Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - DOORS, WINDOWS PADLOCKED, Woman HELD HOSTAGE 4 YEARS

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

A Texas woman calls police and says she has been locked inside a trailer for four years. The unidentified victim said all the exits to the home were blocked. There were burglar bars on the windows and padlocks on the doors. Police unsuccessfully tried to use bolt cutters, but ultimately, the fire department had to use power tools to get the woman out.  Abraham Bravo Segura, 42, is now charged with felony kidnapping.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Darryl Cohen- Former Assistant District Attorney (Fulton County, Georgia); Former Assistant State Attorney (Florida); Defense Attorney, Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC; Facebook: "Darryl B Cohen", Twitter: @DarrylBCohen Dr. Michelle Joy-Forensic, Clinical, and Academic Psychiatrist; Author: “An Illustrated History of the Insanity Defense;" Twitter:@Westphillymorbidart Kathy Griffin- Houston based Private Investigator and Owner of Kgriff Investigations Inc. (the largest female-owned investigative agency in the state of Texas) Dr. Harvey Castro- Board-certified Emergency Care Physician & Healthcare Consultant, CEO of ChatGPT and Healthcare; Author: “Revolutionize your health & fitness with ChatGPT's modern weight loss hacks;" Twitter: @HarveycastroMD  Alicia Kozakiewicz- Abducted as a teen via and internet site, now a motivational speaker and internet safety expert; founder at the Alicia Project; Twitter: @AliciaProject  Nicole Partin - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Twitter: @nicolepartin  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. A man now charged with holding a woman captive under key and padlock for four years. Was there no missing persons report? No neighbor realized what was going on? No family called to say, where is she? Holding a woman kidnapped under padlock and key with chains and burglar bars for four years? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation

and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to our friends at KTRK. She said all the exits to the trailer at 700 West Greens Road were blocked. There were burglar bars on the windows and three handguns found inside. And last night, after bolt cutters didn't work on the padlock, the fire department had to use power tools to cut through the bars to gain entry to get her out.

According to court records, she was able to use a phone to call for help while Segura was at work. She told deputies he held her at gunpoint and threatened to kill her. Multiple cameras are mounted on the home. Wow. let me take that apart for just a moment. All the exits were blocked. Burglar bars on the windows, three hand guns found inside, bolt cutters wouldn't work to dissemble the padlock, the fire department had to actually use power tools to cut through bars to gain entry to get her out. Wow. With me an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, but first I want to go out to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Nicole

Parton. Nicole, where did this happen? Nancy, this was in Harris County, Texas, a small suburb of Houston, out kind of out in the middle of nowhere a little bit in a mobile home in a trailer there. And there were neighbors that were close, but he didn't have any really direct next door neighbors like we do in some of the communities we live in today. This all took place in Texas, just a little bit south of Houston. You know, it's amazing to me that in a community, no one had any idea that anything was going on. But, you know, straight out to Daryl Cohen, former prosecutor, now veteran civil attorney in the Atlanta jurisdiction on Facebook, Darylanta jurisdiction on facebook daryl b cohen

daryl thanks for being with us how many times have we argued it to a jury as prosecutors there aren't any witness because everything happened behind closed doors this isn't the kind of crime that happens at the corner of main street and Broadway. There are no witnesses except the victim. You know, like a rape or a child molestation case. Well, we have to argue that because that's the truth. If this is the case that he did all of this, he's not going to do it openly and notoriously. He's going to do it behind locked doors, behind padlocks. And he's got to do it this way because if someone or someone's found out, here come

the police. Yep, here comes the popo. You know, I looked very carefully at the crime scene and many people would immediately ask, well, why did she yell out the window through the burglar bars? The windows are actually boarded up, Nicole Parton. If you look at the windows, there's plyboard across the windows. There's no way she could have yelled out. Right. I noticed that. The glass had been removed and the windows were boarded up. And then the burglar bars were placed. Also on the doors, there were multiple padlocks, not just the doorknob that was locked from the outside, but each exit to that mobile home was closed with multiple padlocks on the exterior. Which leads me to the theory that if at trial he could ever claim, if he would try to mount a defense that this was consensual, that she stay there, then why?

