they vanished one by one. kidnapped from their families, taken where no one could hear their screams. >> you could hear the doors clinging. i thought i was going to die. >> what was happening in this quiet suburb? >> forced you to have sex? >> yes. >> every single day. >> every single day. >> terrified women kept chained lie animals, locked away for months, even years. and he was their captor, a bizarre millionaire. now, hear him tell his story in a dramatic jailhouse interview. >> i am not this horrible ha monster. i never hurt anyone. >> women alone and forgotten.

how did they survive? in the darkest corners of the human mind -- >> i did not want to die. >> on msnbc reports. >> hi, everyone. this is msnbc reports. when young girls disappear, it often becomes a huge national story. elisabeth smart, polly klaas, the heartbreaking case of carlie brucia, the florida sixth grader kidnapped and killed on the way home from a friend's house. in that investigation, the amber alert system combined with media attention to help police find a suspect within days of carly's disappearance. but sometimes young women disappear and no one notices. that's exactly what happened in this story. a string of women missing and no one suspected a thing. it wasn't until years later that police were stunned to learn what had really been happening in their community and who had been to blame. here rob stafford.

>> the doors cling open. i heard, "i'm back." >> i didn't know what was going to be or what. >> the manicured suburbs of syracuse, new york, are an unlikely setting for the tale we're about to tell. a story of rape, bondage, and victims whose screams no one could hear. there is a dungeon in this story, conceived in the darkest corners of the human mind. and a millionaire predator who managed to imprison and control vulnerable girls and women for 15 years. using chains and deceit. >> i'm not the monster that they're painting this horrid picture of, okay? >> on the surface, nothing here suggests the rolling hills of this county in central new york might have once been a bizarre

sort of bermuda triangle. a place where women and teenage girls mysteriously vanished for months, even years, as a time. only to reappear with wild stories of dungeon captivity and sexual slavery. stories that still might not be believed today if they hadn't turned out to be true. in mid-september, 1988, the school year was in full swing, and the syracuse football team was gearing up for another winning season. nobody around here was talking about a local native american girl who had simply vanished without a trace. that item never made the news. that girl, kiersten howard, was 14 that fall and growing up fast. out late on a saturday night, drinking with friends. >> my friends were talking to somebody else up the street. i was talking to somebody in a

car, which i don't really remember. and he turned around and i wasn't there. >> just like that. >> just like that. >> you were gone. >> yep. >> what is the next thing you remember? >> i had a chain around my ankle, and i didn't know where i was. >> kiersten says she was lying naked on a cement floor in a tiny windowless enclosure. she says there was barely enough room for her to sit, much less stand. though she doesn't remember how she got there, kiersten says she'll never forget the next person she saw. an old man who came crawling into the shed with crackers and kool-aid. did he explain to you why you were there? >> he just said i was there because i had to have sex with him every day, and that the bosses, he referred to them as, were keeping me there. >> how many times did he rape

you? >> every single day. >> rape, she says, every day, it would turn out, for the next three years. she says he gave her a basin to bathe in and a plastic container for a toilet. and with glaring flashlight in hand, he insisted on watching her use them. kiersten says after a year of being kept like an animal in what she learned was a shed housing pumping equipment, the old man moved her into more spacious quarters, a dungeon. an improvement, but not by much. two windowless concrete rooms, she says, one with a bathtub, the other empty except for a piece of foam rubber padding she used as a mattress. what she didn't know at the time was that the room was four feet underground. though the ceilings were high enough for her to stand now, she says the daily rapes continued with numbing repetition.

