The Dungeon Survivor: The Katie Beers Case
The Little Girl Behind the Wall: Katie Beers’ Ordeal and Resilience
My story takes place in 1982. On December 30th, just between Christmas and New Year’s Day, a little girl named Katie Beers was born in the town of Mastic Beach, on Long Island. But for those familiar with the case, she ended up being known as “the girl in the wall.”
He threw me onto the bed. I just screamed, “Give me back my daughter, please, give her back!” And then I was yelling at the top of my lungs. We heard her say that a man was chasing her with a knife, and she said, “Oh my God, there he is, he got me.” Our biggest concern is finding that child safe and sound. The last time I saw her was when she was walking toward the machine. I started to get scared. He locked me in that little hole.
Kidnapped, assaulted, trapped, and chained, nine-year-old Katie Beers was abandoned by her mother, then used as a slave by her godmother and the godmother’s deviant husband, before finally being abducted and held captive in an underground dungeon for over three weeks. Long Island police thoroughly searched this menagerie of suspicious characters in the hopes of finding the nine-year-old captive.
She’s behind the wall. She’s behind the wall. She’s no longer alive. But to their surprise, she already was. She knew how to escape. She tried every possible strategy to change his mind and finally succeeded. This 10-year-old girl changed a kidnapper’s mind.
In the small hamlet of Bay Shore on Long Island, young Katie has led a Cinderella-like existence ever since her mother abandoned her. She is enslaved by her godmother Linda and her husband Sal. I was their servant, whether it was doing the laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, or preparing dinner. That was my purpose for her. Growing up, I was practically her slave. But my service to Linda was the least of her worries, because the real monster in that house was none other than her own uncle. From the age of two, I was sexually abused by my godmother’s husband. When she was seven, Katie had had enough and tried to tell her godmother the truth about her husband, but her reaction only made things worse. She told me I was a liar and to get out of her sight.
Katie wasn’t allowed to go to school and grew up completely isolated. The only friend she had was John Esposito, the typical family friend. But for her, their relationship was special. “I really didn’t have any friends my own age. I think the thing that probably made me happiest growing up was when I got to spend time with John. I would say I loved him. He was always a confidant, someone I trusted.”
In the midst of all the abuse she already had to endure, Katie’s life was about to take an even darker turn. Two days before my 10th birthday, I was kidnapped. That day, Katie was left with John, and together they went to Spaceplex, her favorite place on all of Long Island. At Spaceplex, you could ride motorcycles, go basketball, or even ride a dinosaur. For my 10th birthday, it was going to be just “Big John” and me. John was nicknamed Big John by the neighborhood kids because he was a well-known member of the Big Brother Big Sister program. Whenever we went to Spaceplex, I was happy; there was never really any trouble, just kids running around everywhere. But her birthday was about to turn sour, because the worst thing that can happen to a child happened.
“Let’s go, Katie.” The voice calling Katie’s name was Linda, her godmother. But by the time she contacted the police, they were already at the scene with Big John at Spaceplex. They evacuated the site and searched for the rest of the day, but all their efforts were in vain. He lifted me up and carried me into the closet where I realized he was opening a door to expose a tunnel. Whoever had captured her was an extremely skilled individual. This tunnel was built behind the walls of his house and meticulously designed by an expert. Katie was forced to crawl until she reached a trapdoor. Then he exposed this hole and opened this door to this room. The only word I have to describe this room was a dungeon, a place from which I couldn’t escape. Inside, Katie saw a filthy mattress in a makeshift soundproof coffin, surrounded by chains.
We heard her say that a man was chasing her with a knife, and she said, “Oh my God, there he is.” So, by the time I picked up the phone to talk to her, I got nothing. That was all Godmother Linda had to say about the disturbing calls she’d received the day of the abduction. It was enough to worry Dominic Barone, the head of the Long Island Police Department’s Kidnapping Division. By the time she got to the phone, Katie had already hung up. That bothered me because often these abductions aren’t really abductions; they’re staged to look like abductions, and statistically, he was right. Over 95 percent of abductions are actually perpetrated by close family members. But that wasn’t the only unusual thing about that call. It struck me as unbelievable. He was troubled that a nine-year-old would use the word “kidnapping.” Furthermore, how could a nine-year-old child escape a kidnapper and manage to use the phone? But he had to put his suspicions aside for the moment. Katie was the priority, because every minute counted. They had to find her, and quickly.
Even though I was concerned about certain aspects of the call, you could clearly hear a young girl in distress. This girl was in danger. There was absolutely no trace of Katie at Spaceplex, almost as if she had never been there. The only lead they had was the recording of Katie’s distress call to Linda. So Barone decided to bring out the big guns. We sent the audio tape of that phone call, along with the device on which it was recorded, to the FBI. While waiting for the FBI, Barone continued his investigation. Naturally, he started by examining the most likely suspects. The main players were Marilyn Beers, the biological mother, a dysfunctional and incompetent mother; Linda Inghilleri, the godmother (my main concern is to let people know how much I cared for her; she was used by the godmother to run all sorts of errands); and Sal Inghilleri, who had been accused of sexually abusing Katie. The little girl didn’t want to live in Mastic Beach with her mother. But there was also a fourth suspect outside the family: the last man to have seen her before the abduction, John Esposito. Not a relative, but a family friend. He said something dirty had happened.