Why do you have all the padlocks? In fact, let me hear that from KTRK one more time. I want to hear about all the padlocks and the measures he had taken to keep this victim trapped inside for four years. She said all the exits to the trailer at 700 West Greens Road were blocked. There were burglar bars on the windows and three handguns found inside. And last night, after bolt cutters didn't work on the padlock, the fire department had to use power tools to cut through the bars to gain entry to get her out. According to court records, she was able to use a phone to call for help while Segura was at work. She told deputies he held her at gunpoint and threatened to kill her.

Multiple cameras are mounted on the home. Guys, it may be fantastical to imagine that a victim could be held against her will for four years without being able to escape, but it's not the first time. Let's go to our cut 13. We all remember the case of JC Dugard. Here she is speaking to our friend, Diane Sawyer. A gray car pulls up. A man rolls down the window and his hand shoots out and I just feel numb. My whole body is tingly. I don't know what it's from. She had been paralyzed by a stun gun. I lost control of my bladder. I wasn't even embarrassed. On the ground, the sharp edges of a pine cone are the last thing she touches before she comes to, face down, on the floor in the backseat of a car. The man behind the wheel is Philip Garrido, a convicted sex offender, supposedly monitored by parole

officers and doctors. Holding her down on the floor is his wife, Nancy. The district attorney believes Nancy scouted this little girl for her husband as a prize. Some monitoring because we find out he and his wife keep J.C. Diggard locked away for 18 years. Listen to cut 14. He takes away the pink clothes she dressed in that morning. The only thing she has left is a little ring shaped like a butterfly. She will hide from him for 18 years. Blanket over her head, he walks her through a small area of grass toward a fence where an opening is concealed by a tarp and hidden behind the fence a deranged collection of sheds and storage units which the people

monitoring garito would not search one of them tiny completely soundproof he leads her inside and takes out handcuffs said that they there were the fuzzy kind so they wouldn't hurt as bad. There was a pallet on the floor and then he said he'd be back later. This girl held over a decade even giving birth in that shed and this is a guy that was under federal monitoring. That's some monitoring when they can't find a kidnapped victim in the backyard, handcuffed in a shed, for Pete's sake. Listen to more. I tried not to cry because I couldn't wipe them away or, you know, and then they get itchy. At one point, she made a note to remember the sound of the train so it would help her mom find her. I was so lonely. I felt so alone. Have you seen J.C. Lee Dugard? And 120 miles away, the mother who loves her and will never give up goes on television

to make her first plea. She's a pretty, young, innocent child. Friends have been searching all day and evening. Police started searching the neighborhood. Police set up a roadblock and go door to door. Her classmates are out in the streets holding up signs. And in the case we're covering right now, I know it's hard for a lot of people to take in that she could have been held for four years, but that is in fact the claim. And when you hear the way that that home was barricaded, I mean, common sense tells you that there was no way she could have escaped. And if she was there consensually, then why all the barricades? Joining me right now is Dr. Michelle Joy, forensic, clinical and academic psychiatrist, author of an illustrated history of the insanity defense.

Dr. Joy, thank you for being with us. What is the power trip someone must be on to hold a human captive for years on end? I mean, that's exactly it, right? It's a power trip, and you see that literally manifested through all of those things that we're talking about, those padlocks, those barriers. I mean, this is all about controlling every single moment. So when we think about someone not being able to escape, that's because there's control of every single thing these women, these girls do for every single moment of those years and decades. We're just thinking about this victim. We will not release her name. She has not made it public yet. Being kept away for four years. But what about that neighborhood?

Take a listen to our Cut 8. This is Sherman Chow, K-H-O-U. It's a quiet neighborhood of mobile homes on the north side. But Wednesday night, Harris County Sheriff's deputies and the fire department converged on this home. All exits to the trailer were locked. There were burglar bars on the window. Three handguns were located. A woman inside called saying Abraham Bravo Segura. The defendant had kept the complainant locked inside a trailer for approximately four years. You know, that's another issue. Let me go out to Kathy Griffin joining us. Houston-based private investigator,

owner of K. Griff Investigations, the largest female-owned investigative agency in the state of Texas. That's saying a lot, Kathy. Thanks for being with us. Kathy, it's interesting to me that the neighbors never thought anything was wrong with all those padlocks on the doors of the burglar bars, the windows boarded up. They never suspected anything.