kiersten says the old man allowed her to write letters home and mailed them along with these pictures he took of her to show she was all right, but even that small kindness carried a terrifying threat. that he knew where her family lived and his bosses, powerful people, he said, would kill them if anyone ever went to the police. >> you now believe what he says? >> yeah, after all that time, yeah. i'll kill your brother. i'll kill your mother. >> in the fall of 1991, kiersten howard turns 17. she says she spent three of the most important years of her life as sex slave to an old man who kept her locked in an underground dungeon. while most girls have fond memories of these teenage years, kiersten said she's blocked almost everything out. she says she doesn't remember much about leaving the dungeon, only that shortly before he set

her free, the old man somehow managed to get her onto an airplane and fly her to lake tahoe in california. >> i don't really remember getting there. we stayed in this cabin in the woods. and we were there for maybe a week or so. >> whether the old man drugged her to get her to tahoe and back to syracuse may never be known. but kiersten says the next thing she remembers was standing alone in front of the airport terminal in syracuse. finally free after three years of captivity. >> i'm just standing there. i was free. i just ran to the airport. found the first pay phone. i called my mother. she came to pick me up. >> afraid the old man might make good on his death threats, kiersten says her family decided not to go to the police.

that decision would turn out to have dire consequences for other young women in the syracuse area. ten years after kiersten left the old man's dungeon, this woman went in. coming up, another prisoner, another victim. what would her fate be? >> reality just hit me like a ton of bricks. like, oh, my god. even if i knock this guy out, i can't open this door. >> there's no way out? >> no. no way out. >> when msnbc reports continues. ♪ (phone ringing) what's up mikey? hey buddy i heard you're having a party. what? if i was having a party, i'd invite you. would you? yeah. (phone ringing) oh! i got another call. adam: i'm not having a party! hey chris what's up! you heard about adam's party man? it's going to be crazy. i knew it! (beep) find the closest party store... introducing app-connect.

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announcer: babies who are talked to from the time they're born.. are more likely to have a successful future. talking and reading to children in their first years has a huge impact on what they do with the rest of their lives. the fewer words they hear, the greater their chances of dropping out of school and getting into trouble. talk. read. sing. your words have the power to shape their world. learn more at first5california.com/parents 14-year-old kiersten howard has just stepped out of a harrowing nightmare. abused and shaken, but alive. for three years, she says she was held prisoner, kept chained like an animal in an underground dungeon and raped, she says,

every single day. now, she is free. back at last with her family. she has not gone to the police because she says the man who kidnapped her has also threatened her, promising to kill her family if she ever spoke out. his secret was safe, and he was about to strike again. here again is rob stafford. >> the night actually happened, i was on acid. >> jennifer spalding, a single mom with a history of abusing drugs and alcohol, says she was walking through a rough section of syracuse late one night in may 2001 when an old man driving a rusted mercury comet pulled over and offered a ride. but she says instead of driving to her home, the old man took her to his. she says the next thing she remembers is waking up naked on a rough concrete floor with a chain around her ankle. >> i thought what the hell is is? it was scary.

i thought i was going to die. >> as you looked around at the walls, did you see anything? >> just writing, and i mean, it looked like girl's writing, because there was pictures and peace sign. >> so right away, you know you're not the first young lady to be in this room. >> yeah, i knew somebody else had been down there. >> jennifer says the next time she saw the old man, he was standing in front of her, and telling her that his job was to have sex with her every day. she says he told her he worked for very powerful people and even showed her a police badge to prove it. >> he's like, well every time you don't have sex with me, it adds on to the time that you're here. and i said, oh, so i will be going home? and he said, yeah. whenever my bosses say you can leave. >> though jennifer says she fought with the old man at first, she quickly realized escape from the windowless room was impaublg.

the walls were thick concrete and the old man always locked the dungeon steel doors behind him. >> reality just hit me like a ton of bricks. like, oh, my god. you know, even if i knock this guy out, i can't open this door. >> there's no way out? >> no. there is no way out. >> just as kiersten had ten years before, jennifer says she only saw the old man once a day. when he gave her one meal and demanded sex. >> so i just gave up, basically. just laid there and let him do his business. let him get it over with. >> jennifer says the old man also told her she had to record on a calendar every time she bathed and every time they had sex. when jennifer asked for permission to write her family and let them know that she wasn't dead, jennifer says the old man agreed to bring her pen and paper on one condition. >> he had to tell them that

