A Survivor's Story
BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK, KATIE HONAN,NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A woman snatched by a family friend on Long Island and held captive in an underground bunker for 17 hellish days when she was 9 years old says sexual abuse she suffered before her abduction helped her survive her ordeal.
Katie Beers was lured to John Esposito’s Bay Shore, Long Island, home in December 1992 with the promise of birthday presents.
Instead, he stashed her in a coffin-size dungeon beneath his garage built specifically for the child.
Actually, it was 6'x9', which is very large for a coffin. See photo below.
During an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit on Thursday, Beers said she was sexually abused and raped by Esposito during her nearly three weeks in captivity.
He confessed to the kidnapping, which landed him behind bars for the remainder of his life. But he only admitted to the abuse while speaking with his parole officer just before he died in 2013 and never faced charges for the abuse.
While she’s already detailed the torture she experienced at the hands of Esposito in her New York Times best-selling memoir “Buried Memories,” Beers revealed some more in her recent virtual question and answer session.
Beers recounted the trauma she suffered before Esposito took her and how it helped her get through her time in captivity.
Years before her abduction, she was placed in the home of a family friend whose husband, Salvatore Inghilleri, sexually abused her. He was later convicted of the abuse, which was revealed only after the kidnapping.
A crane raises a 6-by-9 foot bunker out of the earth from the property of John Esposito in Bay Shore, N.Y. (MICHAEL ALEXANDER/AP)
Beers said she was “physically, emotionally and verbally abused by all the adults who were supposed to take care of me.”
While Child Protective Services did try to intervene, it was difficult for her to be honest while being interviewed in the house where she was abused, she said.
Despite the depravity she experienced on a daily basis, Beers said she tried to keep a shred of hope.
“I knew from an early age that not all people were bad ... and not everyone was out to hurt me,” she wrote.
Beers was rescued from her subterranean bunker Jan. 13, 1993, after Esposito confessed to his lawyer.
The frightened child thought her rescuers were Esposito’s friends coming to rape her, Beers husband wrote in a Reddit post.
After her ordeal, Beers was placed with a supportive foster family in East Hampton, where she was raised with four siblings.
John Esposito faces the court during his arraignment in Central Islip, N.Y., on charges he imprisoned 10-year-old Katie Beers in an underground bunker for 17 days. (ALEX BRANDON/AP)
She credits her parents as being “invaluable” to her recovery.
Now 35 and a mother of two, she said having children “completed my heart” and she finds it difficult to not be a “helicopter parent” after what she went through.
Beers hasn’t spoken with her biological family, including her mother and an older brother, in years.
“For the stability of my family, I’ve cut off contact with them,” she wrote.
And after years of silence, Beers says she is an inspirational speaker now, and she’d like to share her story with more people.
“I realized that my childhood shaped who I was and that I shouldn’t try to distance myself from it,” she said.
“I hope that one day, after enough survivors have the courage to speak about their abuse, that there will no longer be a ‘stigma’ associated with surviving.”
Smart woman. God bless you!
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