But things were about to get nightmarishly worse. Jennifer accepted a ride from an “old white man” who pulled up alongside her as she was walking through town. “He said he was going to take me home,” says Jennifer, who spoke to NEWSWEEK on the condition that her full name not be used. Instead, police believe, 67-year-old retired handyman John Jamelske kidnapped Jennifer and held her captive in a homemade concrete bunker in his yard, turning her into his sex slave. Jennifer, who says Jamelske burned her with a cigar when she refused his advances, was released two months later. And when she went to the police, she says they didn’t take her story seriously.
They do now. This April, a 16-year-old girl who says she was also being held by Jamelske managed to sneak a call to her sister, who alerted authorities. When Jamelske was arrested (he’s been charged with rape, kidnapping and sodomy), police found a veritable house of horrors. A maze built underneath Jamelske’s backyard included two cell-like rooms where Jamelske is believed to have held a series of young runaways and drug abusers. The number of suspected victims is up to five, NEWSWEEK has learned, and Jamelske is accused of holding one of the girls, who was 14 when she was nabbed, for two years. Jamelske released most of his alleged victims with warnings that their families would be killed if they spoke to the cops, police say. Jamelske’s lawyer says any relationships he had were consensual. As evidence, he cites a teenager who was seen performing in public at a karaoke bar during her time with Jamelske. But the lawyer, Michael Forsyth, also says he won’t rule out future mental-competency exams for his client, or an insanity plea.
Jamelske seemed to have targeted victims who wouldn’t be missed; with more than 17,000 teenage runaways in New York state in 2002, that’s a large pool. Child-welfare workers say it’s a difficult population to protect. “Runaways have strikes against them, so police don’t always believe them,” says Tom Roshau, director of youth services for the Salvation Army in Syracuse. “It makes them doubly vulnerable.”
The details trickling out from victims and police already have DeWitt residents comparing Jamelske to fictional psychopaths. Jamelske had Jennifer read Bible passages to him during the day and made some of his victims record every time they bathed, ate, slept or had sex with him, the authorities say. Two of the girls, including Jennifer, say they heard screams. Police now think those were likely prerecorded and piped in on a makeshift intercom system.
They’re also answering questions about their own conduct. Jennifer says the police all but refused to investigate her claims. “I asked for a sketch,” she says, “and [the police] said, ‘We’re closing the case’.” Sheriff Kevin Walsh admits his force could have done more, but stresses that “all we had was her story. It was very hard to believe that could happen in your community,” Walsh says. That’s a sentiment that Jennifer–and her neighbors in DeWitt–will be struggling with for a long time to come.
