Her School Security Guard Held Her Captive In His House For Ten Years, And Then She Managed To Escape
In 1996, a 14-year-old girl from McKeesport, Pennsylvania, seemingly vanished without a trace after being abducted. It wasn’t until a decade later that she managed to escape, revealing she’d been held captive by a school security guard for 10 years.
Her harrowing story has since inspired the Lifetime movie “The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story,” which came out last year.
The Abduction Of Tanya Kach
Following her parents’ divorce in 1995, Tanya relocated to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, living with her father, Jerry, and his girlfriend, JoAnn. But becoming the new kid in middle school wasn’t easy.
The 14-year-old was shy and reportedly got bullied. She also didn’t feel safe at home, often butting heads with her father’s girlfriend.
This pushed Tanya to run away often, but every time, she always went back home within 24 hours. That changed on February 10, 1996, when Tanya disappeared for good.
It’s now known that a school security guard named Thomas “Tom” Hose, who was 38 years old at the time, had realized Tanya was struggling. He began pretending to offer her support.
According to Tanya, she and Thomas got to know each other, and he would actually pull her out of class just to talk to her. Then, when he caught her skipping class one day, he let her get away with it and tested how far he could go.
“That’s when he leaned in, and that was the first time he kissed me. He told me I should leave and be with him forever,” Tanya recalled.
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Thomas concocted a plan to abduct her, which included sending her to the home of his friend Judy Sokol, who was a hairstylist. Judy dyed Tanya’s hair and let the teen stay at her residence for weeks. It was there that Thomas assaulted her for the first time after getting her drunk.
Meanwhile, when Jerry and JoAnn woke up on February 10, 1996, they realized Tanya was gone. Jerry initially believed his daughter had run away again, but by February 14, he reported her missing.
After her stay at Judy’s residence, Tanya was invited to live at Thomas’ home, which he shared with his 22-year-old son and elderly parents. She was hidden away in his bedroom without a bathroom.
“I had to sneak up to his bedroom. We were in his room, very quiet. His parents were there; they didn’t know I was in the house. He took full control once he knew I was in his grasp,” Tanya detailed.
Rather than access to a bathroom, Tanya was given a bucket, and when she needed to shower, Thomas would sneak her to the basement in the middle of the night. As for food, she lived on his leftovers for years.
Thomas reportedly threatened Tanya, too, saying that if his parents ever learned she was there, he would smother her to death. The abuse escalated when he began assaulting Tanya several times a day and forcing her to document each incident in a calendar.
He continued working, though, and while alone at Thomas’ home, Tanya would try to keep herself busy by reading or watching TV with the volume turned down.
Eventually, she tried to escape on more than one occasion. However, Thomas had a hold on Tanya.
“Whenever I tried to, that’s when he’d threaten my life. He’d threaten to kill me in my sleep, throw me in a garbage bag, and throw me in the river,” she said.
By the time Tanya was 18 years old in 2000, four years after she was abducted, Thomas allowed her to leave his house for the first time. He gave her an alias of “Nikki Diane Allen” and let her go shopping for clothes on her own.
Thomas also introduced Tanya to his family as his girlfriend and, knowing that she was “brainwashed,” gave her more independence. In fact, by 2005, she got a job at JJ’s Deli Mart, a local convenience store.
But while working at the deli, Tanya got to watch the married owners, Joe and Janet Sparico, have a healthy romantic relationship. This pushed her to break down at work on March 20, 2006.
Through tears, Tanya revealed that “Nikki” was just an alias. Instead, her real name was Tanya, and she’d been held captive by Thomas for years.
The police were contacted, and once they showed up at Thomas’ residence, officers brought her out of his house. She and her father saw each other for the first time in a decade at the police station in an emotional reunion.
“We cried, we laughed, it was a plethora of emotions,” Jerry stated.
Since Tanya willingly went with Thomas, he wasn’t charged with kidnapping. Nonetheless, he was arrested and charged with multiple other offenses, ultimately receiving a sentence of 15 years behind bars.
Thomas’ friend, Judy, was also arrested on various charges. She pleaded guilty and received a prison sentence of six to 23 months.
In February 2022, Thomas was released from prison. He served out the entirety of his sentence and continues to live at the same property.
Once Tanya escaped, she rekindled a relationship with her mother, Sherri, who she’s called a “big supporter.” She continues to deal with both psychological and physical trauma stemming from her captivity and abuse.
However, in 2011, she published her own book, “Memoir of a Milk Carton Kid: The Tanya Nicole Kach Story,” to share her experiences and provide hope to other people navigating similar trauma.
Tanya went on to marry her current husband, Karl McCrum, in 2018. Additionally, she speaks about her story at schools, and in 2024, her abduction inspired a Lifetime movie, “The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story.”
“It was incredibly difficult to find myself again and become the person that I am today. I will always be psychologically damaged. But it doesn’t mean I’m not strong,” Tanya said.
More About:True Crime
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