Have you watched Silence of the Lambs or Split where a kidnapper keeps his victims locked up in a secret room with 1 meal of broth or vegetables?
It’s the stuff of nightmares and makes the skin crawl.
But, five people were found locked away in a secret room in real life.
In Amsterdam, the Netherlands, five siblings aged between 18 to 25 were found locked away in a rural farmhouse by a man believed to be their father.
This was what it looked like:
The One that Got Away
The discovery was made after the sixth victim, a 25-year-old man escaped the farmhouse and got help at a cafe nearby.
According to The Straits Times, an employee at the cafe said that a scruffy-looking man with long hair had entered the cafe.
“You could see he had no idea where he was or what he was doing. He said he had run away and that he urgently needed help” Chris Westerbeek, the owner of the cafe told RTV Drenthe, a news media company in the Netherlands.
The 25-year-old man had not been outside for nine years.
Local Amsterdam TV stations reported that the family may have had ‘end of days’ beliefs but authorities did not confirm this.
The five siblings and the man believed to be their father are currently receiving medical treatment.
How They Were Found
After the 25-year-old man escaped and the police were notified, police investigated the house and found a staircase behind a cupboard in the living room that led to the basement where the father and children were living.
According to RTV Drenthe, the siblings were living in makeshift rooms and lived off of vegetables and animals from a garden on the property.
Police Statement
The siblings and their ailing father were found near Ruinerwold, a village in the Nothern Province of Drenthe.
“We found six people living in a small space in the house which could be locked, not a cellar. It is unclear if they resided there voluntarily,” a police spokesperson told the local news media.
Mayor Roger de Groot confirmed that a 58-year-old man who was not the father had been arrested. However, his role remains unclear. The man was identified as ‘Joseph B’, an Austrian carpenter.
Dutch police confirmed that they had arrested a man who was renting the farm but didn’t elaborate on his identity.
Looks like the story still has many missing pieces.
The police said that none of the family members were registered as residents with the municipality.
Quite disturbing really.
After all, we can’t even stay in our house for nine days.
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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