222. The Girl In The Bunker
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here. He's the husband to this podcast. If you have seen, we announced that we kind of had some family emergencies go on this last week and so Garrett is actually out kind of handling those. You know, life happens, but we wanted to make sure that we still got an episode out for you guys and we've been here before. We've done this before, so you just have me today. I hope that that's okay. That

That being said, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for always supporting us. We are good over here. No worries. We're just, you know, we're just taking everything one step at a time. We are going to jump right into the episode because Garrett is not here to share his 10 seconds. But if he was, it would probably be something about cars or golf or pickleball or, you know, the use the use. But let's get into the episode.

Okay, our sources for this episode are Buried Memories by Katie Beers and Carolyn Gussoff, AllThat'sInteresting.com, ABC News, USA Today, NewYorkTimes.com, GoalCast.com, Distractify.com, CBS News, CNN.com, TimesColonist.com, PennLive.com, Newsday.com, InTouchWeekly.com, Forbes.com, and Wikipedia. Okay, I want to give a trigger warning. This episode features discussions of sexual assault and abuse of a minor, so please listen with care.

Okay, everyone listening and watching, there is a unique phenomenon that happens sometimes in true crime.

We see it every now and then between victims and their captors, and it's called trauma bonding, or more commonly referenced as Stockholm Syndrome. It's an involuntary coping mechanism developed by the victim leading to a psychological connection to their abuser, almost brainwashing them into offering feelings of sympathy, understanding, sometimes even admiration for their captor. But

But today's case is one that sort of turns this concept on its head. Because not only did the victim in today's story outsmart her captor, she was so brave, so intelligent, that she actually convinced him to come clean about his crime. And the most incredible part is, she was only 10 years old when it happened. This is an episode you are not going to want to miss.

So it's December 30th, 1982. In a hospital in Bayshore, Long Island, a woman named Marilyn Beers is giving birth to her second child all alone. It's a little girl named Catherine. Katie, as she called her, never knew her father. Neither did her older half-brother, John.

But as they say, raising a child takes a village. And that was something that Marilyn, the mother, didn't quite have access to in the early years of her children's lives. So to make ends meet, she worked 12-hour shifts daily driving a taxi cab around Long Island. And oftentimes with young Katie or John tagging along in the front seat, seeing as childcare wasn't exactly in her budget.

But that changed one day when Marilyn gained a new customer named Linda Incaleri. Over the next several months, Marilyn got to know Linda as she became a regular passenger in her taxi cab. The two actually became so close that Linda offered to help watch Marilyn's children for free when she needed to work driving taxi.

And soon, Linda Incolari became Aunt Linda to John and Katie.

But she didn't just babysit them for a few hours in the afternoons here and there. As time went on, Marilyn would leave the children with Linda and her husband, a car mechanic named Sal, for days, even sometimes weeks on end, which is how things got a little weird between Linda and Marilyn. There would be times when Marilyn would come to get the children and Linda and Sal would refuse to hand them back over to her because, I mean, at this point,

they are kind of taking care of her kids. And it actually got to the point where the cops had been called over the situation more than once.

But here's the thing, though. It wasn't like Linda and Sal were these good Samaritans saving Katie and John from some terrible parenting. It was quite the opposite, actually. Not only was Sal verbally abusive of Linda, he was actually physically abusive as well. So the couple that is watching these kids, babysitting these kids, even for weeks at a time, is having domestic violence in the house. And oftentimes this was in front of the two kids.

And Linda wasn't much better as she would then take her frustrations out on Katie, treating her more like a servant than a child.

Now, Katie, at only four years old, was kept out of school and instead forced to clean Linda and Sal's bathrooms, vacuum their house, do their laundry, cook them dinner. Linda even sent Katie down to a small strip mall once to buy her cigarettes with a handwritten note of permission. And it was at this point that a lot of the store owners actually took notice of the young Katie who usually would come in without shoes or a coat.

rain or shine. One even remembered asking her once, Katie, why aren't you out playing with your friends? To which she replied, oh, I don't have any friends. Katie actually recalled that one time when she tried to stick up for herself once at Linda and Sal's, she was stuffed into a pantry closet.

