Steph Deschamps / May 17, 2025
A couple from New Jersey (east) have been arrested and charged with sequestering a teenage girl for seven years, sexually assaulting her and forcing her to live in a dog crate, the Camden County District Attorney said on Wednesday.
According to Grace MacAulay, Brenda Spencer, 38, is the mother of the alleged victim, now aged 18, and her partner Branndon Mosley, 41, her stepfather, a train driver, she told a press conference.
In 2018, Brenda Spencer had "withdrawn her daughter from school" to "confine her", Prosecutor MacAuley and the Gloucester City Police Chief said in a joint statement.
Shortly after being confined to the house, the victim "reported being forced to live, for about a year, in a dog crate, from which she was only occasionally let out", Grace MacAuley recounted.
Over a period of seven years in total, the teenager was held in "captivity", also forced to live chained up in a padlocked bathroom, or in an empty room with a motion detector that alerted the couple in the event of an escape attempt.
The couple would release her when family members visited, only to return her to captivity. She escaped on May 8, aided by a neighbor. The police were informed of this sordid affair two days later, and the couple were arrested the following day. They were charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault and criminal conspiracy. Branndon Mosley was also charged with sexual assault and endangering a minor.
This case is reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch, who was held captive in a cellar for eight years as a child. Abducted in 1998 at the age of 10 on her way to school, Natasha Kampusch spent most of her years in captivity in a hiding place of less than 6m2, built by her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, under the garage of her bungalow. She managed to escape on August 23, 2006, and Priklopil committed suicide the same evening.