you're in a drug rehab and you're all right. >> to jennifer, that seemed a small price to pay. and for her family, who had reported her missing and feared she was dead, the letter read like an answered prayer. only later would she realize the problems that letter would cause for the investigators who were looking for her. >> mom, i'm all right. i am in a drug rehab. i promise when you see me again, you'll meet a brand-new person. >> he dictated this? >> yeah, i think he thought he was doing me good. >> and according to jennifer, the old man's dungeon drug treatment program also included daily bible readings before each rape. >> when he heard enough, the next thing you know, he's telling me it's time to have our daily sex. >> then, two months after being kidnapped, the sex stopped. jennifer says she was certain this was the end. that he had tired of her and was going to kill her.

a few days later, she says the old man handcuffed and blindfolded her, put her in a car, and began to drive. jennifer says she prepared to die. but instead, he gave her $270 compensation for her two month in the dungeon and dropped her off in front of her mother's apartment complex. >> he snips off the handcuffs, takes the sweatshirt off me and tells me to get out of the car. >> just like that? >> i'm like thank god. i'm outside. i'm actually breathing air. i'm alive, and this guy is gone. >> later that night, when her mother took her to a hospital emergency room, jennifer says the doctors insisted she tell police what happened. like kiersten ten years earlier, jennifer says the old man had threatened to have her family killed if she ever went to authorities. but unlike the teen-aged kiersten, jennifer did go to the police with a sharp description of the man who had been holding

her. >> he had white hair. he was bald up on top. he had deep-set green eyes. they were like, you know, deep in his head. he had thin eyebrows, high cheekbones. thin lips. very thin lips. and his voice was kind of high pitched. >> jennifer says she also told detectives assigned to her case that the old man drove an orange or tannish two-door mercury comet, a 1974, she thought. but jennifer says within days of taking her statement, the investigator closed the case. telling her no orange or tan 1974 mercury comets were registered in the area. a police artist would never get the chance to sketch her description of the old man. >> they didn't believe your story? >> no. no. >> no one believed you? >> no. i called every single news station. newspapers, everything. and they didn't want to hear it. >> bluntly put, jennifer

spalding just wasn't believable. she had a drug history. she had written a letter saying she was in drug rehab. now she was claiming she had been an old man's sex slave locked in an underground dungeon. who would believe a story like that? as far as the police knew, this had never happened before. >> i think they could have handled it better than they did. they could have took a composite. you know? they could have -- i mean, that's the least they could have done. >> nearly two years would pass before the press and police would be begging for every detail jennifer could recall. but by then, it was too late. the dungeon had a new tenant. and the story of the syracuse dungeon master was about to make headlines around the world. coming up, an escape and a

capture. police find their way to the dungeon. >> kind of nerve-racking. you have about three, three and a half feet of soil above us. >> when msnbc reports continues. queso dip ♪ ♪ haven't been this lost in years ♪ (gps) ♪ recalculating shortest route ♪ ♪ do i really look like this? ♪

♪ never seen this one before ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪ i like it. ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm married to morty kaufman. [ lee ] now that i'm getting older some things are harder to do. this is not a safe thing to do. be careful babe. there should be some way to make it easier [ doorbell rings ] let's open it up and see what's cookin'.

oh i like that. look at this it's got a handle on it. i don't have to climb up. this yellow part up here really catches a lot of the dust. did you notice how clean it looks? morty are you listening? morty? [ morty ] i'm listening! i want you to know

returning to our story now. two young women, two frightened victims locked away in a strange place, tormented by a strange man. both say they were chained, raped, and eventually freed. one of them, single mother jennifer spalding, has just given police a very detailed description of her captor. she's even told them what kind of car he drives. but officers didn't believe her story. it just seemed too bizarre to be true. kept as a sex slave in an underground dungeon?

now, they're about to learn how horribly real her story really was. here again, rob stafford. >> thursday night is cheap beer and karaoke night at freddy's bar and grill on the north side of syracuse. on april 3rd, 2003, the usual crowd who come to see the aretha/elvis wanna bes saw something unusual. on three separate occasions, when a young african-american girl stood up to sing, an elderly white man got up and stood right next to her on the stage. cindy was the emcee. >> at the time, i thought he was just trying to perhaps encourage her. >> later, when the girl went to the lady's room, some noticed the older white man waited outside the door. odd, but not alarming. the kind of thing that only seems significant later on. >> he was with her wherever she went. he never left her side.