The FBI eventually shared their findings with him. It appeared that Katie’s call had been made from a phone booth outside Spaceplex, which was odd since they still hadn’t found any trace of her inside the resort. She had apparently tried calling Linda 19 times before deciding to leave a message on her answering machine. But all these clues paled in comparison to the results of the FBI’s audio analysis. I’ll never forget the call I received from the scientists at the FBI lab: it wasn’t actually Katie who had freed herself up to make that call. It was a recording. Someone had recorded Katie and wanted us to believe, or at least give the impression, that the call had come from that phone booth next to Spaceplex. The detective was beginning to piece together the puzzle, and it became clear that the culprit had fooled them all. Katie’s abduction had been used as a cover for something far more sinister. The phone call was a staged plot by an individual to make us believe that Katie Beers had been kidnapped.
Back in the dungeon, Katie knew what was coming and decided to fight with all her might. She noticed the coffin door was loose and attacked it relentlessly. Finally, I kicked it long and hard enough to break it open and I could get out safely. For her, this was such a breakthrough that she thought she could finally find a way to escape, almost forgetting that the coffin itself was inside the dungeon. I remember trying to look on the shelf for anything I could use to defend myself, and there was a pile of keys up there. Without realizing it, I took one of those keys and hid it under the mattress. Before she had a chance to find a way to confront him, she heard him coming. It was too late now, as the footsteps were getting louder and louder. As soon as he came downstairs, he saw the open door and raped me for the first time. For the rest of her captivity, her captor assaulted her several times a day. But out of respect for Katie, we will not cover up any of his subsequent assaults.
I could have the TV on 24/7. It was on the news that I saw the police had discovered where the call was coming from. They knew it was pre-recorded. This information led the police to develop a few theories about Katie’s whereabouts. There were still questions. Meanwhile, Katie could hear each of her family members’ testimonies by watching the news, starting with Marilyn, her biological mother. When I saw Marilyn on the news, I think I cried a lot because I could see in her eyes that I missed her and wanted me to be found. It brought me a little relief and hope. Her mother was convinced that Linda and Sal were behind the abduction because they had lost custody of her after she filed a complaint against Sal for sexually abusing Katie.
When Sal, my godmother’s husband, went on the news saying he wanted me found, I was furious. If anyone had anything to gain from her being kidnapped or murdered, it was him, facing serious criminal charges. But Barone wasn’t so quick to jump to conclusions, because he also had good reason to believe that not only could Marilyn be the culprit, but she might also have been trying to frame someone else. Her mother, Marilyn Beers, and little John, Katie’s brother, knew what was going on, and they had sufficient motive to arrange a kidnapping just to get her out of a bad situation. They could have lured her out, made her make the call, recorded it, and let John Esposito take the fall.
After a while, the investigation into the family members stalled. Each of them had solid alibis, and no clues were found at their homes. So the police began to focus on the last man on the list, the most unlikely suspect. Investigators retraced John Esposito’s steps, but there were 30 minutes to an hour that we couldn’t fully explain. We obtained a search warrant and conducted a thorough inspection of John Esposito’s residence, but there was no evidence of a crime. The background check came the next day and proved extremely suspicious. Once they contacted the Big Brother Big Sisters organization, the program the suspect boasted about being a member of, they learned the dark truth about Big John. John Esposito was posing as a “Big Brother.” Detectives discovered he had tried to join the organization, and they had investigated him. We learned he’d been involved in the kidnapping of a seven-year-old child 15 years earlier. After Katie disappeared, they ruled him out. We increased the pressure on him, following him everywhere he went. This attracted media attention, and they also started staking out his house. The police searched Esposito’s property, the main house and the converted garage at the back where he actually lived. I knew Esposito was the prime suspect. I saw on the news that reporters were camped outside his house.
And if you haven’t guessed it yet, the kidnapper was actually John Esposito, aka Big John, all along. The man Katie called her best friend had been planning and plotting right up until the day he finally abducted her. Big John was probably the last person I could have imagined hurting me like that. Katie was relieved that the police were finally on the right track, but at this point, Barone had nothing to incriminate Esposito and, worse still, he still had no idea what he had done to Katie. With each passing day, they became more and more convinced that what they would find wasn’t Katie Beers alive, but her body. A few days later, Katie woke up in the dungeon. He put a chain around my neck. Able to free myself before untying it, I counted the number of links at the end and up to the wall as well. When she heard Esposito arrive, she would quickly chain herself up in the same way he had. But this happened less and less often because the police, convinced he was behind her disappearance, almost never left him alone. Instead, they maintained extremely close surveillance around him and his house, and Barone even went inside to question him. I could see his face fall. I was very disturbed and very worried that John Esposito had something to do with her abduction.
