somehow so
They could have sex
Okay, the pastor is honestly a bit wild. He really did say that so now the police are even more confused
But like come on, that's so bizarre
There's got to be more to the story if that that's the case, who left the satanic letters?
Were they just a coincidence?
So they were stumped. They truly had no leads till a week later,
the couple stumbled onto a stranger's farm.
They had made it out. It took them a full week.
And they were in bad shape. So it didn't look like they ran away.
Like both of them were badly sunburned on all of
their body they were malnourished dehydrated their whole bodies were covered in open sores and
blisters their feet were completely cut up i mean they were suffering the farmer thought that he saw
a horror movie show up on his farm like it was scary like what are these two doing he rushes them
to the hospital and the police were curious
What on earth happened?
Like we're ready to catch these satanic kidnappers
So they talked to Julian first and he tells him the whole story like he was bent over studying the roadkill
He got hit on the head and he doesn't remember much
He woke up in the the bushlands and he heard his girlfriend crying
So he hopped over to her and they spent the past week
and he heard his girlfriend crying so he hopped over to her and they spent the past week
fighting through the wilderness to get back home, to get back to safety.
They were just constantly worried honestly, like they kept looking over their shoulders that the kidnapper was gonna come back.
Meanwhile, Carolyn remembered a bit more since she was never knocked out. She told them about the grave digging and everything and she also told the police,
you know, there were some struggles for sure.
What do you mean?
Um, like once I reunited with Julian, we were kinda busy fighting off the venomous spiders
and the snakes and it was really cold, like really really cold at night, and he suggested
that we have sex to keep warm or else we would die and
God wouldn't mind if we were having sex before marriage because we were doing it
to stay alive right it's no longer a sin because it's life or death but I said no
and I just feel kind of conflicted about it but we did have some serious
conversations about how we should get married soon but I just feel kind of conflicted about it, but we did have some serious conversations about how we should get married soon
But I just really want to wait till I'm of age and after I graduate high school
Anyway, it was just like a really crazy trip like it was a crazy whole thing
The police are like what so the investigators they hit the ground running
I mean, they're still looking for these kidnappers the couple mentioned of a few spots on a map and they found the leftover tools
The knife the shovel other supplies that the kidnapper had left map and they found the leftover tools. The knife, the shovel, other supplies
that the kidnapper had left behind.
And they thought maybe, okay, this is all gonna point back
to some sort of cult or something.
But in the end, can you guess who it pointed back to?
To Julian.
It sounded like he pretended to be this masked man, right?
Yes.
But she didn't recognize him at all?
He never spoke.
Oh, that's why he didn't talk.
Yes, remember he was just grunting and moaning.
And the police were just sitting down thinking like, you don't think it's weird, Julian,
that everything that the kidnapper used were things in your car?
Like the shovel was already in your car.
The knife was already in your car.
Like they're yours.
So you're telling me that these kidnappers found you guys in rural Australia where there's
nobody, no victims to hunt for, and they were so ill-prepared that they did not even bring
their own knife?
They just hoped that you had a shovel and a knife in your possession?
And what did they get out of kidnapping you?
Like it just doesn't make sense.
They didn't rob you, they didn't assault you. They didn't send you a message.
They just tied you up.
They spent all their energy digging a grave with your shovel and then left.
I mean, let's talk about it.
It's weird.
And the wound on the side of your head, the doctor said is not severe enough for
you to have knocked out like you claimed you had.
So come on.
We won't get mad if you tell us the truth.
We know that you're lying.
Julian snapped and he starts confessing to the whole thing. He had stashed
shovels and knives in the woods. He lied about the roadkill. He was the one that
was masked. He was the one that tied up Caroline, you know, ripped off her clothes,
dug the grave, and then went and tied himself up, came out of the bushes to act
like he was also a victim. But do you want to know why? He wanted to do it.
Yeah, he wanted to have sex. So he knew that Carolyn would never like she is not the type
to fall under pressure like in the heat of the moment. Like she was steadfast in her faith.