>> it's too long. syracuse is your national champion. >> a few days after the karaoke night, the syracuse area celebrated the end of college basketball's march madness with a national championship. it had been a long time coming, and syracuse wanted its moment in the national spotlight. little did anyone know that the moment was about to be eclimsed by a different kind of madness. on april 8th, the day after the basketball victory, the odd couple from freddy's karaoke night was out running errands. while stopped at this bottle recycling center, the young girl slipped away and called her sister. an old man is holding me against my will, she said. sister in turn called police, who found the couple a few minutes later at this car dealership. as soon as the police pulled up, the 16-year-old leapt out of a

rusty mercury comet, almost identical to the one jennifer spalding reported to detectives two years earlier. the girl told police the old man had kidnapped her, raped her, and held her prisoner in a basement dungeon. the old guy looked harmless, but the police decided to arrest him anyway and sort it out later on. quicker than you could say karaoke, it was over. >> he immediately exercised his fifth amendment rights, asked for a lawyer. >> what police didn't know was that they had one of the most prolific sexual predators in the region's history in custody. sheriff kevin said the law enforcement and media hadn't even know there was a single kidnapping and sexual assault, much less a series of them. >> as they're driving him to the police station, he started telling him about the fact that he was with this girl who was a friend of his, and they had had a relationship. >> and he's 67, and she's how

old? >> 18. >> according to him? >> according to him. she's in fact 16. >> he is talking without the lawyer. >> he's talking. >> a misunderstood may/december romance is all there was to it, the old man said. >> didn't plan on making it a permanent thing. just kind of a fling for the present time. >> midlife crisis or what? >> a little old for a midlife crisis. >> but no matter what they thought about the old man's motives, police now had a name and an address. his name was john jamelske, and their search of his house, a blue ranch by the highway, was about to tell them everything they needed to know. inside, this is what police found. the nest of a pack rat. cleaning supplies bought in bulk and stored on shelves. case after case of canned goods, ketchup, fruit juices. enough to last for months if not years. over here, the prized

collection. thousands upon thousands of empty beer bottles, shelf after shelf. meticulously organized by brand. some of them stacked alphabetically. but it was at the back of this room that police discovered what they were looking for, the entrance to the dungeon. >> it was secured by four heavy steel doors. this ten-foot tunnel separates the dungeon from the rest of the house. you have to get on your hands and knees to get there. it's cool, dark, and damp down here. police say this was the path to john jamelske's other collection. the underground prison was clearly a homemade job. the uneven, roughly finished walls were covered with graffiti, both religious and profane. a thin foam rubber pad made what appeared to be a bed in one room. a filthy tub, microwave, and slop bucket furnished the second. it was enough to give even

hardened cops the creeps. >> the ceiling, which is kind of nerve-racking when you think that you have about three, three and a half feet of soil above us. >> investigators were dumbfounded. not only was the 16-year-old apparently telling the truth. but police say she might never have been victimized at all if jennifer had given them more to go on two years earlier. >> had we believed everything she had to say, we still couldn't have found him. >> the one fact she did have is she remembered that car. >> thoroughly investigated the car. but unfortunately, we had to run -- we didn't look at '75s or '73s and '76s. we just adjusted the possibility based on what she had told us. >> remember, jennifer had told them it was a 1974 comet. jamelske, it turns out, owned a '75. now, the detective who had been skeptical of jennifer's story before was desperate to talk to her about the dungeon she

described. >> he said, what did it say on the wall? i said, it said wall thugs. he said, we got him. we got him, jen. >> three words. wall of thugs. >> yeah. >> words you never forgot. >> never forgot, ever. >> and when the detective asked jennifer to pick her captor from a photo lineup -- >> i didn't even look at the other guys. i seen him automatically. seen him right off the bat and pointed right to his picture. said that's him. coming up, uncovering a secret stash of evidence all captured on tape. >> peace out. >> peace out. >> how many years had this been going on? and how many victims were there? >> you had no idea what was going on inside? >> nobody had any idea what was going on, including the neighbors who lived across the street. >> when msnbc reports continues.

