Janelle and her friend Henrietta headed east. Henrietta was one of the few people Janelle genuinely liked, and many believed it was because Henrietta's easy-going nature made her an ideal companion. Henrietta was like clay in Janelle's hands, one source later revealed, easily manipulated into doing whatever Janelle wanted, even if it meant making Henrietta feel uncomfortable and bad about it. That was Janelle for you—she wouldn’t hesitate to guilt-trip a two-year-old into giving her what she wanted. But the trip wouldn’t unfold as planned. Instead, both women would find themselves entangled in a nightmare, and Janelle would soon face off against people even she wasn’t tough enough to handle.
A cult had formed, reminiscent of the one that had been in Waco, Texas. Its mission was to kidnap and brainwash as many people as possible, forcing them into sexual slavery or hard labor.
Henrietta's old car broke down right after they reached the Texas border. Although frustrated, Henrietta remained calm, while Janelle quickly lost her temper, worried that something was trying to prevent her from getting very far.
They hadn’t been parked by the side of the road for long before a dumpy old van pulled up next to them. "Oh, I hope they can help us and aren't bad news," Henrietta said, a mix of hope and worry in her voice.
"I'll handle them," Janelle said confidently. But this time, she was wrong. Two guys jumped out of the van and asked if they needed help.
When the women pointed to their smoking engine, one guy suddenly reached out and grabbed Henrietta while the other grabbed Janelle. Janelle managed to break free and started counter-attacking, but the guy holding Henrietta released her, jumped into the van, pulled out a tranquilizer dart, and shot Janelle. Once Janelle went down, the men gave chase after Henrietta.
The two women woke up in a dark, dingy room that resembled an old jail cell. Everything was concrete, including the hard floor they lay on, their wrists bound by chains attached to a hook in the wall.
The two women experienced different forms of hell. Janelle was deemed too fat and unattractive to service anyone sexually, but she still suffered from not having access to her medications and from an all-consuming rage and desperation to escape, which made her torture unbearable.
Henrietta wasn’t as "lucky," if you could call it that. She was raped and murdered relatively quickly, and it happened right in front of Janelle, who was helpless, unable to break free of her bonds to defend her friend. All she could do was scream and threaten their kidnappers.
After Henrietta was killed, Janelle was chained in a room with a chain long enough to reach a metal bucket for her to relieve herself. She was threatened with being hosed down with cold water from a power washer if she didn’t comply with their orders.
Since she wasn’t considered attractive, she was ordered to file papers they gave her and keep the room tidy.
"Don’t even think of using the phone," they told her. "It doesn’t work." But Janelle, having learned not to trust what people told her, tried the phone anyway and found that it did work. First, she called the local police and informed them of who she was and what had happened. Then, having called it enough to know the number by heart, she attempted to reach Boris at the adult probation department, calling collect.
She was surprised when the call was accepted and figured they might have been expecting her to call. She hadn’t reached Boris directly, but she relayed a message to be given to him about being kidnapped. When she called back the next day, she was given a local number that would connect her directly to her probation officer.
“Janelle,” Boris said as soon as he saw the call was from her. “Where are you? They’ve got calls set up to be untraceable but we’re working on it.”
“I’m still being held inside the cult compound. The local police said they contacted you. I can’t call anyone else because I don’t want it showing up on the phone bill. I’ve only got a few minutes before they make their rounds. You’ve got to help me, please! I have no one else to call. My husband threw me out of the house, and I don’t know what else to do.”
“Relax, relax. Slow down and tell me everything you can in the time you have. Were you moving?”
“No. My friend and I were going to visit someone she knows, and I was going to see if it might be a place I’d eventually want to move to and look for work.”
“Oh,” Boris said, and Janelle caught a faint hint of doubt in his voice. “How long were you planning to stay there?”
“Just for a day.”
“Just for a day? That’s a long haul to make in a day. You weren’t planning to stay more than a day?”
“No, her friends live just over the state line, from what she told me. I asked if she was sure it would only take a day, and she was confident it would. Said she’d made the trip before. Then we broke down, and a van came by, and a couple of guys kidnapped us. I don’t even know what town we were in or even what town we were going to because I didn’t think to ask.”
“How did they kidnap you?”
“They drugged me with something they shot at me, and before that, they just grabbed Henrietta. Next thing I knew—oh my God, I gotta go.”
Janelle abruptly hung up the phone before her captors could see she had used it.
ns216.73.216.176da2