Do people just not want to see what's right in front of them? Well, Nancy, you're right. And this is a mobile home park that people tend to keep to themselves. But I think in this situation, there's more questions than answers. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Why do you say that about a mobile home park? Well, because there's space out usually. And so there's not, you don't have right next door neighbors. You have them far away. And people just kind of keep to themselves. And sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. And you just have a tendency to mind your own business more. Okay, Kathy, for the first time ever, I completely disagree with you.

I don't think that people in mobile home parks are different from people in any other neighborhood. I don't think that they want to fraternize any more or less with their neighbors than any other area. Okay. I think that people in general, you're in your own life. Well, unless you're Gladys Kravitz. Right. You're in your own life and you're not looking around, for the most part part at people around you and what they're doing.

But one thing about a mobile home park is that may be different is there's not always a tree line or big bushes or shrubs between homes. So you could actually see the home next to you probably a lot better than let's, a rural area where there's big, huge spaces, acres between homes, or in a suburb where people plant trees around their home. They should have been able to see it even better. Kathy? I agree. I agree. I just think there's more questions than answers in this situation. uh again why did she find a phone suddenly after four years and if there were guns in the house why didn't she grab the gun if she knew where they were or didn't and you know what what did the inside of the trailer look like so

it's the victim's fault no i don't think it's the victim's fault i just think you know you have people friends friends and neighbors saying that she was outside, that they went on dates. I think things are going to come out that they were in a relationship on and off. No, this is not a good relationship, obviously. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, let's analyze what we're hearing right here. With me, a very special guest. And Kathy, please let me enjoy the one moment that I ever disagree with you, okay? Alicia Kozikevich is with me.

Alicia was abducted, kidnapped as a teen girl. And when she tells the story, it always gives me a chill down my spine. Alicia is now a safety expert. She's a motivational speaker about how she has triumphed over evil. She was this close to death while she was kidnapped as a young girl abused in every way and now triumph. And she is a motivational speaker.

When I think of her story, it's very upsetting until you see her and hear her speak and you see how she has overcome this obstacle, this thing that happened to her, you can find her at AliciaProject.org on Twitter, at Alicia Project. Alicia Kozikewicz, that could be said about you too. They had a relationship because you did have an online relationship at first with someone you thought was a girl your own age.

I think it's very natural to look deeply at what we think we know. We don't know all the facts. But the issue with this particular case is that this was an adult when this started. And when it's a child, there's clearly no fault to the victim, and there never should be, no matter if the child went along willingly. And I'm saying that with the greatest of air quotes ever. But in this case, it is easier for people to judge and blame the victim and to make it seem like the situation isn't as dark and evil as the victim is claiming it to be and the fact is that we don't know because we weren't there but we do have to go with what the victim said because the victim was and she's very lucky to be alive and

often when somebody is held captive there don't there doesn't need to be alive. And often when somebody is held captive, there doesn't need to be chains necessarily. That the chains of fear are so incredibly strong that maybe she did go on dates. Maybe she did go out and try to make him happy or please him. Or he said, I will let you go if you come out with this. We don't know. We don't know the mind games he played. He certainly had physical bounds, but he also almost certainly had mental chains if she were, in fact, held captive, which it sounds like a terrible story that this poor woman was.

Well, I mean, Daryl Cohen, just look at the place. It's like Fort Knox. If he wasn't holding something in there, then why all of that? The padlocks, the plywood at the windows, the burglar bars over the plywood. I mean, they had to bring out the fire department to cut into the home, Daryl. That says a lot to me that she's not there willingly.