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i'm richard lui with your hour's top stories. in iowa, dt taking to the stage for the second time in the day. this time in an urbandale high school. the students launched a social media campaign inviting candidate to speak at their homecoming. >> pope francis arrived in cuba today for an historic visit. it's the tierd time a pope has visited the island nation. he'll stop in philadelphia, new york, and washington, d.c. now, back to our msnbc special. returning to our story, at last, police believe they have captured the man who has been tormenting a string of young women. a 67-year-old grandfather named john jamelske. and in what lies beneath his house, they found the dungeon. a secret basement hideaway that's giving even veteran

police officers the chills. now they're about to discover john jamelske was keeping a few other secrets. here again is rob stafford. >> at john jamelske's house, investigators found evidence that jennifer spalding and the 16-year-old african-american girl had not been jamelske's only captives. in an upstairs bedroom, they discovered a stockpile of pictures and videotapes. that jamelske had taken of other young women in the dungeon. in this video, a younger looking jamelske seems to be in the throws of a second childhood. rapping along with one of his young captives. >> peace out. >> peace out. >> role playing with her. >> word up. >> word up on a string. >> and working out. >> talk about school, because man, i gotta go to school. >> in this scene, the girl tells him she wants to go to school and she misses her family. >> i can't wait to see my mom.

>> i bet. >> i miss her. >> at first glance, the dancing, singing, and role playing seem to be consensual, but remember, this girl, like jennifer and the 16-year-old african-american girl, was a prisoner locked underground and totally relied on jamelske for food and water. as far as she knew, her very life depended upon playing along. >> what do you guys want to see? there ain't nothing to do down here. >> several times, the girl looks right into the camera and appeals directly to jamelske's bosses, the men she believes have the power to set her free. >> do you realize if i was at home, i could be doing ten million things right now, and now i'm here. i'm here and i can't do nothing. so please, please, be fast. please. >> be fast. >> within days of the police discovering this tape, the victorious syracuse orangemen

were bumped from the front page and replaced bide lurid tales of sexual slavery at the hands of central new york's own dungeon master. it was a shock to those who thought things like that always happened somewhere else. >> i lived in this county for pushing 60 years now. so i have been down that road many times. >> and you had no idea what was going on inside. >> nobody had no idea what was going on, including the neighbors that lived across the street. >> and plenty of people knew who this guy was. >> yeah, he's well known in his local community. he's been there for his entire life. >> but did anyone really know john jamelske? the 67-year-old grandfather now accused of kidnapping and rape. >> i'm not the monster that they're painting this horrid picture of. i'm a pretty nice guy. coming up, the dungeon master tells his side of the

story in a stunning jailhouse interview. >> i never hurt anyone. physically. >> chaining them up and keeping them in that room isn't hurting somebody? >> people wear ankle bracelets all day long. >> it's not jewelry, john. come on. you chained them to the floor. >> when msnbc reports continues. , the possibility of a flare was almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid, where to go... and how to deal with my uc. to me, that was normal. until i talked to my doctor. she told me that humira helps people like me get uc under control and keep it under control when certain medications haven't worked well enough. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb.

