Man 'stabs himself' before sex-abuse trial

A US man reportedly stabbed himself just before he was to go on trial today for sex crimes against a runaway who said she was secretly hidden in his home for a decade.

Thomas John Hose (aged 49) was hospitalised this morning after he was found bleeding in his home, defence lawyer Jim Ecker said.

“He stabbed himself several times and he supposedly took some kind of medication,” Mr Ecker said before a judge issued a gag order in the case.

He said he received a call from Hose’s mother earlier today, saying Hose was “sitting on a chair with blood coming out of him”.

Hose is charged with counts including involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault. A judge set a new trial date of May 14 and ordered that Hose be given a psychiatric evaluation.

The trial was also supposed to start today for Judith Sokol (aged 58), a beautician who prosecutors say helped the girl run away from home and change her looks.

The runaway, Tanya Nicole Kach (now aged 25) was discovered last year after she told a shop owner she was on a missing person’s website. The owner called police, and Ms Kach told authorities she ran away from home 10 years earlier and had been living in Hose’s house.

Ms Kach, who has given several interviews about her ordeal, has said that she met Hose when she was an eighth-grader and that Hose used psychological tactics to keep her from leaving, including threatening to kill her.

Hose, a school security guard, has contended that Kach was never restrained in his home in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, a small city several miles east of Pittsburgh.