Running out of options, Esposito began making desperate demands of Katie, but the little girl wouldn’t give in. “Let’s make the police think you’re dead, play dead. I’ll take a picture of you. Once the police see this, they’ll abandon you.” And Katie, the bright and wise little girl that she was, knew this could be her death sentence, and she refused to play dead and let him take her picture. From that moment on, I rarely slept and I wouldn’t eat any food he might have tampered with, because I was afraid he would put something in it—a sedative, a sleeping pill—so he could get the picture he wanted and the police would stop looking for me. After that, Katie decided to confront him, to bombard him with questions in the hope of making him realize the madness of his actions. How was I going to go to school? What was I going to do to survive? I wanted to get married and have children, and he always made witty remarks like, “Oh, you’ll have children with me, you’ll marry me, you’ll do that with me.” So I always told him, “No, I don’t want to do that.” I was disgusted. I was 10 years old. I was trying to make him think about the long-term consequences of my abduction.
Esposito began to crack. Between the overwhelming police presence, Barone constantly following him, and Katie’s relentless harassment and questions, he confided in her that he planned to either end his life or escape. She knew that if she let him, he would likely kill her or leave her to die in the dungeon. I told him I was sick and not feeling well. I think that between the pressure from the police department and my questions, and then me saying I wasn’t feeling well, he finally broke down. As all that pressure mounted, he finally spoke to his lawyer. He said, “I have something very important to tell you,” and revealed, “I know where Katie is.” The lawyer asked what he meant by that. He replied, “She’s behind the wall.” And that’s when Barone and all the other people involved in the case realized that John Esposito was not an ordinary kidnapper, but a true mastermind.
Esposito escorted the police and the district attorney through every step of uncovering the dungeon, and the police watched in disbelief as he went through this 30-plus-step process to reveal the dungeon he had built. There was a shelf with wheels; you had to pull it out. Then there was vinyl flooring; you removed the vinyl, and there was a 200-pound concrete block. You had to go to the garage, get a hoist to attach it to the ceiling, hook it to the 200-pound block, then lift that block, and then descend about seven feet into this underground chamber. There was a passageway, and by crawling, you fell into this underground chamber where Katie was being held. Apparently, this whole thing had been planned for years before he removed her. I realized that I had actually been playing in this underground dungeon while it was being built. He had this vision to build this underground dungeon, and when he had this vision, it was specifically to kidnap me.
When Barone finally burst in, Katie couldn’t believe what was happening. The door opened and there was a man I didn’t recognize, and I remember them saying, “We’re the police, you’re safe now.” I was just overjoyed. She was alive. Barone was just as surprised, but for a different reason. We were stunned. You see a nine-year-old who looks like she’s just come back from the cinema; she’s sitting on the sofa, bubbly and happy, and we knew then that she was going to be okay. Now in police custody, Katie finally revealed the truth about what had happened. John Esposito confessed everything. Esposito was found guilty of first-degree kidnapping and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. Not only did the detective rescue her from Esposito, but throughout his investigation, Barone uncovered all the abuse she had suffered at the hands of those supposed to be caring for her and decided to place her in foster care. I went into foster care as soon as I was released from captivity, and it was a lifesaver. I had a mom, I had a dad, I had brothers and sisters; it was absolutely fantastic. They also pursued the legal proceedings against her uncle Sal and succeeded in putting him behind bars.
To this day, Katie will always be grateful to Barone, for he saved her in so many ways. For 17 days, I was her life. He was one of those who didn’t give up, and I’m grateful for the relationship I have with him. I wrote Katie a letter once it was all over: “Dearest Catherine, I don’t know you very well, but what I do know is enough to show that you are a remarkable young woman with a strong will to live. My only wish is that we could have found you sooner and that you hadn’t had to stay there so long. Few adults could endure or survive what you went through. Be proud and keep being strong. I know you will succeed in the end.” She was a true survivor, refusing to let her past bring her down. Instead, she achieved everything she had hoped for. My life is exactly what I’ve always wanted: two loving parents, a husband, two children, and a wonderful family. It brings tears to my eyes. He tried to trap and use her, but she broke free. Today, she’s a successful author and works with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I think the best part of my story is knowing that you can recover, you can persevere, and your life is 100% what you make of it. She wants every survivor of any kind of abuse to know they are more than what happened to them. I was determined not to let my childhood traumas seep into my adult life. They shaped me into who I am, but they don’t define me.
This man is the ex-Marine turned serial killer. What you are about to hear is extremely disturbing, as he calmly describes the abduction of 19-year-old Jennifer Aspenson.
