# Recreational Astonished Bemusement: The girl in the drawer.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [March 14, 2008, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416 "2008-03-14T23:51:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/41 "2008-03-16T00:51:32Z")
Wasn’t this an episode of _Law and Order: Special Victims Unit_?
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### Author:  [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/42 "2008-03-16T01:57:41Z")
I had a trundle bed when I was a kid. Never kept anyone in it, though.
Anyone else have a trundle bed?
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/43 "2008-03-16T15:27:39Z")
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
And what exactly is a divan anyway? A sofa with drawers? A convertible bed? A loveseat with cushions? It sound like it should be a kind of waterbed, but who can tell?
[/QUOTE]
Here’s a [helpful illustration](http://www.b3ta.com/board/8178142) from Ik3a.
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### Author:  [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2008, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/44 "2008-03-16T15:45:32Z")
[QUOTE=Pullet]
Wasn’t this an episode of _Law and Order: Special Victims Unit_?
[/QUOTE]
[Yup.](http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order:_Special_Victims_Unit/episodes/season9/9012/signature_06.shtml#recap)
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2008, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/45 "2008-03-16T18:08:40Z")
Just in case any of the comments on the child’s looks were serious…
Hands up: Who looked gorgeous in their school picture as a child? Yeah, thought so.
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### Author:  [@GomiBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GomiBoy)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/46 "2008-03-17T18:18:47Z")
Fucked up, but man are you people funny…
For those who are curious for the real story - there is a strange family dynamic going on here. The suspect is the girl’s stepfather’s uncle; the mother is 32 and the stepfather 22; the mother was sure that her neighbors were ‘out to get her’ and felt all along that the girl was nearby and ‘abducted by someone who knows me’, and was a suspect along with the stepfather. She’s got 2 other children from 2 other fathers. The police have held Shannon for additional questioning (i.e. softly softly trying to figure out what the hell happened) but she was apparently not sexually abused or assaulted. She was kept for 24 days, and has been asked if she wants to go home or not (it’s her choice, apparently, under a child protective order). It’s a whacked-out story, for a lot of reasons. The gallows humor I can fully understand - it’s like a UK version of Jerry Springer but even more sad because of the little girl. And it’s also one of many stories in the press right now - it’s a bit of a glurge of missing white girl stories just now.
> **[BBC NEWS | UK | England | West Yorkshire | Mother fears daughter was 'taken'](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/7291268.stm)**
>
> The mother of missing schoolgirl Shannon Matthews says she fears her daughter has been taken by someone she knows.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/47 "2008-03-17T18:30:41Z")
[QUOTE=Rilchiam]
Hands up: Who looked gorgeous in their school picture as a child? Yeah, thought so.
[/QUOTE]
I did. I only became ugly later.
(That’s a lie - I’ve always been hideous.)
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### Author:  [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/48 "2008-03-17T18:56:05Z")
It’s a good thing they didn’t have to call the Bureau of Investigation.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/49 "2008-03-17T19:11:01Z")
[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
She’s got 2 other children from 2 other fathers.
[/QUOTE]
Your link describes her as a “mother-of-seven.”
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### Author:  [@GomiBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GomiBoy)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/50 "2008-03-17T19:13:40Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd]
Your link describes her as a “mother-of-seven.”
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, mistyped. You’re right.
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### Author:  [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/51 "2008-03-17T19:16:01Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd]
Here’s a [helpful illustration](http://www.b3ta.com/board/8178142) from Ik3a.
[/QUOTE]
It’s entirely inappropriate that I’m laughing at your linked advertisement’s suggestion, “Ideal for when the kids stay over!”
edit: I mean, that’s a little _too_ helpful, if aspiring abductors are reading the IKEA site.
Sailboat
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### Author:  [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2008, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/52 "2008-03-21T02:19:27Z")
[QUOTE=Pullet]
Wasn’t this an episode of _Law and Order: Special Victims Unit_?
[/QUOTE]
I knew I’d seen this somewhere before. And I vaguely remember watching something similar on an episode of **A Current Affair** or **Unsolved Mysteries** or a similar show when I was a kid (maybe the early 1990’s?) where a woman told about how she’d been kidnapped by a man and his wife while hitchhiking, and had been held for years in a cabinet under their bed, and that she had basically been kept as a sex slave, and that he told her (this is what really freaked me out as a kid) that he had a network of friends all over the country, and if she ever escaped, his friends would bring her back and he would cut off her arms and legs and pelvis and use her long hair to hang her up from a ceiling hook, like some kind of potted-plant-human-torso being held up by fancy long-hair-macrame. So she was too scared to flee and endured years of rape and torture while being kept in the cage/cabinet/box/whatever under his bed.
