Fourth girl held in handyman’s horror dungeon

A 16-YEAR-OLD who was held captive in a back yard “dungeon” and repeatedly raped was rescued after she was finally able to make a whispered phone call to her sister, police in New York state said yesterday.

The call led officers to a weathered blue home hidden behind a 20ft evergreen hedge. It was there they believe 67-year-old John Jamelske, a widower and retired handyman with two sons, systematically imprisoned and raped at least four young women.

The 16-year-old was allegedly held there for six months, and while Jamelske’s lawyer has insisted it is not a “Silence-of-the-Lambs-scenario,” police are hunting for more possible victims.

During their search, officers said they found photographs of women chained to a wall. They also found diaries Jamelske had allegedly forced his victims to keep, recording details like when they were raped, when they showered and when they brushed their teeth.

“He may have been just a handyman, but he apparently created his own world where he was the ultimate ruler, a king,” said Dr Alan Manevitz, a psychiatrist at New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

At Jamelske’s house, just outside Syracuse, a steel basement door led through a series of crawl spaces and doors to two 12-sq-ft rooms with 8ft ceilings, said Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh.

The first chamber was furnished with a small tub and chemical toilet. The second had a microwave oven and a mattress. There was an intercom and ducts for heating and electricity.

The basement door was hidden behind thousands of empty beer bottles and cans, neatly stacked from floor to ceiling.

Jamelske was charged on April 9 with kidnapping, rape, sexual abuse and sodomy after the rescue of the 16-year-old girl.

She was only able to sneak the phone call to her sister when Jamelske took her out to run an errand after six months of captivity, police said.

Prosecutors said they will also present evidence from three other women who came forward with similar accounts. None has been identified.

“It’s scary to think about,” said Lynnette Bonner, a teacher who lives about a mile from Jamelske’s house. “My daughter came to visit and went jogging right by the house. I drive by it twice a day.”

Officials will also re-examine the deaths of Jamelske’s wife Dorothy and the 1990 death of his 85-year-old mother Wanda.

They had previously concluded both deaths resulted from natural causes. So far, Jamelske has exercised his right to remain silent, Walsh said.

“We certainly did not expect to ever see something like this in our community,” the sheriff said. “I have been in law enforcement for 40 years and I have never seen anything as bizarre.”