Awful New Details About The Kidnapping Of 9-Year-Old Katie Beers Who Was Chained Inside A Makeshift Coffin And Raped For Three Weeks
Katie Beers is revealing more details about the horror she went through decades ago.
In 1992, 9-year-old Katie Beers was lured by a family friend who promised her a gift for her upcoming birthday. But when she got to John Esposito's home, he locked her in a dungeon buried beneath his garage where he raped and abused her for three weeks.
Beers, who's now 34, gave new details about the horrors she survived in a Reddit AMA Thursday. She said the sexual abuse she had previously suffered from her godmother's husband "prepared her" for those 17 days she spent in her personal dungeon hidden by a 200lb slab of concrete.
According to Beers, her life was a nightmare long before she was kidnapped. She said that was part of the reason why she was able to keep calm when she was trapped.
"I should have been in foster care from the time that I was 2 or even younger," she said. "I was sexually abused by my 'aunt's' husband from the time that I was 2 until I was abducted by a 'family friend' when I was almost 10."
Abuse was sadly something Beers was not a stranger to.
"I was also physically, emotionally and verbally abused by all of the adults who were supposed to take care of me as well as neglected. Child Protective Services did come to the house to do interviews with me, but it's difficult to be truthful with CPS workers when they're interviewing you in the house where the abuse is occurring in the exact room where it was occurring."
For most of her childhood, Beers lived with her godmother Linda Inghilleri who treated her like a "slave" and let her husband, Salvatore, sexually abuse her.
That was her life until Esposito, who Beers knew as "Big John," kidnapped her on December 28. He would later tell police that she disappeared while they were at a toy store together. That story made him the prime suspect in the case.
So much so, that police set up a post on his property. But it took them weeks to realize that Katie was only a few feet away.
Worried that the police were closing in on him, Esposito decided to take a photo of Beers looking dead so he could send it to police. But Beers refused and forced herself to stay awake so he couldn't get the photos.
She also said during the AMA that he sexually assaulted her for the first time the same day he took her. When the police finally did find her after Esposito turned himself in, she thought the sounds of the men coming to save her were more men coming to sexually abuse her.
"I definitely think that by trying to manipulate him into thinking about the future and things like that, I think that got him a little scared and worried about what the future was going to hold," she said.
His confession put him in prison 15 years to life, though he was never charged with the rape or sexual assault of Beers. He died while incarcerated in 2013.
After being saved, Beers was sent to live with a foster family, who she credits for saving her. She's now married with two kids.
"My life is exactly what I always wanted: two parents who love me, siblings who are amazing, and a husband and two kids."
Emily Blackwood is an editor at YourTango who covers pop culture, true crime, dating, relationships and everything in between. Every Wednesday at 10:20 p.m. you can ask her any and all questions about self-love, dating, and relationships LIVE on YourTango’s Facebook page. You can follow her on Instagram (@blackw00d) and Twitter (@emztweetz).