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Cameron gave her the name K, single letter. He placed a collar around her neck and signed the contract himself using a false name, Michael Powers. At the end of January 1978, Cameron showed Colleen the article and presented her with a contract to sign as K Powers. Colleen later recalled this moment saying, “I thought what I was reading was pure evil, but he told me that either I would sign it or he would sign it for me and then make me wish I had.
” According to the contract, Colleen was to refer to Cameron as master and to keep her body open to him at all times. In case of defiance, she’d be turned over to some other master who might not be as nice as he was. Cameron even fabricated a secret organization called the company. He said that he had paid the company a huge sum to monitor her.
In return, the company is watching her constantly. According to Cameron, they’d even bugged her family’s homes, their cars, and their phone lines. In case Colleen tried to run, escape, or ask anyone for help, the company would harm her and her loved ones. Cameron even told her horrifying made-up stories about other slaves who had been contracted by the company.
Colleen later reported, “He always had things to back up his stories, and I believed what he said.” With time, Colleen learned to shut down her emotions. She realized that whenever she begged Cameron for mercy, he became even more violent. In one of her later interviews, she said, “The more I played his game, the better it was for me.
If I fought, it went on forever.” As more time passed, Cameron made Colleen handle household tasks. She cooked, washed dishes, and cleaned. But whenever Cameron yelled “Attention!”, she had to strip off her clothes, stand on her tiptoes, and reach her hands to the top of the doorway between the living room and the dining room to have his gross fantasies fulfilled.
One night, Cameron brought Colleen to his bed. Janice initially tried to participate in the acts, but she couldn’t continue and left the room. That night, Cameron essayed Colleen for the first time. After that, the assaults continued on a regular basis. Cameron became more confident in his manipulation. He’d started to trust that Colleen wouldn’t run away even if given the opportunity, so he granted her more freedom.
The so-called freedom was short-lived. Family later moved to a trailer that provided more privacy and isolation. Colleen, however, things got much worse. To keep her captive in this new location, Cameron designed a wooden ventilated box that would fit under the couple’s waterbed. This became her new prison.
She was given a bedpan and allowed out for only 1 hour each day to brush her teeth, eat, clean her bedpan, and sometimes wash her hair. Her entire existence was confined to the space beneath her bed. While Colleen remained locked away in this confined darkness, Janice gave birth to another daughter with Cameron. Later, he gave Colleen to go jogging, but she always returned as she truly believed in the company.
To the neighbors who occasionally saw her, Colleen appeared to be nothing more than an in-house babysitter. However, whenever Colleen made small mistakes or failed to follow Cameron’s orders to the letter, she was punished with electrical wires that left small scars on her skin. One Christmas, she asked Cameron for a Bible. Surprisingly, he gave her one.
Throughout the years of endless torture and despair, it was only Colleen’s firm faith in God that kept her going. In 1980, after three long years of captivity, Cameron allowed Colleen to go out with Janice. They had drinks at a bar and met some men and sometimes would go home with them. When Janice lost her job, Cameron made Colleen beg for money on the streets to compensate for her lost wages.
It was an extremely humiliating experience for her, but she complied. She was only allowed to stop when Janice found other work and Colleen returned to being the babysitter at the trailer. Sometime later, Janice brought work to the trailer and asked Colleen to help her. They could make more money this way, but the two women would often fight as Janice grew jealous of Cameron’s excessive attention towards Colleen.
At one point, Cameron handed Colleen a gun. She later recalled, “I didn’t know if it was loaded or not, and he told me, ‘This is to see if you’ll do what I say.’ And he told me to put the gun in my mouth and pull the trigger, and I did.” Cameron was delighted by her obedience. So much so that he allowed her to write letters to her family, though he checked every word before sending them out.
He even let her call home once from a payphone. Eventually, he arranged for a visit, but he repeated his fabricated story about the company and how they rarely permitted such visits. On March 20th, 1981, Cameron drove Colleen 600 miles south to see her family in Riverside. He introduced himself as her boyfriend and then promptly drove off.
To Colleen’s family, something felt off with this. When they looked at this man who gave the impression of being a bookworm, they knew he wasn’t Colleen’s type. As for Colleen, she was noticeably thin. Her sisters could see the change in her, but the family didn’t press her for answers.
They were just grateful to have her. They spent what little time they had together and took several pictures. Her cousin, Linda Steve, later recalled this reunion saying, “We were too scared to push her, you know, for fear that she We didn’t know if she was in a cult. And there were people all around her. We knew she was under stress, though.
I can tell you that. I mean, it was very visible.” The next morning, she went to visit her mother, Evelyn, who lived a few blocks away. Her mom took her to the church to see her other relatives. Colleen was uncertain about how long she’d have with her family. She hoped for at least a week, but after only 24 hours, Cameron called and told her he was coming to pick her up.
When he arrived, Colleen told her family that he was her fiance. Her sister took a picture of the two of them together. Colleen seemed happy in the picture. Family didn’t know how badly she wanted to scream the truth, but she said nothing as she wanted the safety of her family above everything else. When Colleen was finally back, she was forced back into the box under the waterbed in the trailer.
She would remain there for almost all of her time. Cameron’s two daughters were growing older, and they had no idea that their nanny, K, was living wit