After screaming and banging to get out, Linda and Sal told her they were going to leave the house and go see a movie, and they didn't return for several hours. But that wasn't even the half of it. I mean, Linda would put cigarettes out on Katie's arm. She even tried to burn a mole off her face once. Meanwhile, many people who knew the beer kids and their abusive situation they were in,

simply turned a blind eye no one ever reported the bad behavior they saw to the police including their own mother Marilyn who kept bringing Katie to Linda and Sal's because she said she had no other choice when it came to child care if she wanted to make a living and put a roof over the kids heads Linda and Sal were the only ones who would watch Katie and her older brother John for free

What Marilyn didn't seem to know at the time, however, was that her daughter Katie wasn't just being physically abused at this house. She was also being sexually abused by her uncle Sal. This is something her mother would remain unaware of for the next few years.

But when Katie was around eight or nine years old, someone new actually showed up in their life. And this is someone that Marilyn, the mom, at first felt would be a positive influence. Someone who made the kids smile in a way that Marilyn had never seen before.

So one afternoon, Marilyn was out working another 12-hour day driving her taxi when she picked up a woman named Rose Esposito. Now during that ride, Rose and Marilyn started chatting it up, and Rose told her that she had a son in his 40s who worked with the Big Brothers organization, which if you don't know Big Brothers Big Sisters, it is sort of a mentorship program where adult volunteers are...

thoroughly vetted and then paired with a minor who might need some additional support in their lives. So when Marilyn tells Rose that her son John doesn't exactly have a good male role model in his life, Rose, the passenger, tells Marilyn, the taxi cab driver, that little John should meet her son, the big John.

which was how John Esposito even came into the Beers' lives. So every week, Big John would come over to hang out with Little John as part of the Big Brothers program. And they'd watch movies, they'd play video games, he'd bring him toys or take John and sometimes even Katie to different outings like the batting cages or the arcade. It was a complete change of pace for the kids who loved spending time with the 40-year-old John.

But this was just at first. It was a man who seemed to be polite, considerate, a gentleman. And on some occasions, Katie and little John would even go to big John's house where he still lived with his parents.

John had actually converted the family garage into his own little apartment with a full kitchen, an office, a dining area. But most importantly, it was filled with everything from board games to Nintendos to giant arcade games. I mean, this space was a dream for kids and I guess grown men alike. And okay, I know right now you're thinking, pause.

How does the mom, Marilyn, keep sending her kids over to Linda and Sal's when it's very obvious these kids are getting hurt over there? And so you're like, okay, maybe Big John is going to be better. But Marilyn didn't exactly do her due diligence when it came to Big John and just allowing her kids to be with him. Instead of checking with the Big Brother organization, Marilyn just trusted that John was a part of it because his mother said so in the cab.

And well, he wasn't. In fact, the truth was a lot more disturbing. John had been falsely advertising himself around the Bayshore area of Long Island as a big brother. He was putting up posters and offering his mentorship when in reality, he was a predator. One who'd been arrested more than 15 years earlier for trying to lure a 12-year-old boy into his car at a shopping mall.

And sure, he'd applied to the Big Brother program, but when it came time for their rigorous screening check, John withdrew his application when they found out about those previous charges. Like a predator cannot work at an organization that helps kids and is alone with kids. So this was all information that Marilyn uncovered after her son, 10 year old little John, confessed to her that Big John had touched him inappropriately.

And after that, Marilyn did put her foot down. There was no more hanging out with Big John, period. But when Little John and Katie were at Linda and Sal's, the rules were very different because remember, they are still going over for childcare at Linda and Sal's. And Linda and Sal did not go along with any of the boundaries around Big John that Mother Marilyn had set. So

So after all, they'd taken a liking to John and they were happy to pawn the kids off on him with or without Marilyn's permission, which was why years later he was still hanging around the beer kids. And come December 1992, he was happily invited to Katie's 10th birthday party.

Now, Linda had told Katie to keep John's invitation a secret from her mother, and Katie thought the secret paid off. That day, John arrived with a giant Barbie dream house as her birthday gift.