Nancy, none of this makes any good sense. It makes bad sense. She was probably there, not willingly at all, but it's been pointed out psychologically when she knew that there were guns. She knew that she could not get out. She knew how the padlocks were. She mentally was in chains and mentally in chains can be a lot worse than physically in chains. I'm talking to you about the evidence. Let me just check. Daryl Cohen, JD, not Daryl Cohen, MD, psychiatrist like Dr. Michelle Joy. So as much as I appreciate your

armchair psychiatry, I'm just talking to you about the hard facts. And the hard facts are this home is circled basically in chains, burglar bars, padlocks. That tells me something. That proves something in my mind, Daryl Cohen. Do you disagree with that? I don't disagree with that, Nancy, but I also know there are times he was out doing his tattooing and there were times he was out being a barber. And so she could have perhaps tried to escape. Oh, dear Lord in heaven, blame the victim. What is wrong with you, man? Don't you remember your days as a prosecutor? Not blaming the victim. I am just merely saying that because she was psychologically in chains when she wasn't physically restrained. Oh dear Lord

in heaven, please help me. There were all these guns in the home. The home was clearly locked up like Fort Knox. To me, that is corroboration for what she's saying. You know what? Hold on just a moment. Back to Alicia Kozakiewicz. Alicia, could you, as much as you wish, tell us your story? And during that time, did you entertain escaping? Go ahead. When I was 13 years old, I was groomed online by an internet predator.

This was back in 2002. And there was no conversation surrounding internet safety really at the time. So it was very easy to blame the victim in my case, which I'll get to in the end of this part. But he kidnapped me from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, took me to Virginia, where I was held captive in his basement dungeon and raped and beaten and tortured. And I was rescued because he had live streamed what he was doing to me to other people online. I did think certainly about escape. At the same time, what I can tell you is that escape is almost death. You have to choose, am I going to risk my life in this moment? Or can I just comply? Can I just breathe for a moment and try to get to that

next second? And if I can get to that next second, I can get to that next minute and I can get that next minute. Maybe I can get to that next hour and I can get to that next day. You are just trying to live moment by moment. And escape isn't something that is so easy. It is in the movies and there are cases where it happens, but when it is something that there is so much fear and also that she was quite potentially being hurt. In my case, he had hurt me horribly. Why would he not kill me? That threat was not something that I didn't believe. He had already hurt me so badly, so how could I say that he wouldn't? And in my case, victim blaming was outrageous because people couldn't understand the internet at the time and grooming and all of that. We don't, it's easy to think we know so much by reading books and textbooks. And it's so much

more living and experience and having that inside perspective. And we'll maybe hear from the victim more. I'm really glad that her name isn't out there. It's been wonderful to know that she may be able to move on. And also that this is in the hands of the prosecutors and of the legal team that it's going to be looked over and that it's not just being assumed one way or another because she called for help or what have you. So the other thing too, I just wanted to point out is that this was within four years. It very likely happened during COVID. And for that very reason alone,

people may not have been looking or noticing anything because we were all stuck inside. Joining me is Dr. Harvey Castro, board certified emergency care physician, healthcare consultant, CEO of CHAT,PT and health care, author of Revolutionize Your Health and Fitness with CHATGPT's Modern Weight Loss Hacks.

You know, Dr. Castro, I really appreciate you being with us. Could you tell me your thoughts on what the victim has endured and what you would be most interested in in this case? This is a tough one and heartfelt to the patient. One of the first things that comes to mind immediately when they come into the emergency, a patient like this, I would prefer to have a female doctor taking care of the patient just because to be sensitive to her health immediately what i'd be very worried about is the malnutrition dehydration and obviously that i won't go into because we have a psychiatrist or psychologist on the board here but wait just give me a tidbit and then i'll ask her what is it yeah um on the mental side

there's so many parts of that just just post-traumatic stress disorder. And then, you know, obviously them feeling that sensory deprivement to the point where they can't talk to other people and they're doing their coping mechanisms to just survive. And so they've adapted their mind and brain to these horrible situations. But as an ER doctor, the main thing I'd be looking for is things that are unfortunately going to kill them. So rhabdomyolysis due to their dehydration. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. I'm just a JD. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. A lot of patients that unfortunately go through this get deprivation from food and nutrition, just basic water. And often these patients are so dehydrated that their kidneys basically can shut down

due to the dehydration. And it can get so bad that their muscles will actually break down. And that disease process itself is called rhabdo. And so these are some urgent, emergent situation things that I see in the emergency room. The other thing, unfortunately, these patients are in chains and often they can have sores. And these sores can get infected and they can have obviously fungus or infections. And sometimes these things are life threateningthreatening just because that infection has gotten so profound and they have lacked medical care. And in this situation for four years,