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would you? yeah. (phone ringing) oh! i got another call. adam: i'm not having a party! hey chris what's up! you heard about adam's party man? it's going to be crazy. i knew it! (beep) find the closest party store... introducing app-connect. (google voice) here are your directions. michael: i'm gonna throw my own party. the things you love on your phone, available on 11 volkswagen models. returning to our story, no one in his quiet community near syracuse, new york, could quite believe it. 67-year-old john jamelske, arrested and accused of

kidnapping and rape. of holding a string of women against their will in his secret underground dungeon. now, the man known as the dungeon master is about to tell his side of the story in a dramatic jailhouse interview. is he really the monster he seems to be? here again is rob stafford. >> investigators are searching for clues into the young women held in an underground bunker. >> withindays of john jamelske's arrest, the nation knew that a gaunt, gray dungeon master had been living in central new york. kidnapping local girls and keeping them as sex slaves. >> i'm a pretty nice guy. >> in a network television exclusive, jamelske agreed to speak with msnbc news from his temporary home in a syracuse jail. along with his lawyer, robert earl. >> i was taking viagra. >> in a rambling three and a half hour interview, we saw many different sides to the whman wh

has been dubbed the dungeon master. animated. >> she goes luke this with the music. >> angry. emotional. >> very, very much. >> even before his house became smeared in a tangle of yellow police tape, jamelske was well known in his suburban syracuse home town, but not exactly beloved. his upscale neighbors put up a fence to prevent his junk-strewn yard from spoiling their view. though many knew that jamelske, a retired grocer, collected returnable bottles for the deposits, few could have guessed the eccentric old man was a self-made millionaire thanks to shrewd real estate investments out west and his own obsessive penny pinching. >> i'm very thrifty. extremely thrifty. >> he does not deny he kept women and girls locked up in his homemade dungeon for months at a

time. he doesn't deny using them for sex or using lies and threats to insure their silence. but in jamelske's world, none of that makes him a criminal. >> how do you think you would feel if you were 15 years old and you were locked at your house in that room for a year? >> i would not mind living down there. it was absolutely beautiful. there was a bed. there was water. >> and you're saying everything a girl could want in that dungeon? >> anything that they wanted, except leaving at certain times, was there. >> in any state i have been, that's called kidnapping. >> that's what i understand the law says. >> and you're a smart guy, and you didn't think you were kidnapping these women? >> no. >> you seem very coherent, but what you're saying sounds absolutely insane. >> if you want to phrase it that way, you can. >> though mental examinations

showed him competent to stand trial, jamelske's twisted perspective on the people, places, and events that landed him in jail seem to come from a parallel universe. according to jamelske, every female who stayed in his dungeon went there willingly. and happily exchanged sex for cash, room, and board. so he's guilty of nothing more than cheating on his wife. >> that's basically, you know, what do you call -- adultery. >> but when you go to someone who's underage, it's not called adultery. it's called sexual assault. >> now i find that out. i had no idea. >> come on. >> i nerve hurt anyone physically. >> chaining them up and keeping them in that room isn't hurting somebody? >> people wear ankle bracelets all day long. >> it's not jewelry, john. come on. it's -- you chained them to the floor. >> okay. it didn't hurt them. a half hour, an hour after i took them off, they were fine. >> how does a mild-mannered church going family man become a

sexual slave master? according to jamelske, the sexual obsessions that eventually landed him in prison began in 1985 when his wife dorty, a respected preschool teacher, became seriously ill. >> we rushed her to the hospital. hemorrhaging. they couldn't get the blood into her. faster than it was coming out. we almost lost her a couple of times. >> and what happened to your relationship at that time? >> i always loved her very much, every single second. but, you know, sex was pretty much out of the question. and you know, i needed my -- >> you needed to have sex with someone? >> yeah. >> you're saying your wife was too sick to have sex? >> exactly. >> so you started to look elsewhere? >> yeah. >> john jamelske says in 1988, more than ten years before his wife died, he picked up a 14-year-old native american girl while out cruising for sex. kiersten, who we met earlier.

whether or not his wife ever knew may never be known. in the matter of fact tone of someone explaining the inner workings of a clock, jamelske says he simply wanted her for sex and decided to keep her chained close by in this shed on hismotor's property. and you think that's okay? >> that's why i built the dungeon. she said this is kind of small. >> so you built the dungeon so you had more space. >> she said this is small. i want more room. >> can you blame her? >> hell no, that's why i turned earth upside down to get this place bigger. >> if it all sounds like the twisted logic of a madman, listen to this. jamelske says it was not until after he had spent weeks in jail that his lawyers were finally able to convince him that kidnapping and keeping women and teenage girls locked in a dungeon for sex was a serious crime.