But John had another surprise for Katie. And thanks to permission from Linda, he was going to take her to Spaceplex the following afternoon. This is a giant arcade space about 15 minutes down the road. Now, Katie knew Marilyn, her mother, would not approve of this. I mean, she's only 10 years old and her mother was like, you cannot be around Big John after he has sexually assaulted your brother.

She already didn't want him hanging around the house in the company of other adults, but the two of them alone, that was definitely off limits. But when Katie mentioned this to Linda, Linda told Katie, it's going to be fine. It'll just be a few hours and then you can come home.

So the following afternoon, December 28th, two days before Katie's 10th birthday, John shows up at the house to pick her up. And Katie hops in his pickup truck and they go to Spaceplex. John says Katie plays some games and then at around 4.30 p.m. she asks him for some more tokens. So he gives her five bucks to fetch them while he finishes playing his pinball game. But when he turns back around, Katie is gone.

He can't find her anywhere. John, still holding her coat and hat, starts to panic. And that's when he goes to the Spaceplex staff. He starts asking if they've seen a four-foot-tall girl in a skirt, black boots, and a white shirt with a black Scotty dog printed on the front. But after multiple intercom pages and a frantic search by Spaceplex staff...

It's clear that Katie is no longer in the arcade and that is when they call the police. And when police arrive, this is what they will come to learn. Just minutes before John went to the Spaceplex staff searching for Katie, this was a little after 5 p.m., someone made a call from a payphone across the street and it was 10-year-old Katie.

She had phoned Linda and Sal's next door neighbor because she knew that Linda and Sal didn't have a phone. Now, luckily for the police, the neighbors didn't answer. So they have a recording of Katie on the answering machine. And her message goes like this. Katie.

Aunt Linda, a man kidnapped me and he has a knife and oh no, here he comes, I've gotta go. Are you catching the media buzz around Sonobello? Yes, their micro laser fat removal is crazy popular because it makes stubborn fat disappear in just one visit.

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So they know we sent you. So by that afternoon, a team of detectives has filled Marilyn's kitchen. And after playing the recording for her, she confirmed that is her daughter's voice. All right. And I cannot imagine how scary it was to listen to a 10 year old girl call for her aunt's help. Her aunt who physically abuses her.

saying that this man has a knife and has kidnapped her. So the police promised to pull out all of the stops to find Katie Beers, as they know the window of opportunity for a missing child to be found alive is just devastatingly small. And with John having been the one to call the police, they don't actually suspect that he had any role in the crime at first, which is, I

I know not where you thought this was going. And this is despite his sordid past. So they zoom in on someone else, someone who also has a questionable past and has been a strong presence in Katie's life. Because remember, about 50% of kidnappings are done by someone the child knows. And that person is Linda's husband, Uncle Sal, who had been sexually assaulting Katie.

So turns out just before her disappearance, Marilyn had found out that Sal was sexually abusing Katie. So she finally filed a report with the police. And now he was facing first degree charges and was due to appear in court the following February. The thing was, during the time of Katie's kidnapping, Sal had a pretty good alibi. And he was at Marilyn's house answering questions for police just hours after Katie was reported missing.

Plus, there's something about that message that Katie left. She didn't call Aunt Linda and say, Sal kidnapped me. She said, a man. This was indicating that it was probably someone she didn't know, which is why detectives felt like they were going to have a harder time solving this case than they first thought.

Still, there's one other person that they need to eliminate before they take the stranger route. And that is obviously Big John, the known predator. I mean, Katie just has predators all over her life. Now, John had willingly gone down to the police station that afternoon to offer his statement. And he gave them a play by play of what happened with Katie that day.

Here's what he said. He picked Katie up from Linda and Sal's at around 1 p.m. They went to a toy store first where he bought Katie a troll doll and a Home Alone video game before stopping at 7-Eleven for a Slurpee. He then says he and Katie went to his house to try out the video game. But when they got bored, they ventured over to Spaceplex as planned somewhere around 3 p.m.

