Tanya Kach Isn't Lying

You've probably heard something about Tanya Kach, the 24-year-old woman from McKeesport, Pennsylvania who claimed she was held captive by a middle-aged man for the past 10 years. To me, this story was disturbing but unsurprising. I was stunned to learn that many people are skeptical of Kach's story, insisting that it's impossible to hide a teen/adult captive in a smallish two-story house (her alleged captor, Thomas Hose, lived with his parents) and that if this really happened, Kach would have gone to the police as soon as she was released. A bizarre article at the Court TV website Crime Library even contrasts Tanya's captivity with the scenario in John Fowles's 1963 novel The Collector, pointing out that Miranda didn't behave the same way Tanya did.
But this kind of thing has happened before, and few of the abductors and victims behaved like the characters in Fowles's novel (which I have read several times; frankly, I think it's more about gender and class warfare than abduction, anyway).
Back in the '80s, 20-year-old Colleen Stan was abducted while hitchhiking and held captive in the mobile home of Cameron and Janice Hooker for 7 years; for much of that time, she was confined to a specially made, coffin-like box beneath the Hookers' bed, not far away from the Hookers' small child. After 7 years of constant torture and threats, Colleen Stan was so beaten down that she didn't seek help even when Cameron Hooker began to trust her to leave the house unaccompanied;
she suspected it was a test, that she was being followed by the Hookers.
More recently, eccentric multi-millionaire John Jamelske abducted 5 girls and women and confined them in his basement for up to 2.5 years. His sick wife was upstairs throughout this time but suspected nothing. One victim told police what had happened and provided specific details about her abductor; they didn't believe her. Another young victim didn't report her crime until Jamelske was arrested, believing in his repeated threats to harm her and her family if she did.
Elizabeth Smart was so convinced by Brian David Mitchell's threats to harm her family that she denied she was Elizabeth Smart when questioned by police. Asked to take off her large sunglasses, she said she couldn't because she'd just had eye surgery. Only under intense questioning from multiple officers did she finally mutter, "If thou sayeth."
This isn't necessarily "Stockholm syndrome." Sometimes it's just fear. If a victim, particularly a young and impressionable victim, is told countless times that she and her family will be harmed or even killed, they begin to believe it beyond a shadow of a doubt. In fact, the woman who seemingly collaborated with the robber holding her hostage in a Stockholm Bank says she didn't have "Stockholm syndrome" either - she was pretending to be helpful only to buy time for herself and the other hostages. Patty Hearst says she was coerced into everything she did, too, but the grin on her face in SLA photos says she probably did come to genuinely empathize with her captors. Maybe Stockholm Syndrome should be re-christened Hearst Syndrome.
OK, so it's possible to cow a victim into keeping quiet. But is it possible to confine someone to a second-floor room without everyone in the household knowing about it? Again, this has happened before. From 1903 to 1922, Mrs. Walburga Oesterreich managed to conceal her much younger lover in the attics of two different homes without her husband finding out (he encountered the other man in the kitchen once in 1918, but assumed he was a burglar).
Given these examples, Tanya Kach's story isn't incredible, but sadly familiar. She became Thomas Hose's "girlfriend" when she was just 14 and he was a 38-year-old, well-liked security guard at her school. Several people were aware of the relationship and did nothing to prevent it. After convincing her to run away from home and move into his parents' home secretly, Hose kept Tanya confined and repeatedly threatened to harm her family and friends if she ever tried to escape. It's tragic that after going through all this, she has to face the skepticism of a jaded and ignorant public.