My Boyfriend Let His Parents Kidnap Me for My Own Pregnancy

She saw the camera in the corner, the locks on the outside of the door, and the bars on the window. She saw the medical equipment, the blood on my face, and the floor.

My face must have shown everything because she didn’t ask any questions. She pulled out her radio and called for medical assistance immediately.

His mother started talking fast trying to explain, but the detective cut her off and told her she was under arrest. One of the officers moved forward with handcuffs.

His mother was crying now saying they were just trying to protect the baby. His father tried to run.

I heard shouting from upstairs and then the back door slamming. Through the tiny window, I saw him running across the backyard.

Two officers were already there. They tackled him into the grass and he fought, but they got the cuffs on him within seconds.

My boyfriend was found hiding in his car in the garage. They pulled him out and arrested him too.

All three of them were taken away in separate police cars while I was still sitting on the basement floor. My head was pounding and I couldn’t quite process that this was actually happening.

Someone had found me. I was getting out.

The paramedics came down the basement stairs right behind the detective. I was still sitting on the floor where his parents had left me.

My whole body was shaking so hard I couldn’t make it stop. One of them knelt down next to me and started asking questions about where I was hurt and how far along I was in the pregnancy.

I tried to answer, but my teeth were chattering and the words came out wrong. The other paramedic opened a big medical bag and pulled out equipment while the first one kept talking to me in this calm steady voice.

They checked the cut on my head where I’d hit the bed frame and cleaned the blood off my face with gauze that stung. One of them pulled out a fetal heart monitor and asked if they could check on the baby.

I nodded and lifted my shirt. The cold gel made me flinch.

But then I heard the heartbeat through the speaker, fast and strong, and the paramedic smiled at me. He said the baby sounded good and that I was safe now.

They wrapped a blanket around my shoulders even though I wasn’t cold and helped me stand up. My legs were wobbly and one of them had to hold my arm to keep me steady as we went up the basement stairs.

The house looked different now with police officers everywhere taking pictures and writing things down. Detective Herrera was talking into her radio about needing more units and a crime scene team.

They loaded me into the ambulance and one paramedic stayed in the back with me while we drove. He kept checking my blood pressure and asking me questions about pain and dizziness.

The ride felt long, but he told me we were going to the hospital where they could do a full checkup. He said they would make sure everything was okay with me and the baby.

The emergency room was bright and busy with people moving fast in every direction. A nurse took me to a private room and helped me change into a hospital gown.

She was gentle when she touched my arm and asked if I needed anything for pain. More people came in to examine me.

A doctor looked at the cut on my head and said I might have a small concussion. Another nurse took my blood pressure and temperature.

They asked me to describe what happened, and I started talking but then I couldn’t stop crying. The nurse handed me tissues and rubbed my back while I tried to explain about being locked in the basement for weeks.

She wrote everything down on a chart and told me they were going to document all my injuries for the police. They did an ultrasound and I watched the screen showing the baby moving around.

The doctor doing the scan said everything looked normal and the baby was measuring right for how far along I should be. She printed out pictures and handed them to me.

A social worker came in after the ultrasound and sat down in the chair next to my bed. She introduced herself and said she worked with people who’d been through bad situations.

She asked if I had family or friends who could help me and if I had a safe place to go when I left the hospital. I told her about Kira from work and she wrote down the information.

She explained what would happen next with the police investigation and the court process if charges were filed. She gave me papers with phone numbers for counseling services and victim support groups.

Detective Herrera showed up a few hours later with a recording device and a notebook. She pulled up a chair and asked if I felt strong enough to talk about what happened.

I said yes because I wanted them to know everything before his family could make up more lies. She turned on the recorder and I started from the beginning.

I told her about arriving at their house and meeting them for the first time. I told her about them locking me in the basement and refusing to let me leave.

I described the medical equipment and the camera and the locks on the outside of the door. I explained about Dr. Wallace coming to do forced exams while his father held me down.

I told her what his mother had said about doing this to Marilyn five years ago and how I’d found the tally marks on the wall that went back even further than that. Detective Herrera asked specific questions about dates and times and exactly what each person had said and done.

She wanted to know about the layout of the room and where everything was positioned. I described the scratched message I’d left behind the toilet and she wrote that down.

She asked about Marilyn and what his mother had said about her. I repeated the part about how she’d fought at first but eventually understood.

The detective’s face got tight when I said that. She made a note about finding Marilyn and talking to her.

I told her I thought there might have been other women before Marilyn based on how many tally marks I’d counted. She promised they were searching the house completely and would find any evidence that existed.

The interview lasted almost two hours and by the end my voice was hoarse from talking. The police called Detective Herrera while I was still at the hospital to tell her what they’d found.

She came back to my room and said they’d located my scratched message exactly where I described it. They’d found Marilyn’s name carved there too along with dates that matched what his mother had said about five years ago.