I can't imagine. There's some interesting medical things that you would normally not think about. For example, if I put someone in a dark room, your vision actually will become impaired. You may have nearsightedness. If I take you away from just sensory in general, your hearing actually, you'll start having hearing loss or a medical condition called tinnitus. And all it is is just this ringing of the ears. But these are things that we actually see in patients. Other interesting medical conditions that we really have to look for is you would never think a person would have hypertension or strokes, but this stress puts a lot of stress on their body. And so often we're finding patients that you would never think they would have hypertension or predisposed to stroke having strokes at an early age because they've gone over. They've had this tremendous, horrible stress on their body. The other one that's not quite often thought of is just a

respiratory infection due to the poor quality that these patients, for example, this patient was confined and I would imagine they would have poor air quality and in Texas heat. That's one of my personal worries that she possibly was dehydrated. So all these things from a medical point of view is what I'd be looking for if this person came in to the emergency room. You know, you mentioned unable to speak because of sensory deprivation. I was thinking back on the house of horrors, the Turpin children, the couple, the married couple that kept all of their children locked in, some of them could hardly even stand once they were rescued because they had been

chained to beds and in closets for so long, doctor. Yes, that's interesting because that happens. Muscle atrophy, basically your muscle withers away. Because if you think about it, you're not putting stress on your body, which is helping build your muscle. And if you're just unfortunately chained and confined to a small area, that's often what happens. To bring it to a modern or more recent, not recent, but just an example. When the astronauts first came out of the first spaceships, they would come out crawling and they would never videotape those astronauts because they didn't want to show the public that they were so much at muscle atrophy that they couldn't

walk. Wow. I had no idea about that. I want to circle back to Dr. Michelle Joy, forensic, clinical, and academic psychiatrist. Dr. Joy, Dr. Harvey Kastor brought up so many issues, but I also want to circle back to something that I'm really familiar with, prosecuting by day and being a volunteer at the Batten-Rumman Center by night for nearly 10 years. Very often, I was listening to Alicia Kozakevich talk, the woman, and it's typically

a woman, is so afraid of being murdered, killed, or tortured, even worse than they are being, that they stay. Even if they had a chance to leave, they're so afraid they don't do it. So there's that mind conditioning, that brainwashing. And other people on the outside go, well, why didn't she leave? We cannot understand the mind of someone that has been abused in that manner. So padlocks or no padlocks, she may have been afraid for her life i know this nobody saw her for four years and i hardly think she signed up for that doctor exactly exactly i mean what's almost more surprising to me is that she maintained this sense of hope enough to actually look for a phone four years later to make that call to have the courage to do that right because we see people in abusive

relationships like you said without the padlocks that are afraid to leave because of threats, even to career or family or something like this. Plus, we don't know, this might have been the first time that she tried, it might have been the hundredth time that she tried, right? So what I see here is a story of resilience, someone that kept hope for four years. I mean, we hear about psychological effects of just, you know, one day of threats, of one day of having a gun pointed at you, of an attempted kidnapping, right? But this was four years of that. So to maintain any sense of hope, to push forward to the future, as Alicia was saying, you know, one minute, one hour, one day, that's what surprises me. Not that she didn't

try, but that she still had that courage after after the four years rather than just a coping mechanism. We've talked about coping mechanisms a couple of times to even get through from one day to the next. One of those coping mechanisms would have likely have been to shut down, just to not have hope, right, to sit there, to not think about the next day, because to get your hopes up and then be disappointed, to get your hopes up and then be abused, that cycle is so torturous that instead of, you know, being surprised that she didn't or she might not have done these things, I'm surprised that she still could do it because, I mean, that to me is really strength and resilience and courage. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. If you think it's fantastical that someone could remain a prisoner in a home for four years, what about 10 years? Does the name Ariel Castro ring a bell?

It does in my mind. Take a listen to Hour Cut 16, our friends at ABC. The posters have been part of Cleveland's landscape for a decade. The weathered or tattered ones replaced again and again by families who refuse to give up, who refuse to stop praying for a moment like this. Help me, I'm Amanda Berry. Do you need police, fire, or ambulance?