So he created a situation where he thought she would have sex out of necessity,
which is to stay alive. They had to have sex in order to stay alive in the cold dark nights,
but Caroline refused. She stayed true to her beliefs. The guy kidnapped his own girlfriend,
traumatized her for over a week, like I don't know I guess he
wouldn't know but no amount of adult playtime like no amount of sex and from
being honest with you is enough to withstand first of all being a horrible
person and traumatizing your loved ones but also having blisters all over your
body being sunburned having your own feet completely torn up and potentially
being killed by a spider in the bushlands yeah like no amount of adult fun time is that fun he kidnapped his girlfriend to
try to lose their virginities that's not even love like he definitely doesn't
love his girlfriend but the weird dedication of it all makes it so bizarre
and a lot of people theorize that if Julian gets out like this is some really
weird sexually deviant behavior like this is not a normal person like I just wanted you to
lose my V card so the guy was charged with kidnapping and kidnapping with
intent to marry someone yeah that's a real charge so kidnapping with intent to
marry someone yeah doesn't that feel like our whole relationship yeah that's what he
was charged with and it wasn't just trauma that Caroline had.
She had been tied up for such a long time that she had severe damage done to her back,
neck, and arms, and Julian was found guilty on all charges.
He was released on bail, and before sentencing, he escaped Australia.
Of course.
Like, I'm not even kidding, he dyed his hair.
This is the questionable one.
I think he's so creative.
Crazy.
Yeah.
He comes up with these like creative solutions.
Yeah.
Let me just try it this way.
Yeah and it's all like so sick and twisted, but it is really out of this world creative.
Not in a good way.
Yeah like in a really bad way.
Like who the it's like one of those moments where you're like a criminal
Why do you spend so much time coming up with this like you could have just done the normal thing?
Yeah, and gotten similar results. Like why are you doing all of this?
Yeah, so he dyed his hair and this is the questionable phrase he and I don't know what this means
He darkened his skin. He bought a fake indian passport and he pretended to be an indian man
Did it work? He got to Singapore,
okay, then he was caught in Singapore, extradited back to Australia, and he was given seven years
and nine months for kidnapping Carolyn, with an extra six months for attempting to flee. Julian
and his lawyers complained about how his sentence was too harsh, when really it wasn't. The maximum
sentence the court could have given him was 25 years, but they gave him seven.
His appeals were thankfully dismissed
and he was sent to a prison where
he is now eligible for parole.
So technically, he could be released anytime soon.
I don't know.
Again, this case is so creepy because it's just,
it's such a bizarre, desperate reason to kidnap someone,
like someone that you allegedly love,
and the whole thing gives me nice guy killer vibes
Like he would rather traumatize his girlfriend for the rest of her life then wait a few months
To consensually get what you want to like yeah the length that someone is willing to go just to do it
Yeah, that is alarming. Yeah, and the fact that he made this whole phrasing where he was a nice guy
He went through the trauma with her
It's like this no like we're doing it to stay alive you and me. We're both like in this crazy situation
It's like that tick-tock. That's like, you know, the best way to bond with someone is to go through something traumatic
That's why they say on your first date. You should go to like a non-traumatic but to experience something scary together
That's why they say you should go on a rollerco your first date I don't know if this is true. I don't know about this one
No, but that's what I feel like he was thinking, you know, like oh, I'm on the same like trauma
So what is that tic-tac-tac saying that's saying like everybody should go do something crazy
I got a roller coaster the first date because the adrenaline the adrenaline together
Apparently bonds you if you guys both feel that adrenaline rush at the same time
Weird yeah, you get motion sickness, so I feel like for a first date you gagging over a trash can at the amusement park would not be
I
Don't know. I just I'm so confused for this like the fact that he risked going to jail
I can't even imagine how the horrible feeling of being in a relationship with someone like him would be. i just hope that carolyn is fine and she's recovering well and
i hope that she doesn't lose faith in relationships because there are actual nice people out there.
julian is just not one of them because what the fork. and that is it for today's case.