In 1996, 14-year-old Tanya Kach was reported missing in Pennsylvania. A decade later, she was found in the home of her former middle school security guard, who rarely allowed her to leave his room upstairs for 10 years.
Kach's abduction and 10-year captivity are the subject of "The Girl Locked Upstairs," a Lifetime film premiering on June 8, starring Jordyn Ashley Olson as Kach and Robert Baker as her captor, Thomas Hose.
The film was produced by Elizabeth Smart, a fellow kidnapping survivor.
Kach, now 42, tells TODAY.com she decided to speak out about what happened to her again because of Smart.
"She's the main reason why I said yes to this, because before that, I was done doing interviews," Kach says. "I said I was done until she contacted me, and I just felt like that was like a tap on the shoulder, like God saying, 'Hey, you're not done. Your story still needs to get out there. There's still more people to help.'"
Smart contacted Kach about sharing her story in a movie, which led to phone calls, Zoom calls and eventually meeting in person, Kach says.
"I have always wanted to meet (Smart), knowing that we both went through something similar," she says. "I've always looked up to her."
Kach described working with Smart on the film as "life-changing."
"It was wonderful. She's so kind, so gracious, down to earth," Kach says. "Such a sweet sweet soul."
Kach says she hopes the film helps viewers learn the signs of grooming, mind control and brainwashing.
"I've gotten a lot of messages from moms saying they're going to watch it with their teenage daughters, which I think is fabulous," she says.
She also says she wants any woman struggling in an abusive relationship to still have hope: "I want them to walk away from the film saying, 'I have hope. I can get through this, and I can get out of this."
Keep reading for the true story behind "The Girl Locked Upstairs," and where Kach is now.
What happened to Tanya Kach?
In 2006, Kach was an eighth grader at Cornell Intermediate School in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, The New York Times reported, where she met Thomas Hose, a man in his late 30s working as a security guard in the school.
The pair began talking at school, and Kach says he began to groom her after he realized she was in a vulnerable position due to her parents' divorce. At the time, she says she was convinced neither parent wanted her, and she planned to run away.
When she told her plans to Hose, he offered to take her in, Janet Sparico, the wife of a store owner whom Kach later confided in and told that she was living with Hose against her will, told the Times in 2006.
"After that, I guess he never let her go," Sparico told the Times.
Kach was reported missing on Feb. 10, 1996.
Kach told police she lived in the home with Hose, his parents and his son, though they didn't know she was there, according to the Associated Press.
For the first four years of her captivity, Kach told police she wasn't allowed to leave Hose's room, and that he threatened to kill her if she told anyone, according to the Times. While locked in his bedroom, she told police she was often forced to use a metal can as a toilet.
Hose subjected Kach to sexual abuse while she was held captive, and also forced her to record their sexual encounters in a set of journals so that he could "brag to co-workers and friends," according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Associated Press.
"The journals were his idea — yes, they were real," Kach tells TODAY.com. "I had to keep track of everything."
"They're still in evidence today, in downtown Pittsburgh. There's a whole box down there," she adds. "I always wanted the box of whatever evidence they have, because I want to burn it."
In the later years of her captivity, Hose conducted a plan for Kach to change her identity, and told his parents his girlfriend would be moving in, according to the Associated Press. Kach was then allowed to go to church and run errands during the day, but she told police she never shared her situation with anyone because she still believed Hose's threats, according to the Times.
Kach described her first time leaving Hose's home in four years and going out into the public to TODAY.com.
"I was scared," she says. "He had given me those specific instructions and everything and I was following the instructions, doing what I had to do, but I was like a deer in the headlights out there."
Over time, she began to grow close to a McKeesport store owner, Joe Sparico, and his family. On March 21, 2006, she told him the truth.
"If you go to a website for missing children, you will see a picture of me there," Sparico said Kach told him, according to the Times.
Sparico called a missing children hotline and his son, who was a retired police officer, according to the Associated Press.
What happened to Thomas Hose?
After Kach told Sparico, authorities arrested and charged Hose with one count of statutory sexual assault and three counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, according to the Associated Press.
In 2007, Hose pleaded guilty to statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault and endangering the welfare of children, corruption of a minor, interference with custody of children and aggravated indecent assault, according to the Associated Press.
Before Hose's sentencing, Kach read a victim impact statement.
"You took away my innocence, my childhood. You made me think my family didn’t want me or love me, that no one cared or loved me but you," Kach, then 25, said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "For 10 years you controlled me."
The Gazette reported Hose interrupted her to say, "I'm sorry."
After silencing Hose, Kach said she was no longer his "puppet" and had completed her GED and first semester of college, according to the Gazette.
"I plan to go places," she said, adding, "the main thing I want to do is help protect children and women from men like you."
Hose then addressed the court, according to the Gazette.
“I’d like to say I’m sorry," he said. "I want Tanya to know how sorry I am.”
He ended his statement by recalling a time when he said Kach told him, "Thank you. If it wasn’t for you I’d be dead or on the streets."
Allegheny County Judge John Zottola replied: "I think you give yourself too much credit. You see yourself as different than the rest of the world sees you."
Zottola sentenced Hose to five to 15 years in prison on one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, according to the Gazette.
Hose's attorney James M. Ecker told the Gazette he was "very happy with the results" because Hose faced more than 100 years in prison if he had been sentenced to the maximum sentences for each of the charges.
Hose served 15 years in prison and was released in 2022, according to local news station WTAE. He is registered as a sex offender under Pennsylvania's Megan's Law.
Kach tells TODAY.com she gets alerts from Megan's Law, and that she believes Hose now lives in the same house where he held her captive. (TODAY.com was not able to independently verify Hose's address.)
"Talk about things going full circle," she says.
Where is Tanya Kach now?
Since Kach was rescued, she went on to get her GED and attend college, she says. She co-authored a book in 2017 with Lawrence Fisher, "Memoir of a Milk Carton Kid: The Tanya Kach Story."
Kach also met her partner, Carl, in September 2008, and married him in September 2018, she tells TODAY.com.
"We had a beautiful ceremony on the beach. It was just just us there, we wanted something very private," Kach says. "We're going strong, we're going on almost 16 years now. He's been my rock and he's my biggest supporter through through all of this and through life and everything."
Kach says she ran into Joe Sparico, the store owner who inspired the character Tony in the film, about a year and a half ago.
"We were walking into a supermarket and we hugged and we caught up on everything in life, because life kind of gets in the way," she says.
"But Joe wanted me to go out and build a life and live my life and, you know, and that's what I've done."
"The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story" is currently available on Lifetime.
