Tanya Nichole Kach, sex slave

Imitation of Love

There is little doubt that the Kach who ran off from her then single father was a confused youngster in late 1995 and early 1996. According to published reports, she has told reporters that she felt awkward, and was, by all accounts, less than a committed student at Cornell Middle School, where she first encountered Hose, she has claimed.

McKeesport School

At the time, he was a handsome, dark haired man, not yet 40, who lived with his elderly parents, and from time to time with his son from a failed marriage, in a small house on Soles Street in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKeesport. Their first encounter was in September of 1995. She was then just 14 and had decided to cut classes at the school. Rather than wander off school grounds, however, she hid a stairwell, where, according to court papers, Hose found her. The way she described it to authorities, she and the security guard talked for a bit. Then, they kissed.

Perhaps, in her adolescent fantasy, this was romance. She certainly seemed to see it that way, according to her statement to authorities. In fact, she said, after that initial contact, she began calling the older man, and he allegedly responded. In the terse legalese of an affidavit in support of Hose's arrest warrant, an investigator put it this way: "The relationship continued with her calling him and Hose calling her."

By the beginning of 1996, either on her own or with Hose's prodding, the 14-year-old girl decided to walk away from everything she had known all her life, and to run off with Hose.

She didn't run far.

In fact, she and Hose never made it out of McKeesport.