Mill Worker Convicted in Sex Slave Case : Red Bluff Man Held Woman Prisoner, Could Get 73-Year Term

A lumber mill worker was convicted Thursday of abducting a young hitchhiker at knifepoint and holding her in bondage for seven years as his sex slave.

A San Mateo County Superior Court jury of eight women and four men deliberated 14 hours over three days before returning the verdict against Cameron Hooker, 31, of Red Bluff.

Hooker was convicted of one count of kidnaping by force, six counts of rape, one count of penetration with a foreign object, one count of sodomy and one count of oral copulation. He was acquitted of one count of rape.

He could draw a prison term as long as 73 years when he is sentenced by Judge Clarence B. Knight on Nov. 22.

Fled to Parents’ Home

Hooker was accused of abducting the woman on May 19, 1977, as she hitchhiked near Red Bluff and holding her for bondage sex practices until August of 1984, when she fled to her parents’ home in Riverside.

The jury considered more than 140 items of evidence, including sexual bondage equipment made by Hooker and love letters written by the woman to Hooker while she was staying with Hooker and his wife, Janice.

“Praise the Lord, I’m glad we got justice,” the prosecutor, Deputy Tehama County Dist. Atty. Christine McGuire, quoted the 28-year-old victim as saying when she was informed of the verdict.

The defense claimed that the woman fell in love with Hooker and was a willing participant in bondage rituals.

The prosecution said the woman believed that she would be killed if she escaped. The woman testified that she wrote the love letters only so Hooker would treat her better, not because she loved him.

Judge Praises Jury

The judge praised the jury for rejecting the contention of the chief defense witness, psychiatrist Dr. Donald T. Lunde, a Stanford University professor, who said the woman was a willing partner rather than a prisoner.

“I commend your intelligence in dismissing the testimony of Dr. Lunde,” Knight said. “Witnesses like that are a menace to the criminal justice system. I’m happy you had the good sense to see through him.”

“He was not convincing and not prepared,” juror Franklin Bertheau said of Lunde. “I felt (the victim) was confined even when she was jogging. I felt she was under constant emotional and physical confinement at all times.”

Hooker was not arrested until three months after the woman fled. It was his wife who finally called in authorities, with the help of a clergyman.

Statute of Limitations

Under California’s three-year statute of limitations on kidnaping, the jury had to decide whether the woman was held captive during the entire seven years she lived with the Hookers in Red Bluff, a ranching and farming community 160 miles northeast of San Francisco.

The trial, which began Sept. 26, was transferred here because of heavy pretrial news coverage.

The Hookers admitted that they kidnaped the woman, then 20 years old, at knifepoint. Janice Hooker was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.

Hooker also admitted that he convinced the woman that he was a member of a fictitious sex-slave ring called “The Company,” which would hunt her down and kill her if she tried to flee.

Locked in Box

The prosecution claimed that the woman was locked in a box, kept under the Hookers’ water bed, for up to 23 hours at a time from 1981 to 1984. While admitting that the woman was kept in the box, the defense said the woman was allowed out many times and that the confinement was not as lengthy as claimed.

In August, 1985, the woman filed a civil lawsuit in Tehama County Superior Court seeking $10 million in damages from Hooker. That case is pending.