Woman escapes after 14 years in sexual captivity at rural homestead outside Chelyabinsk

Chelyabinsk regional police is investigating the abduction of the 33-year-old Yekaterina B., who spent 14 years locked in a bedroom in Smolino, a rural settlement just outside of Chelyabinsk. On July 30, her sister filed a police report after Yekaterina managed to escape from her captors.

According to reports from Baza and Mash, Yekaterina was 19 when, back in 2009, she and her friend met the 37-year-old Vladimir Ch. at the Chelyabinsk railway station. He invited them to have a drink at his house in the nearby community of Smolino, where he locked up both women.

Yekaterina was kept in a separate bedroom with barred windows and a padlocked door. She says that her captor would come back intermittently to rape her, threatening to kill her if she resisted.

Vladimir’s mother also lived in the house. Their neighbors seem to have thought that the woman was living alone, because Vladimir hardly ever left the house. According to the Telegram news channel Mash, sometime in 2010 Vladimir killed Yekaterina’s friend.

Yekaterina herself managed to escape on June 30, when Vladimir’s mother had to call a psychiatric ambulance for her son, due to his heavy drinking and aggressive behavior. When the paramedics took Vladimir to a hospital, he reportedly left Yekaterina’s bedroom unlocked, and she finally escaped.

RIA Novosti reports that human remains have been discovered at the homestead by the police.