>> i'm thinking, you know, maybe i'm going to get some community service or something of that nature for, you know, a little bit of unlawful imprisonment or whatever. >> jamelske admits he showed his victims an old police badge he found and lied about working for powerful bosses just to keep the girls in line and persuade them that he was as much a victim of circumstance as they were. >> yeah, i told them that i can't make the decision as to when you go home. so you know, you can't cry on my shoulder. >> because you, john jamelske, are taking orders from someone else. >> exactly. >> even though he admits locking women and girls in a dungeon with no toilet and forcing them to have sex with him every day, john jamelske seems to believe he is the real victim. a nice guy, saddling with an insatiable sex drive. a devoted husband denied sex by his ailing wife. a sensitive dungeon master whose

hospitality was abused by captives like jennifer spalding. >>ar every time she requested something, just like that. she went through bottles of a-1. i bought the biggest bottles i could find of a-1 steak sauce, and she could use like a half a cup on a steak. >> you're saying you're waiting on jennifer hand and foot? >> yeah. i mean, that's the least i can do. i wanted to make it as nice as i possibly could for her. >> nice? it's hard to believe, but in jamelske's mind, each of the women he imprisoned found him charming, and practically volunteered to be pampered in his subterranean love nest. in the end, that was the dilution that led to his arrest. confident the 16-year-old african-american girl actually wanted to be with him, jamelske began taking her out in public. >> she loved billiards. we played a lot of billiards. she liked bolding. >> you're not worried about getting caught? she could grab someone and say

this guy is holding me. >> why would she do that? >> why didn't she run or scream for help earlier? no one knows for sure. but on april 8th, 2003, she brought john jamelske's career as a dungeon master to an end when she slipped away and called her sister. >> after three hours, you don't hear from you is any sympathy for jennifer or any of the others. >> i would never do it over if i had it to do over, and i'm extremely sorry for what happened to each -- every one of them. >> it sounds like you're sorry because of the fact you're sitting here. >> no. >> if you weren't sitting here, you would probably still be doing it. >> i done think i would because i was taking viagra towards the end. and it would have ended because i don't have -- i don't have the physical urges that i had before. and i told her, i said we got to have less sex. >> so you couldn't keep up at the end? >> no, no, no.

>> but there were still plenty of questions ahead. jamelske cooled his heels in jail, authorities desperately tried to get a final number on how many victims there were. and if there were any who did not make it out of the dungeon alive. coming up, sensational charges and an emotional outcome. >> i've had a lot of time to think about it. i'm very sorry for what i did. >> when "msnbc reports" continues. ♪ (underwater noises in background) (scuba diver speaking french in background) say this tube is a 4g lte wireless network. verizon keeps your data flowing fast and steady. but some budget networks slow your data after you reach your limit. you can barely watch your shows. this is no way to treat people. a better network doesn't mess with your data. (underwater echo)

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and now the conclusion to our story. to the community he had seemed so mild-mannered.

a grocer retired from his job. a grandfather. a widower who had spent years nursing his sick wife. but for 15 years police say john jamelske had another identity as a sexual slave master in a makeshift underground dungeon he had built himself to abuse and imprison a string of young women. now he's heading to trial, accused of kidnapping and rape, and there would be a drama in the courtroom. once more, here's rob stafford. >> in early summer 2003 john jamelske entered a syracuse courtroom for the first time. after two months of saturation coverage, the place was packed with people who wanted to see the notorious dungeon master up close. investigators determined that over 15 years there had been five victims ranging in age from 14 to 52, and all had survived to tell someone. they were ethnically diverse --