Later that afternoon, Katie asked him for more tokens at the arcade. He passed her a $5 bill and he says that was the last time he saw her. After he searched high and low for Katie, he asked a manager if they would page her over the intercom, but there was still no sign of her. And I want to include that John delivers all of this through a face full of tears. So police are kind of, they're believing him. Plus when they questioned some of the staff back at Spaceplex, they couldn't

parts of John's story. They say he was there. He did go to a manager and say he couldn't find the girl he was with, so they started paging her. But no one saw a little girl fitting Katie's description leave with anyone in distress. So the investigation continues, and then 24 hours turns into 48. Katie's 10th birthday on December 30th comes and goes.

And before they know it, a week has passed with no sign of Katie Beers.

Now, cops and canine units had scanned the woods and the dumpsters surrounding Spaceplex. Police had fielded and dismissed dozens of unconfirmed sightings of Katie. And after 10 days with no movement on the case, police aren't even sure whether they're dealing with a kidnapping or homicide. It didn't help that Katie's home life was so volatile and complicated. The police commissioner on the case told the press, quote,

We have a girl who was torn between two apparently dysfunctional family groups. The situation produces so many leads to track down, and it's what makes this one more unique than most. So police are literally just like,

There are so many suspects in this girl's life and we have no idea where to look because none of them are really making sense. And then after this, complicating the investigation even further was Aunt Linda, who at one point produced a seemingly fake letter that she claimed was written by Katie to her.

The letter stated that Katie loved Linda, she was her favorite person in the world, and she felt torn between living with her mother, Marilyn, and living with her and Sal. Marilyn told police she was certain the letter hadn't been written by Katie, but that begged a different question.

What was Linda trying to compensate for? Like, why even come forward with this fake letter? Well, by January 12th, 16 days after Katie's disappearance, the Suffolk County Police Department had hit nothing but dead ends. This case was just bizarre. The search for Katie Beers was stalling out and officers were preparing to just let her case run cold.

But the following afternoon, on January 13th, the unexpected happened. John Esposito had gathered his entire family together along with his lawyer. He sat them down and said, there's something I need to tell you. I know where Katie is. And when they were like, okay, is she still alive? He said the answer was yes.

So let's go back once more to the day that Katie went missing, to December 28th, actually two days before her actual birthday.

Now, apparently, this wasn't the first time John had attempted to get Katie alone. There had been several times over the last few months where he would sneak over to Linda's house and try to lure Katie away by offering to take her to lunch, maybe go buy her a new toy. And Katie, kind of sensing the danger, almost always made up some new excuse as to why she couldn't go. But that December afternoon was different.

Linda practically pressured Katie into going off with John for the day, despite her mother and her gut telling her not to.

And Katie, who's terrified of Aunt Linda, who has been physically abusing and mentally abusing her, she didn't resist. She went with Big John. Now, the first half of what John Esposito told police was actually factual. He picked Katie up in his pickup truck. He drove her to a toy store. He then drove her for a Slurpee. And then, if you recall, he said he drove her back to his place to play the video game before going to Spaceplex.

Well, it turns out Katie never even made it to Spaceplex that day. John invited her into his apartment to play that Home Alone video game, and then he left for a few minutes. But when he returned, according to him, something had switched inside of him.

Katie noticed that his baseball cap, the one he was never seen without, was gone. And John was no longer exuding that childlike energy that he always carried. Instead, he had a darkness behind his eyes. And Katie immediately felt like a sitting duck. She knew nobody else was in the house, so even if she screamed, it wasn't likely that anyone would come help her. But that's when things took a turn for the worst.

John picked Katie up and carried her into the office space of his apartment. He dropped her on the floor, slammed the door shut, and went over to a closet. Inside, he began peeling the carpet from the floor, exposing a trap door underneath, and it was a concrete slab that led to some sort of secret bunker. One even John's family did not know existed.

Now, as John was doing this, Katie only had a few seconds to react. So in the moments John wasn't watching, she rushed to the phone and she dialed 911 and she gets the operator. She tells them in the quietest voice that she can muster that she's uncertain of the house number, but she's somewhere on Saxon Avenue. But that's all she has time to say because John comes over and rips the phone from her hands.