I need police. Okay, and what's going on there? I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm here, I'm free now. That is the voice of Amanda Berry calling 911 tonight. Ten years. Not only her, but Castro had other women that he was holding

kidnapped for years. Take a listen now to a neighbor, Charles Robinson. And I look and I see this girl and she's just going nuts on the door. So I'm like, what's your problem? You stuck. Just open the door.

And she says, I can't. He got it locked. And I look how he has it. And it's only enough to reach a hand out to grab the mail and close the door. And we naturally going to pry it open. That didn't work. So we had to kick open the bottom. Luckily on that door was aluminum.

It was cheap. And she climbed out with her daughter. She went to my house. We called 911. They had to kick the door in. And it's not just one victim being held for 10 years. Listen to Bill Ware. About five minutes after the police got here,

see, the girl Amanda told the police, I ain't just the only ones. It's some more girls up in that house. So they went up there, you know, 30, 40 deep, and when they came out, it was just astonishing. Inside the home, they also found Georgina De Jesus, who also went missing from this very neighborhood nine years ago. Walking home from a middle school a few blocks from where Amanda disappeared. And they also found Michelle Knight, who went missing in 2000. But since she was 20 at the time, didn't get as much attention as the younger girls.

And every day people would walk by the missing posters and they were right there being held captive for 10 years. It's not as fantastical as you might think. But back to our case, take a listen to our cut one, our friends at KTRK. Tonight, the door at number 147 is still chained. Burglar bars remain on some of the windows and plywood covers the square that was cut open last night. Investigators with the Harris County Sheriff's Office allege that this is where a woman had been held captive for years. Next person up is Abraham Bravo Segura. 42-year-old Abraham Segura is now charged with her kidnapping.

And he has a defense, of course. Take a listen to what he has to say in court. Segura spoke up during his first court hearing today, the hearing officer having to explain that this setting was not the right time for his defense. Probable cause was already found. For Bond, the state laid out the allegations. The defendant had kept the complainant locked inside a trailer for four years.

For how many years? The DM said four. For four years. And did you hear the astonished question? For how many years? How many years? Back to Alicia Kozakiewicz. Four years. And you hear the astonishment in that question. How many years? As if they don't believe it. But it is entirely believable if you've ever been in that situation like you alicia absolutely if it is somebody who doesn't have a choice as far as being there then it could be four days it could be four years it could be 10 years it's not up to the victim now we're gonna hear what i believe the defense is going to be take a listen to sabira rayford investigators telling us sagira and the woman were dating and a missing persons

report was never filed. All the things that they're saying about him it's not the same. A friend of Sabira says she and her husband have been close friends with him for 20 years. The reason that he has the burglar bars and all that stuff that y'all seen out there was because they tried to rob him you know before they tried to get in his house before. So he's trying to protect her and protect himself too. The judge also ruling that Segura have no contact with the victim. As for Segura, he is not a U.S. citizen, so he is facing deportation to Mexico. What about that, Daryl Cohen? You're a defense attorney. He was afraid he'd be burgled. That's why he needed padlocks. So intense, the fire department had to come remove them. I think that he actually should not even utter that defense to his lawyer

because that is a crock of you-know-what. I certainly do. Take a listen to Sherman Chow. That's four years, but neighbors have a very different story. She would go out. Yes, they would go out together. On Sunday, they went out to wash his car. In fact, this neighbor and friend who does not want her identity revealed

says the two have been a couple for years. Okay, so let me ask our shrink, and I mean that in a loving and caring way, Dr. Michelle Joy. Dr. Joy, if they're a couple, why did she use a cell phone when she could get her hands on one and call police to be rescued? Exactly, exactly. And I think we don't know what we don't know yet. But again, if we even draw parallels to, you know, as we've talked about a couple of times to relationships without padlocks, I think what we're going to see here is that there was

control in every sense. There was emotional, verbal, physical, possibly sexual, right? And so this could have been the one second, the one moment that she was able to escape. And even if they went, I mean, we've seen cases in the news over the decades, you know, captives go to the grocery store together, right? It's not even a real psychiatric diagnosis, but we talk about Stockholm syndrome, or, you know, you have to almost start to have feelings toward the captor. In this case, maybe that didn't happen, but we have to make a face, right, towards the people that might see us, because maybe maybe that they as Alicia said, maybe she was threatened that she would be killed if she even looked away from him. You know, when they were washing the car. Right. There are so many potential, scary, serious and realistic forms of control in this. Because, again, going back to Alicia, if they've done this one thing, what wouldn't they do, right?

