Seven years ago, Tamara Breeden and three other disabled adults were found in a basement in Philadelphia where they had been held hostage for almost a decade. Although she has been long freed from her imprisonment, she still remembers the one thing that got her through the scarring experience: her faith.
Linda Weston and four others held the developmentally disabled adults in a locked Philadelphia basement where they were abused and made to live in horrible conditions. Weston and her conspirators, kept the four hostage while they scammed them out of their Social Security and disability checks.
They moved the adults from state-to-state until 2011, when they were eventually raided by the Philadelphia Police Department.
After the rescue, it was discovered that Breeden and her peers were living in horrible conditions, and were often abused by Weston.
“She hit me with a pistol like, like a gun pistol,” Breeden told WCAU-TV.
“She hit me with a bat. She messed my ear up right here,” Breeden said, pointing to her left ear. “I think I was going to die there.”
According to WCAU, Weston had chained one man to the furnace, while each hostage had been beaten, tortured and robbed.
Not only was Breeden kept in the basement, but she didn’t even have a bathroom to use, and was forced to urinate in a bucket.
“I kept on praying to Jesus and praying to God, hope I get back home to my family,” she said.
Then, in October 2011, after years and years of prayers, a landlord notified police of the strange happenings in the basement of Weston’s home.
Weston was immediately arrested and was found to have “at least 50 identification cards and documents,” according to KYW-TV.
“She lied every month to the Social Security Administration as to what she was using the money for,” Asst. U.S. Attorney Richard Barrett told WCAU-TV.
The federal prosecutors on the case said they had never seen such a thing before. They discovered that Weston and her team had held at least 12 people hostage, some of whom tragically died while under Weston’s control.
“Some of the victims recount children they had that there is no record of. They recount other victims who we could not trace,” federal prosecutor Faith Taylor said.
Breeden herself said she gave birth multiple times while in captivity.
Eventually, Weston was sentenced to life, plus 80 years to a prison in West Virginia. Just this past September, Eddie Wright, one of Weston’s co-conspirators, was sentenced to 27 years in prison. The other two conspirators were also charged.
A case that has taken years to sort through has finally come to an end and Breeden is happy she is finally free.
“I’m just free. I feel nice. I feel happy,” Breeden said.
(H/T: CBN News)