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KIDNAPPED: Tanya Kach

The middle schooler that was held captive by her school’s security guard for a decade.

On February 10th 1996, Tanya Kach ran away from home under the promise of a better life, a life where she would be happy and safe. But for the six months prior to leaving the house she lived in with her father and his girlfriend, Tanya was being groomed by her school’s newest worker.

Thomas Hose had just been hired at Cornell Middle School as a security guard. People described him as having a great relationship with the children he had sworn to protect, joking with them as they went about their school day or high-fiving them as they walked through doorways. One of those children, it went a little further.

Tanya began going to Hose for life advice, complaining about her home and school life. Soon, what could have been an innocent mentorship turned sour. The bond would become sexual on school grounds, beginning with Hose kissing under the stairwell whilst Tanya skipped class. Thomas Hose was 23 years Tanya’s senior.

After six months, Hose suggested that Tanya should go and live with him. Which brings us back to February 10th. Tanya made it two miles from her home to Hose’s where she was then locked away in a spare room on the upper floor of the house. No matter how much she pleaded to be released, Hose didn’t listen or care. He would threaten the lives of Tanya and her family on a daily basis to scare the young girl into submission.

The conditions that Tanya was now forced to live in were grim, to say the least. She was forced to memorize floorboards so as to not alert Hose’s elderly parents or his son of her presence. She was only allowed to shower once a week while everyone else in the house slept and she had to go to the toilet in a bucket. Hose also made Tanya journal all their sexual encounters in a journal.

The only way that Tanya could pass time was by reading magazines, watching TV with a headset and listening to the radio with a headset. She noted that her saddest memories were always around Christmas time. “I spent four Christmas Eves in a closet and hear them opening and laughing and having fun. And I would sit there and think of my family, and think of other people around the world and what they were doing at that moment.”

For the next four years, Hose was the only person that Tanya constantly saw.

At some point whilst Hose had Tanya captive, he took her to a hairdresser named Judith Sokol. She changed Tanya’s hairstyle to help hide her from potentially being recognised. She also allowed them to have “sex” in her home. Judith Sokol would later plead guilty to statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault and corruption of a minor.

When Tanya turned 18, Hose introduced her to his family as his live-in girlfriend, Nikki Diane Allen. After the introduction, Tanya was free to roam around the home rather than being locked in a room, forced to be silent.

Slowly, Tanya would be allowed to leave the home, eventually, Hose allowed her to go alone to the local deli-mart. The progression from freely going around the house to going out alone took six years and Tanya was 24.

At the deli-mart, Tanya would meet the people that would help save her from the mental entrapment that Hose had on her. Joe and Janet Sparico, the owners of the shop. After 8 months of building trust between herself and Joe and Tanya felt safe enough to reveal what was truly happening to her.

After Tanya had left, Joe called his retired police officer son, Shawn. He didn’t entirely believe what Tanya was telling but still wanted to check, just to be sure. Joe would later recall the conversation with his son. “He says ‘hey dad, don’t tell me her last names Kach’. He turned white as a ghost. He couldn’t believe it. They really thought this girl was dead.”

At 24 Tanya was rescued after a decade of captivity. She would later describe realising everything was truly over when she was sitting in the back of a police car waiting for her dad to pick her up.

Thomas Hose was later sentenced to 5–15 years with the charges:

  • Aggravated indecent assault
  • Statutory sexual assault
  • 2 counts of indecent assault
  • 3 counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse
  • endangering the welfare of children
  • corruption of a minor
  • interference of custody of child(ren)

Hose was released from prison in 2022.

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Location: McKeesport, PA, USA

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