He then orders her to start climbing down these makeshift steps into that underground bunker. And I, I'm heartbroken for Katie. I mean, to go what she has gone through up to this point in her life and then be with someone who has been so consistent in her life and have him shoving her into this bunker. It is evil.

and so when she gets inside and looks around she realizes this is something that big john must have been working on for a while this was premeditated this was planned because it's not just a little concrete hole he has soundproofed the walls with material there's a little camping mattress with pillows and blankets and a set of 101 dalmatians pajamas sitting on the bed there's even a working television in there

So Katie asks John if he made this space specifically for her. And he tells her, yeah, he'd been planning to kidnap her for some time. And then John disappears for a few minutes. And when he comes back, he gives Katie all of this candy, this soda, and a small tape recorder. And he says he needs her to record a message, something he makes her practice over and over again until she gets it right.

and the message is the one that we heard before. Aunt Linda, a man kidnapped me and has a knife, and oh no, here he comes, I've gotta go. A recording that John will later play into the phone outside of Spaceplex.

But after making that recording, John had another request. He wanted Katie to pretend like she was sleeping so he could take a picture of her. And when Katie asked him why, he said, so the police won't look for you because they'll think you're dead. Well, Katie refuses. She starts throwing a fit and John relents. He says, okay, we'll just do it another day. And then he shuts the top of the bunker and he drills the top closed.

So with no windows or light from the outside world, Katie would have had no idea how much time had passed had it not been for the little TV in the bunker that was constantly playing MTV. Aside from that, John came down once a day to check on her, to ask if there was anything he could get her to make her more comfortable, bring her some junk food. It was in that cold, dark little room that Katie spent her 10th birthday while the rest of the world was out searching for her.

But Katie used that time wisely. She began devising ways to outsmart her captor. On day two, John asked her to help him with a sound test. He told Katie to scream at the top of her lungs as he closed the top of the bunker. But Katie knew better. She didn't scream at all. Although when John opened the lid, she told him she had. She figured it would pay off the day that someone came searching for her.

But even a good set of lungs couldn't help Katie on day three. That afternoon, the police came by the Esposito house to check up on Big John, and Katie could hear them walking around just above her head. She screamed and she banged while she could hear conversations about space plexus.

But turns out, the bunker was soundproof after all. That afternoon, police came and went, not knowing that the little girl they were looking for was right beneath their feet.

Now, as more days passed, Katie did her best to stay awake as much as possible. She didn't want to give John the opportunity to photograph her or take advantage of her while she was sleeping. Eventually, she stopped eating what he was giving her as well, fearful that he was maybe going to slip some poison into her food or drink. And instead of music videos, Katie began tuning into the news to catch updates online.

own disappearance and as she sat there in her own thoughts the 10 year old came up with a plan.

she decided she was going to figure out how to manipulate John to get him to cast doubt on his own diabolical decisions. And little by little, Katie started engaging more and more with John when he came into the bunker, asking him questions about the future, her future. John told her he wanted to keep her forever, that as soon as she turned 18, he wanted to marry her, have kids with her.

But Katie started planting little seeds that made John second guess how his long-term plan was going to work out. She wanted to know how she would get an education, what would happen with school, where was she going to work, how would she contribute to their future, their family. Katie told John that if he kept her down there in that bunker, she would never be a normal person, let alone a wife.

That if he let her go, she would remain loyal to him. She would protect him. She even pitched him a solution at 10 years old. He could let her out in the middle of the night. She'd sneak out into the woods, into the highway, never telling a soul where she had been. She would blame the entire thing on Uncle Sal, would say she ran away from him. And if John was ever questioned, she would say he helped keep her safe.

As these conversations went on, Katie became more and more convincing. She even told John that she loved him, that she would do anything for him. A few times, she even had to talk John out of some suicidal thoughts. And several times, he had told Katie that suicide felt like the only way to get him out of this mess he created. But Katie knew that his death probably also meant her own.

that if he took this secret with him to the grave, no one would probably ever find her down there. All right, you guys, we are getting into an ad and this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now my self-care non-negotiable is I always go on a hot girl walk most nights of the week. It really helps me clear my head, move my body and get fresh air.

