Moyer could not be reached for comment for this story. But according to court records, published reports, and interviews with people who know him, he has always maintained that he did not sexually assault Mitchell's stepdaughter. He claimed at his September 9, 2002, preliminary hearing, that he, his wife and the young woman had consensual three-way sex the night before his abduction. But Moyer apparently also knew that Mitchell was likely to have a far different view of the events, and he worried that Mitchell might make trouble for him, and perhaps even find a way to send him back to jail.

That's why, Moyer later testified, he tried repeatedly to reach out to Mitchell during the day on August 11, 2002. According to an account of the hearing published in the Allentown Morning Call, Moyer said that he tried twice to telephone Mitchell, and he was on his way to Mitchell's house to speak to him in person when Mitchell and Nestor caught up with him at the Clouser's Mini-Market where he had stopped to make a telephone call.

A clerk at the store later told authorities that the scene was complete mayhem when Mitchell and Nestor burst in. The two men grabbed the cowering man and hit him repeatedly. According to the clerk's testimony, they told her that the man they were attacking had "raped a woman the night before," and when she tried to object to the beating, Mitchell told her, "Go ahead, call the police if you want to."

As Mitchell and Nestor led Moyer from the store, the young man broke free and dashed into the woods, but the two men, who had already disabled his car, caught up with him soon enough. After forcing him to pump their gas then pumping a large amount of it all over him they pushed him into their car. A bandana was forced into his mouth and the two men made Moyer blindfold himself, beating him all the while.

At first, they drove to Mitchell's house. Authorities speculated that they returned to Mitchell's house so he could retrieve the gun, a .45-caliber semiautomatic which prosecutors claimed was used to terrorize Moyer. Moyer said that he could see nothing, but knew he was at Mitchell's house when he heard the young woman, Mitchell's stepdaughter, plead with the two men, "please, don't do anything stupid."

Then, according to statements given later to police by Moyer and the others, the two men exacted a confession from Moyer while they were at Mitchell's house. Under duress, authorities contend, fearing for his life, Moyer allegedly admitted that he had raped the young woman.

Authorities never put any credence in that alleged confession, prosecutor Serina told Crimelibrary. The only real witnesses to the confession were the assailants themselves, and perhaps Mitchell's family members. But even if Moyer did make a statement under the circumstances, it would have carried no weight with police or prosecutors, Serina said. After what he had gone through, Serina said, it was likely that Moyer would have said anything Mitchell wanted him to. As Moyer said when asked in court why he had asked police to read him his rights when they came to rescue him, the night of the abduction, "I was messed up, confused and scared I don't think I raped anybody."

But the admission, tainted though it might have been, was apparently good enough for Mitchell and Nestor.

In their minds it justified the actions that followed, authorities say. According to Moyer, he was trundled back into the car, blindfolded and beaten. For 15 or 20 minutes, the car wandered the back roads. Nestor was behind the wheel, he said. Mitchell was beating him and behind his gag, Moyer was weeping. "I was crying and saying I wanted to go home," Moyer told the court.

At some point, Nestor pulled off onto a remote dirt road. Moyer was permitted to take off his blindfold and spit out the gag. He was also ordered to strip. When he did, he later claimed and his claim was supported by a medical examination conducted at a local hospital a day after the attack Nestor struck him several times in the genitals with a makeshift club, the same club, authorities believe, Nestor later forced Moyer to sodomize himself with. In the meantime, Mitchell was stomping on him, at one point stepping on his throat. Then Mitchell had his turn at bat, prosecutors claimed, striking Moyer several times on the back with the club, leaving large, bat-shaped bruises across the young man's spine.

After that, they lit cigarettes and held the glowing tip against his testicles three times. When they were done, they pushed the young man into the brambles and forced him to crawl out, the thorns ripping through his flesh.

Even then, the ordeal wasn't over. They let him stumble toward a small creek to wash off the blood as best he could, and then they allowed him to get dressed and ordered him to put the blindfold back on. They got back in the car and drove for what Moyer later estimated to be another half an hour.

Moyer said he was forced out of the car and onto his knees. He said Mitchell jammed the barrel of what he believed was a gun into the back of his head. Then, he said, Mitchell stroked his face with the gun. "At that point," Moyer told the court, "he was asking me if I wanted to die."

Then, he said, he heard Mitchell loading the handgun. The next thing he heard were six rounds exploding beside his head. "I couldn't hear for a minute or two."

And then, they let him go.

It's not clear whether Moyer would have reported the incident himself if his wife had not called the police. The way his family member put it, the young man was deeply frightened, and probably humiliated by the attack he endured, and may well have wanted to keep the whole matter secret. "He was scared to death that guy would come back and do some more, or do worse to him," Moyer's relative said. "If you did something wrong and I went and told the police or told somebody on you, you would go back and finish the job, wouldn't you? I think that's what he was afraid of. That he would come back for more."