INSIDE EDITION sat down with a woman who was held captive by a school security guard for ten years as his sex slave. Now, she’s speaking out about her horrific ordeal.
Her life story reads like the script to a movie—a horror movie.
Tanya Nicole Kach was locked away at 14 years old in the attic of her middle school security guard. She would be his sex slave for the next ten years, forced to endure the most inhumane conditions you can imagine inside a house in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
Kach told INSIDE EDITION, "I lost my virginity to him, and all those years he kept saying that he trained me. He trained me and that he owned me because I lost my virginity to him."
Kach has written about her decade-long ordeal in Memoir of a Milk Carton Kid. In it she describes how Thomas Hose worked his way into her life.
"He just kind of touched me in a way and said 'I've always wanted to be alone with you' and that was the first time that we kissed," said Kach.
Kach was a vulnerable target. She described coming from a dysfunctional, broken family and by 14 was a chronic runaway.
"I was 14 at the time and he was 38. To me, back then, showed that someone was caring," said Kach.
She went to Hose's house voluntarily, but then soon after she was forced to stay in the attic, actually locked in.
"At first when I would say, 'I want to leave. I miss my family. I want to go home,' he would threaten my life and then my family's life," explained Kach.
The story gets even more bizarre. Thomas Hose also lived in the house with his son and his elderly parents. The parents say, and Kach agrees, that they never found out.
"Tom had me memorize the floorboards that creaked and when he wasn't home, I had to tiptoe around the room and avoid those floorboards," explained Kach.
She also had to use a bucket as a toilet and rarely got to take a shower.
Kach said, "He would take me down in the middle of the night, once, maybe twice a week, to shower and he would stand at the bottom of the steps listening to see if his parents would wake up."
The hardest times she says were during Christmas.
"I spent four Christmas Eves in a closet and hear them opening gifts and laughing and having fun. And I would sit there and think of my family, and think of other people in the world and what they were doing at that moment," she said.
After seven years of captivity she was given some freedom and allowed to go to a nearby store where she befriended the owner and his family.
Cases like this have people asking, why didn't she just run away?
Psychiatrist Dr. Gail Saltz told INSIDE EDITION, "Most often, victims of kidnapping develop what's called Stockholm syndrome, an identification with the kidnapper. And they come to believe that that person cares about them, or loves them and that nobody else does, and that they have to stay."
Those unbelieveable stories like Jaycee Dugard's, who was held for an astonishing 18 years, and of course, the kidnapping and then discovery of Elizabeth Smart reflect the ordeal Kach went through.
Kach said, "I just want to embrace them. I just want to sit in a room with all of them, and all of us can sit there and look at each other and say, 'I know what you went through.' "
Once Kach had enough confidence to tell her friends at the convenience store who she really was, Hose was arrested that same day.
The store owner told INSIDE EDITION, "I called the toll free line to the Center for Missing Children and I said, 'I'm going to give you a name, will you tell me if this girl is missing? And the lady on the other end, withing two seconds said, 'This girl's been missing for ten years.' "
Her lawyer says she became a forgotten girl. He said there's plenty of blame to share.
"I believe the police failed this young lady, that her school failed her, that her parents failed her, that her community failed her. It's a tragedy that was totally avoidable," said Kach's lawyer.
But Kach is moving on. She just turned 30 years old this week. She is engaged to be married and wants to become a real estate agent.
"I have moved on but it's something that will be with me for the rest of my life," said Kach.