The crime scene team had pulled up some of the floorboards in the basement room and discovered things hidden underneath. There were medical records for at least two other women with different names and dates going back almost 20 years.

They found photographs and documents that his parents had kept, probably as some kind of sick record of what they’d done. The detective said the investigation was getting bigger as they realized this family had been doing this for possibly decades.

She asked if I could think of anything else that might help them find the other victims. I told her about the conversation I’d overheard between his parents about solving problems permanently and his mother crying that she couldn’t do that again.

Detective Herrera wrote it all down. She said they were going to search the property thoroughly, including the yard and any other buildings.

She told me more officers were being assigned to the case and they were looking into missing person reports from the area over the past 30 years. They brought Marilyn in for questioning the next day and I heard about it from Detective Herrera when she came to update me.

Marilyn had broken down during the interview and finally told the truth about her imprisonment. She described being locked in that same basement room for two full years while she was pregnant and after the baby was born.

She said they’d controlled everything about her life during that time—what she ate and when she slept and how she took care of the baby. They’d convinced everyone in their church community that she had serious mental problems and needed their help.

She was scared of losing her daughter if she told the truth because his parents had spent years building a story about her being unstable. The detective assured her that she was a victim and not going to be charged with anything.

Marilyn gave them details about the routine his parents had followed and the rules they’d enforced. She confirmed that Dr. Wallace had been involved in her imprisonment too, doing medical exams and helping his parents monitor her pregnancy.

She said Gary had known what was happening but had been too afraid of his parents to help her escape. The detective told me Marilyn was getting her own lawyer and counseling services to help her figure out what to do next.

Gary got arrested the same week as his parents but his charges were different. The district attorney was treating him as an accessory to Marilyn’s imprisonment since he’d known about it and done nothing to stop it.

Gary’s lawyer was claiming he’d also been manipulated and controlled by his parents his whole life. The DA was building cases against all of them for kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault, and conspiracy.

His parents were facing the most serious charges because they’d planned and carried out multiple kidnappings over many years. My boyfriend was looking at major time too since he’d helped plan my kidnapping and had actively participated in keeping me locked up.

The prosecutor assigned to the case called me to explain what charges they were filing and what the process would look like. She said his parents could get 20 to 30 years each if convicted on all counts.

My boyfriend might get 10 to 15 years depending on how much cooperation he provided. Gary might get a reduced sentence if he testified against his parents and helped the investigation.

Dr. Wallace’s medical license had been suspended immediately and he was facing his own criminal charges for his role in the forced medical exams and the conspiracy. They moved me to a safe house three days after I got out of the hospital because Detective Herrera said the family had connections in their church community who might try to intimidate me.

The safe house was in a different part of the city in a regular neighborhood where nobody would think to look for me. A victim advocate stayed there with me and helped me get set up with new clothes and basic supplies since I didn’t have anything from my apartment.

Kira came to visit as soon as they told her where I was. She walked in and immediately started crying and hugging me.

She said she’d known something was wrong when my emails didn’t sound like me at all. She’d tried calling my phone over and over, and when my boyfriend answered and gave her weird excuses, she’d gotten more suspicious.

She’d contacted my apartment building and my emergency contacts trying to find me. She’d even driven to my apartment and talked to my neighbors about whether they’d seen me.

Kira brought me things from my apartment that the police had retrieved after getting my boyfriend to give them access. She stayed for hours just sitting with me and listening to everything that had happened.

Samuel, my neighbor from the apartment building, had been the one to file the official missing person report that got Detective Herrera involved. He told police he’d seen my boyfriend loading my car with my belongings the day after I disappeared.

He’d watched him drive my car away and thought it was strange since I’d never mentioned moving or going anywhere. When Kira had come around asking questions, Samuel had put the pieces together and called the police.

His testimony helped prove that the kidnapping had been planned ahead of time and wasn’t just a sudden thing. The police had found my car parked at a storage unit his parents owned, filled with my stuff from the apartment.

My boyfriend had cleared out my place to make it look like I’d left voluntarily. He’d answered my phone and sent emails from my accounts to maintain the appearance that I was fine.

All of that evidence was helping build the prosecutor’s case that this was a planned kidnapping and not a family trying to help someone with mental problems like his parents were claiming. The prosecutor kept me updated as the case moved forward over the next several weeks.

She explained that his parents were facing 20 to 30 years each on multiple counts of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and assault. My boyfriend was looking at 10 to 15 years for his role in planning and executing my kidnapping.

Gary might get a reduced sentence, maybe five to eight years, if he cooperated fully and testified against his parents. Dr. Wallace was facing his own criminal charges and the medical board was moving to permanently revoke his license.

The prosecutor said they were also investigating the other cases from years ago and trying to identify the other women who’d been held in that basement. She warned me that the trial process would take a long time, probably over a year, and I’d have to testify about what happened.