Thankfully, it seems like this little girl wasn’t sexually abused or tortured. I hope that turns out to be true.
And I really hope the story I heard was exaggerated, but I have no idea who the kidnapped woman was.
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2008, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/53 "2008-03-21T02:27:16Z")
Sadly, [it’s true](http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/sex_slave/index.html) and not exaggerated.
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### Author:  [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2008, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/54 "2008-03-21T04:29:18Z")
[QUOTE=Rilchiam]
Sadly, [it’s true](http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/sex_slave/index.html) and not exaggerated.
[/QUOTE]
Hoooooooly crap, not only was it not exaggerated, it was actually far worse than I remembered. I appreciate you posting this, but now I kinda wish I’d never mentioned it. Although me not knowing about it wouldn’t mean it didn’t happen… but at least I wouldn’t feel so ill now. I just really hope this Shannon Matthews girl didn’t go through anything like that. And thank goodness she wasn’t kept for seven years.
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### Author:  [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2008, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/55 "2008-04-08T23:26:30Z")
I hope this thread is recent enough to avoid zombie resurrection status.
The latest in a series of twists in this case, including the stepfather’s arrest for possession of child pornography, is that the whole kidnap may have been staged. If this turns out to be the case, the mother is in very deep shit, because the W Yorks. police spent about £5 million on one of their biggest missing person hunts ever.
> **[BBC NEWS | UK | England | West Yorkshire | Shannon mother on neglect charge](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/7337258.stm)**
>
> Detectives charge the mother of Shannon Matthews with child neglect and perverting the course of justice.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2008, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/56 "2008-04-09T12:07:45Z")
Man, what a mess. I can’t honestly imagine how desperate and/or stupid you’d have to be to stage the phony abduction of one of your own children, but if that is what really happened (and it really is starting to look that way), then there’s certainly evidence of a generous portion of _stupid_.
I mean, all rights and wrongs aside, you’re faking the abduction of a child. When it quickly ramps up to a full search, the whole place is going to be _crawling_ with coppers, poking into _everything_. Anyone with a grain of common sense would realise it would be a good idea to dispose of anything that could incriminate in any way.
Sheesh.
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### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2008, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/57 "2008-04-09T14:35:48Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Man, what a mess. I can’t honestly imagine how desperate and/or stupid you’d have to be to stage the phony abduction of one of your own children, but if that is what really happened (and it really is starting to look that way), then there’s certainly evidence of a generous portion of _stupid_.
I mean, all rights and wrongs aside, you’re faking the abduction of a child. When it quickly ramps up to a full search, the whole place is going to be _crawling_ with coppers, poking into _everything_. Anyone with a grain of common sense would realise it would be a good idea to dispose of anything that could incriminate in any way.
Sheesh.
[/QUOTE]
Sheesh indeed. Apparently (according to the,ahem, Metro…) the Madeleine McCann fund organisers were approached for money to help search for Shannon in a particularly clumsy and illiterate manner - the implication being, I guess, that the whole abduction was a botched attempt to defraud money from the (presumably kosher…) McCann abduction fund.
Looks like the police might get to the bottom of this; sofa, so good…
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### Author:  [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/58 "2008-04-09T14:39:04Z")
Several people at work have commented on the fact that it now looks like the Dewsbury Five were attempting to cash in on the celebrity status of the McCanns. Looks like it backfired on them.
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### Author:  [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2008, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/59 "2008-04-09T14:45:31Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
Clearly an open-and-shut case, then.
[/QUOTE]
but not a top drawer one.
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### Author:  [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2008, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recreational-astonished-bemusement-the-girl-in-the-drawer/441416/60 "2008-04-09T14:58:57Z")
How messed up is this family? I feel sorry for the girl, and at first I was glad she was all right. I still am, but how “all right” can she be? Sure, she wasn’t molested or beaten, but her mind and her role models are harm enough.
The other story–good god. I am sick now. I’m not a religious person, but stuff like that shows me there is true evil in the world. ☹
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