If even they had kept her for one day, even if they had kidnapped her and it had been converted from a voluntary car ride to padlocks, what wouldn't they do next? And I think that's what we'll see and what we've seen so often is that this fear permeates every single decision that the woman, like we said, usually the woman makes or doesn't make to act over those days, weeks, months and years. To CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Nicole Parton, is it true that all the exits to the home were blocked? That's correct, Nancy. Every exit to the home was blocked with multiple locks, multiple locks, not just one lock like we have on our home or even a couple, but multiple locks, multiple cameras he had set up around the home so that he could see if someone tries to enter or exit the home, as well as those burglar bars on the windows.

Nancy, I'm reminded of Elizabeth Smart. She was held captive, also seen in public with her captors. Yet that poor girl was kidnapped until she was finally found and set free. Just because this victim may have been seen in public, she was still held captive behind those locks and bars. To Kathy Griffin joining us, renowned Houston-based private investigator and owner of K. Griff Investigations, Inc., the largest female-owned investigative agency in the entire state of Texas. I see what you're saying, and as a former prosecutor, I would have to take into account what you said earlier, Kathy, about what the neighbors said and what the neighbors perceived, so I could battle it and shoot it down in my case in chief. The fact that she may have ever

left the home with him, if she did, I don't know that she did, but if she did, it could have given the appearance that she was there willingly, Kathy. I agree. I agree. And also her family needs to come into play as far as why didn't they file a missing police report. There's also allegations of drug and mental health issues. So I think there's more information that's going to come out. Again, the bottom line, she is definitely a victim. I'm not saying that she's not. I just think there's a lot of questions that need to be answered.

Oh, yeah. There are going to be a lot of questions. Guys, it's not the first time this has ever happened. Take a listen to our cut 19 and our friend Jessica Moore. Police say the woman met 57-year-old James Perrillo Jr. in New Mexico, where she agreed to give him a ride to Arizona. They made their way to California, where she says their relationship took a violent turn. Police say Perrillo physically assaulted her, took away her phone and debit cards.

Eventually, they ended up at this New Jersey gas station, ending what police call a year-long nightmare. He just kept repeating that, you know, he's kept me against my will. And eventually, the state troopers did get there. Perillo Jr. has now been charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault. New Jersey State Police are looking into the possibility that he may have held other women against their will in the past. In that case, holding her for a year, Alicia Kozakiewicz, who has lived through a similar nightmare, but even worse, because she was just a little girl when she was taken against her will. What goes through your mind when the perp's not there and you're all alone?

Well, when the perpetrator's not there, it's often the first time you can think. At least in my case, it was the first time that I was with my thoughts and none of those thoughts were good other than the hopeful ones that my parents and family and hopefully law enforcement was looking for me. I held on to that hope and if he was going to kill me, very likely, and I wasn't going to have many more days, if any. But if it had gone on and on and on and on, that hope would dwindle and dwindle and dwindle. And I know even in the short time that I was held captive, I started to accept my death and that I wouldn't get out of there. And that you do lose hope and that you're back and forth on it. And you have to start to really think about is this going to be the end of my life? And is this person going to kill me? Because they certainly can. How long were you held hostage?

It was four days. I was rescued on the fourth fourth day and it was believed that he was going to quite possibly kill me that night and that was the thing too four years four years four years it's amazing that she survived this long perpetrators we hear these cases but they certainly stick out we can name so many we can name almost all of them. That we know of, that is. Exactly, but we can't sit here and probably name all of the murder cases. There are so many who are held captive for such a brief amount of time

and the person does not keep them. Guys, we are waiting for the next court appearance and we wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.