Missing teenager confined to house for years

A woman who disappeared as a teenager 10 years ago had been living with a middle school security guard who did not allow her to leave his home for several years, police in Pennsylvania said.

Tanya Kach, now 24, who was reunited with her family this week, had been living at the man’s home, located about two miles from her father’s house in a Pittsburgh suburb.

The two met when Thomas Hose, 48, worked as a security guard at a school where Kach was a pupil. It was not immediately clear how she ended up at the home.

She was discovered on Tuesday when she approached a convenience store owner and told him that she was not Nikki Evans, the name the owner knew her by. She said she was being kept locked in a bedroom, said the owner, Joseph Sparico.

When she told him her real name, he said, she was upset and shaking.

“I was so scared that nobody would believe me,” Kach told WTAE-TV from her father’s home yesterday.

Sparico’s son, a retired police officer, recognised Kach’s name and Sparico contacted authorities.

Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said Kach had been staying at the home Hose shared with his parents since 1996 and was not allowed to leave for the first four years she was there.

When others came over, Kach had to stay in a bedroom, Moffatt said.

“She had no contact with people, other than the people that were in the home,” Moffatt said.

Moffatt said Hose would tell her what to eat and what to wear, but there was no indication that Kach had been physically restrained. He said charges were pending but would not elaborate.

James Ecker, Hose’s lawyer, said police planned to charge his client with sex crimes involving a minor. He said there was no indication that Kach had been abducted or kidnapped.

“As far as I know no one has ever said she was held against her will,” Ecker said.

Kach disappeared on February 10, 1996, said Police Chief Joseph Pero. She was initially listed as a runaway, but her status was changed to a missing person. He would not say why.

The woman’s father, Jerry Kach, was grateful for her return. “I just say thank you. There is a God and he brought my little girl back home,” he said.