By  Seamus McGraw   

March 28, 2006

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MCKEESPORT, Pa. (Crime Library) —  For more than a decade, young runaway Tanya Kach lived as a virtual prisoner, she has claimed, held against her will in the home of a much older school security guard, fed little more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, taught to tread softly in her bedroom prison so that creaking floorboard would not give away her presence, and forced to submit almost daily to her captor's sexual whims.

Tanya Nichole Kach

Though her ten-year ordeal played out less than two miles from her father's house, no one but the girl and 48-year-old Thomas John Hose, the alleged predator who held her, knew what was happening.

Well, almost no one.

Authorities in Allegheny County on Monday arrested Judy Sokol, a 57-year-old hairdresser, who according to court papers, had not only known about Hose and the girl, but had even allowed the man to have sex with the young girl then a middle school student in her home.

Judy Sokol

In a statement to police, detailed in court papers, Sokol admitted that she had as a favor to both Hose and the girl cut and dyed Kach's hair. "Sokol reported that she knew Hose was engaged in an inappropriate relationship," but did nothing to stop it, and in fact, even after the state Department of Children and Youth Services contacted her as part of their investigation into the girl's disappearance, Sokol allegedly remained mum about what she knew. She did, however, end her relationship with Hose and the girl.

Sokol's secret is the latest twist in a case that has riveted the attention, not just of the media in Pittsburgh, but across the nation.

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