in 1982, on the 30th of december. a 9-year-old girl who was kidnapped by a family friend and hidden behind a wall. The girl was last seen wearing a black dress before she was taken. The kidnapper, who was known to the family, had constructed a hidden room behind a wall in his home, where he kept the girl hidden for several days.
Katie Beers had a hard childhood. When she was little, her mother abandoned her. Her godmother took her in, but only so the girl could do all the chores, cook the meals, and act as a servant. Meanwhile, her uncle started abusing her when she was two, making her life a living hell. Little did she know things would get even worse.
How a 9-Year-Old Was Kidnapped by a Family Friend
Katie was never allowed to go to school. Instead, she stayed with her godmother and uncle, and the lonely girl’s only friend was a man named John Esposito. He was a family friend, and she looked forward to their visits. So when she was nine years old, and he announced he was taking her to an amusement park, she didn’t think it was suspicious. She was excited to go to her favorite place.
However, the pair never made it to the park. Instead, Esposito kidnapped Katie and took her to his house. There, he put her into an elaborate dungeon in a tunnel system behind the wall — the same place Katie played at as it was being built. She had no idea it was being built for her.
For 17 days, the man kept her there and sexually assaulted her as police searched high and low. At first, they suspected the family, but eventually, their gaze turned to Esposito, who wasn’t the stand-up community man he had claimed to be.
How One Little Girl’s Questions Saved Her Own Life
Down in the dungeon, Katie was allowed to have the TV on 24/7 so she was aware of the updates in her investigation. She began playing mind games with Esposito, asking him what the future looked like and what his ultimate plan was. At one point, he wanted her to play dead so that he could take a picture of her, and the police would stop looking, but she refused.
“From that point on, I rarely slept, and I also did not eat any of the food that he could have altered,” she told. “ I was fearful that he might put something in the food, a sedative, a sleeping pill, something.” Katie knew if he snapped that photo, it would seal her fate.
’ ‘The best part of my story is knowing that you can recover, and you can persevere, and your life is 100 per what you make it to be.’’
“ I was disgusted. I was 10 years old. I was trying to get him to think about the long-term of him kidnapping me,” she continued. “ I told him that I was sick and I wasn’t feeling well. Between the police department laying on him at his house all the time and my questions and me saying that I wasn’t feeling well finally wore him down.”