one native-american, one african-american, one hispanic, one vietnamese and one caucasian. three told investigators they had known their captor by a biblical name, joshua, peter or paul. one said he told her to call him fish. four positively picked jamelske's mug shot from a photo array. but each described the dungeon in detail. >> your honor, for purposes of the arraignment -- >> it was certain to be a sensational trial, and everyone wondered, would an elderly man looking at life behind bars mount an insanity defense or gamble on an outright acquittal in the face of such damning evidence? but when the time came to speak for himself, john jamelske did neither. >> you are going to plead guilty to each and every count in this indictment? >> in a prearranged deal with prosecutors, jamelske agreed to plead guilty to five counts of kidnapping and let his victims divvy up his estimated million-dollar estate in return

for a sentence of 18 to life. >> how do you plead? >> guilty. >> after 15 years of subjecting others to mental torture and sexual slavery, the syracuse dungeon master had quickly tired of the public spotlight. >> you are a sick coward. you're an evil man. you're a kidnapper and a rapist. your reign of terror is over. >> for once jamelske seemed uncharacteristically contrite. when his time came to speak, he was brief and emotional. >> i'm just truly sorry for what i did. i've had a lot of time to think about it. and i'm just very sorry for what i did and for how it affected everyone. god bless all of them. >> but less than 24 hours later jamelske told us his lawyers stopped him from giving the full

statement he prepared, for fear he'd hurt his already slim chances of parole. if allowed, jamelske told us he would have said some pointed things to the victims he felt had lied about the way he treated them. >> to number three, god bless you, and have mercy on you and have him help you increase your vocabulary. >> how can you say god have mercy on her? after what she has been through. >> because she lied. she lied about something very important. she's claiming that she was hit in the ear, and she's claiming that she was hit in an ankle. and -- >> you raped her, and you robbed her of her freedom. >> i didn't rape her. >> oh, come on. what's she doing down in a dungeon? >> i did not rape her. >> you stood up in court and you said, i'm sorry for what i've done. what are you sorry for? >> i'm sorry for having sex with a young girl. and i'm sorry for -- there were times when they did want to

leave. and most of the time they were fine with it. >> but you sat here for hours minimizing everything you've done. >> i'm not saying that i didn't do anything wrong. i'm just saying i am not this horrible monster. i never hurt anyone. >> and that's the way things are likely to remain in john jamelske's world, a place where dungeon accommodations are posh, a place where there's little difference between chains of bondage and chains of gold. and jail is a virtual walk in the park. you like it here? >> we play partner spades. the guys have taught me how to play checkers. we talk. i have gotten sort of like a walking club together, and we walk the perimeter together and we talk and we talk. >> what age will you be when you get out of prison? if -- what age will you be when you're eligible to get out? >> i probably won't get out. i probably won't get out. >> you'll probably die behind bars? >> probably.

>> as for the women who once lived in john jamelske's world, life above ground has had its ups and downs. kirsten and jennifer now have families of their own. some are still living lives at risk on the street, but each says they'll never be entirely free of the cold chains and clammy dungeon air that colors the darkest corners of their minds. >> sometimes i'll just start crying for no reason at all, and i won't even know what's wrong with me. >> john jamelske has now been moved to a maximum security prison, the clinton correctional facility in northern new york state. his home was put up for sale with the proceeds to be divided among all five of his victims. the dungeon has been destroyed. that's our report.

i'm john seigenthaler he's a very dangerous person, and he needs to remain detained. >> that's some [ bleep ] man. i swear to god, man. >> i am telling you that that is the option. >> i'm telling you if i go back to that school i'm definitely going to violate my probation. >> what is that supposed to mean? >> he reaches over the seat and pulls out a gun and had it aimed at my chest. it hit me in the arm. >> if two years in placement didn't help you change your ways, i'm not certain any more time here is going to do anything for you. today what i'm going to do is -- >> i've got a lot of years to live. if i keep messing around with this i'm going to end up dead or in jail.