NewsNational News

Actions

Man admits holding teen 9 months

Posted at 2:39 PM, May 28, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-28 14:39:55-04

A New Hampshire man pleaded guilty to multiple charges for kidnapping a 14-year-old girl in 2013 and holding her captive for more than nine months.

Nathaniel E. Kibby, 35, pleaded guilty on Thursday to seven charges that include kidnapping, sexual assault, witness tampering, second-degree assault and criminal threatening. He was sentenced to 45 to 90 years in prison.

The victim drew national attention when she went missing on her way home from school in Conway on October 9, 2013. CNN does not name the victims of sexual assault.

Court documents provide a glimpse of what happened to the victim during those months. Kibby used an “anti-bark shock dog training collar” to stop the victim from making noise, leaving scars on her neck, officials claimed. He also threatened the teen with a gun, saying he would hurt her family and others if she revealed his identity.

In court on Thursday, prosecutor Jane Young said Kibby forced the girl to write a letter to her mother in order to mislead investigators. When he discovered that she used her fingernails to etch an additional message on the back of the paper, he shocked and sexually assaulted her, Young said.

Kibby was accused of using the girl to assist him in a counterfeit money operation. After a prostitute was arrested with the fake money Kibby had used to pay her, he feared police would trace it back to him and released the teen in July 2014, Young said.

“I have to get rid of everything, including you,” Kibby said at the time, according to Young.

But the girl apparently remembered enough details of her time in captivity to lead investigators back to Kibby. He was arrested a week later.

“The level of detail this victim could remember while she was enduring just unspeakable acts was simply amazing,” Young said.

‘I still forgive you.’

Kibby initially pleaded not guilty to the more than 200 charges filed against him, but he changed his plea earlier this month.

“His decision to accept responsibility was solely driven by his desire to not put [the victim], or anybody else, through the rigors and continued stress of a long and drawn-out trial,” Jesse Friedman, Kibby’s attorney, said in a statement.

Though the victim didn’t testify, she did address the court — and Kibby — during the hearing.

“Some people might call you a monster, but I’ve always looked at you as human,” she said. “And I want you to know that even though life became a lot harder after that, but I still forgive you.”