Shane Edward Hooper (Mug shot from Marion County, Ohio, Prosecutor’s Office)
An Ohio man will spend decades in prison after admitting to keeping a woman in a “torture chamber” where he raped her and used a baseball bat and metal chain as “instruments of torture” for weeks until vigilant neighbors spotted her in distress and called police.
Shane Edward Hooper, 36, was sentenced on Thursday to between 50 and 55 1/2 years in prison, Marion County Prosecutor Ray Grogan announced in a news release.
Hooper pleaded guilty to charges of rape, kidnapping, felonious assault, and strangulation, online court records show.
“Shane Hooper created a torture chamber and trapped this woman in it,” Prosecutor Grogan said after the sentencing. “Now he’ll be trapped in prison for at least the next 50 years.”
The horror began in May 2023 when Hooper kept a woman at her house and beat her using a baseball bat and metal chain, what prosecutors called “instruments of torture.”
At one point, he “escalated his control over the victim” by nailing doors and windows shut so she couldn’t escape, authorities said. Hooper subjected her to intense psychological terror and threatened to kill her and her family, prosecutors said.
The case came to light the following month when vigilant neighbors saw her in distress and called the police when Hooper moved her to a location on Silver Street in Marion, about 50 miles north of Columbus, Ohio. Police were dispatched to a home for a welfare check and found the wounded 28-year-old woman. She was hospitalized with broken bones, open wounds, and eight fractured ribs, prosecutors said.
“The brave woman told us she had been praying for rescue and God answered her prayers,” Grogan said.
At the time of his June 7, 2023, arrest, Hooper was on parole after serving eight months in prison for a 2020 forgery conviction, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Grogan praised the victim’s courage and reminded the public to be aware of potential threats and report suspicions to law enforcement.
“Some good citizens spoke up and their actions likely saved this woman’s life,” Grogan said. “That’s the Marion County spirit I know and love.”
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