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Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash husband, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash husband now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash husband. So on top of convincing John to let her go, she also had to convince him to stay alive. Something Katie persisted at for 17 days.

And then on January 13th, 1993, it paid off. Katie had successfully gotten John to come clean to his lawyer, his family, and then finally the police.

That afternoon, Katie heard John's footsteps above her like usual, but this time they were accompanied by several other heavy strides. John had led a team of officers back to the home with him, and when he lifted the lid to her bunker, the light came pouring in to reveal several new faces. Realizing they were all in uniform, Katie sighed a breath of relief. She was free.

The police lifted Katie from the chamber, led her into the living room where John Esposito was sitting in shame. And now we're going to talk about something that is so hard to hear in these cases. Because instead of getting Katie out of there and off to a hospital for examination, they sat her down right next to John and questioned her alongside him.

Which at the time, I'm sure Katie was just relieved to be in the company of the police. But if you think about it, this must have only added to the trauma that she had to experience. Having to sit there and answer questions about your experience with your captor staring you down from right next to you. And yet, that's where Katie stayed for the next hour.

Until police finally placed her in one of the squad cars and pulled off the property while navigating a sea of photographers and reporters, all trying to get the shot of Katie Beers, the 10-year-old girl who was found alive 17 days after her kidnapping.

Now, the FBI said they had seen a lot of hidden rooms in abduction cases like this, but never one built as meticulously as the one John Esposito had created for Katie. John admitted that he had built the location a year and a half prior to abducting Katie, and he had spent over $5,000 constructing it. The FBI also suspected that he might have used it with other kids before.

As for Katie, she did not go back to Linda or Marilyn's home after the abduction. By this point, police were well aware that neither place was safe for Katie to continue living. And instead, Katie was relocated to a foster home where for the first time in her life, she actually did gain some stability.

As her foster family did their best to shield her from the media, Katie began attending school. She started making friends. She joined the volleyball team, acted in school productions. And then eventually she grew up and went to college in Pennsylvania where she met her would-be husband and now the father of her two children. She actually even went on to co-write a book about her experience.

John Esposito's story, however, does not have a happy ending. On June 16th, 1994, he pleaded guilty to kidnapping but was sentenced to only 15 years in prison.

Probably because in exchange for that plea, John had over 10 pending charges dropped, including sexual abuse and endangering the life of a child. Now, during a later parole hearing, John told the board that he only planned to whisk Katie away from her terrible home life for a better one in Mexico or Australia. And when asked if he had sexually assaulted Katie during her time in captivity, John claimed, no, he was asexual and that he only kissed her on the lips, which...

Is a blatant lie. Katie knows it's a lie. Thankfully, John was continually denied parole during his sentence. Sal, however, did pay the price for assaulting Katie Beers. Two weeks after John was sentenced, Sal was found guilty of two counts of sexual abuse and he was given 12 years in prison where he actually died in 2009.

Four years later, in September of 2013, John was back in court for another parole hearing. And this time, he finally admitted that, yes, he did sexually abuse Katie Beers. This was a statement that Katie had been waiting for him to admit since she was set free back in 1993.

After being denied parole once again that afternoon, John returned to his cell where a few hours later he died of natural causes. Yeah, you heard that right. Right now, Garrett would be saying, no way. Natural causes after being denied parole.

While the experience undoubtedly changed the course of Katie's life, she believed it may have been for the better since it ultimately saved her from a life of perpetual abuse. She's been quoted saying, I try not to be sad about what happened because ultimately it made me who I am today and I'm very satisfied and happy with my life. And Katie,

researching this and learning about Katie, what a terrible, terrible thing to go through. But it always astounds me how young kids and people alike can fight for their life and come out on top, come out with a happy life with a husband and children after going through this.

So let's take today to think about Katie, to think about all the victims, her brother John as well. And remember you guys, be a good person, be good people, look out for kids, look out for signs that things like this is happening. Katie's distress did not start in the bunker with Big John. She had been distressed far earlier.

All right, you guys, I love it and Garrett hates it. And we will see you next week. Goodbye.