The Castration Dungeon

On March 21, 2002, Richard Peter Sciara, 61, moved from Topeka, Kan., into his newly-rented mountain retreat on Peace Mountain Road in Waynesville, N.C., along with Michael Mendez, 60, and Danny Carroll Reeves, 49. The secluded house was an ideal hideaway, allowing the men the privacy they needed to carry out their brutish sexual fantasies undisturbed.

Castration suspects

According to police reports, the three men formed a sexually transgressive ménage who allegedly engaged in a sadomasochistic "master-slave relationship," headed by Sciara, aka "Master Rick." Their sexual activities involved others from around the country who reportedly traveled to the house to undergo "slave training" by Sciara. The training was often held in the basement, which was referred to as "the dungeon."

Gruesome sexual activities occurred in the dungeon. Over a period of several years, the three men recruited up to eight willing participants via a sadomasochists' website to undergo extreme body mutilation. Most of the men came to the house specifically to be castrated, to have their penises removed, or both, by Sciara. According to police reports, an anonymous witness visited the house in 2004 and related to police that "testicles were removed and replaced with artificial prosthetics known as 'neuticles.'" The person also claimed that he had witnessed, over a year, at least six surgeries on five different victims, most of which were videotaped and stored on DVDs and on computer hard drives.