A California man was sentenced to 394 years to life in prison for two years of holding a 74-year-old woman captive in a hotel room, who was once his friend.
Ian Edard Kroe, 57, was convicted of 33 felonies on Tuesday for repeatedly raping, torturing, and imprisoning the elderly woman, according to a statement from the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office posted on X.
The 74-year-old woman told the court at her sentencing that she “survived beyond all odds,” after being held in multiple states over the course of two years, according to a statement from the district attorney’s office.
Kroe became friends with the elderly woman in 2016 after his mother died, and she reached out to express her condolences. According to the Palo Alto Daily Post, the woman and Kroe’s mother had been friends for their entire lives.
Kroe lived in Minnesota at the time, while the 74-year-old resided in New Mexico. Kroe flew to New Mexico, where the two embarked on a four-year road trip across the West Coast, according to Belmont Police.
Kroe took control of the woman’s finances at some point during their journey, telling her that people in New Mexico were out to get her.
According to prosecutors, Kroe then drained her bank accounts and refused to let her leave their hotel room.
Following that, beginning in August 2020, Kroe held the woman captive at a hotel in Belmont, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area. He raped her repeatedly and forced her to perform sex acts for two years, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Kroe allegedly threatened to kill or torture the 74-year-old woman if she attempted to flee, according to the outlet. The woman expressed her desire to return to New Mexico, but he refused to let her go.
San Mateo District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe told the Los Angeles Times that this case was unlike anything he or his prosecutors had seen before. “It just started out as a friendship with the victim,” he told me. “Then suddenly this guy turns into a beast.”
Authorities say the elderly woman had a phone, but Kroe would constantly check it, making it difficult to contact anyone.
According to the Palo Alto Daily Post, on August 20, 2022, the woman secretly messaged a friend who lives in Berkeley on social media, stating that she needed help and to call 911. The information was hazy, so it took police a few days to piece everything together.
According to the outlet, police found the elderly woman and Kroe in the hotel room on August 25, 2022. The woman lay naked in bed, unable to move, with bruises all over her body and a broken finger.
Prosecutors claim Kroe feigned illness throughout the trial to delay the proceedings. Kroe claimed to be having a heart attack before the trial and was treated by a nurse, according to local media.
Despite being given pain medication, authorities say he never appeared to be in a medical emergency.
“For him, it was just game playing,” Wagstaffe told the Los Angeles Times. “He truly does believe he’s the victim.”
