Missing girl, now a woman, found alive in McKeesport

TRIBUNE-REVIEW ^ | Wednesday, March 22, 2006 | Jill King Greenwood

[infidel29]

A woman who disappeared from McKeesport a decade ago when she was 14 has been found living with a school security guard, police said today. Tanya Kach, now 24, disappeared Feb. 10, 1996.

Joe Sparico, owner of J.J.'s Deli Mart, said the woman he's known for the past six months as Nikki Evans broke down in tears Tuesday and told him she is the missing Tanya Kach, and that a school security guard had kept her locked in a bedroom of his Soles Street house that he shares with his elderly parents.

[Publius6961]

Since I can see no images on my screen, I assume somewhere in that post is a hidden link...

[Rte66]

That's what I am curious about, too. Will be interesting, if they'll publish her "now" picture.

[beyond the sea]

That's illegal around here anat.

[RayBob]

Better n at..the building hired him to shoot the pigeons and neglected to advise anyone of it.

[beyond the sea]

I'd say .......... leave the birds alone.

[Woman on Caroline Street]

Was the movie "Without a Trace" based on that story? It's such a tear jerker.

[Publius]

Yes, although a FReeper just FReepmailed me and indicated that the movie was based on a real kidnapping where they never found the victim. They may have tacked on a happy ending for the movie. I had assumed that when they said it was based on a true story that really was in all aspects.

[Vinnie]

Is that anywhere near Grandview Av? My wife grew up there.

[Ciexyz]

Do you really believe it was a guy shooting pigeons...or something more sinister?!

[RayBob]

The building hired him to shoot the pigeons! Think of all hte police manpower wasted...traffic congestion...all because some building manager hired some gung-ho redneck to eradicate the rats with wings!

[speedy]

Yeah, I can remember seeing her on "The Merv Griffin Show" when I would come home from school. Along with people like London Lee and Julie Budd and Totie Fields and Brother Theodore. Merv always had the B-list guests, that's for sure.

[CaptRon]

I remember her from the old Dean Martin show. She was a cutie.

[speedy]

My memories of "The Dean Martin Show" are so connected to The Golddiggers, I can hardly remember anything else.

[infidel29]

J.J.'s deli mart is on the corner of Versailles Ave. and Evans Ave. Grandview Ave. intersects Versailles Ave. 6 or 7 blocks East. Ask your wife if she recognizes anything from this map.

MAP

[infidel29]

The guy who turned himself in works as a security guard at Cornell Middle School, one of my step daughters goes there now and another went there up until 2 years ago. They both say they have spoken to the man.

We keep telling them, you need to be careful because you just never know.

[beyond the sea]

take care..........

[prisoner6]

Have you lived in McKeesport long? Years ago I had relatives living on Versailles Ave. They were pretty well known. Dode and Bessie McKee lived in a rather large red brick house half way between Patterson and Wilson, kinda catty cornered across from what was then a school. Near the school was a little white frame clapboard building that was a penny candy store. I spent a lot of time there.

The McKees ran a drug store also on Versailles, and had a son - Jack. IIRC both Dode and Jack were team doctors or something similar for the McKeesport HS Tigers. I never knew either, but it seems to me both died of heart attacks at a Tigers game. That would have been in the late 40's - early 50's.

Is the road from Eden Park Blvd still long, winding and steep? I always thought it would be cool to skate board down. Luckily my parents kept me from doing that.

When my aunt died in the mid 60's the house passed to my parents. We kept it for a few years but my dad got very ill and we could keep up both the house on Versailles and the one in Crafton. It got so bad that one winter I didn't make it to the house in McKeesport to turn the furnace on. The pipes froze and there was a lot of damage.

That was when my parents decided to sell it for pennies on the dollar. It was a shame because it was a REALLY nice house with huge rooms. The living room had a big fireplace on one end and a sun room on the other. From the attic I'd set up a telescope and try to watch movies several miles away at the Gateway (?) drive in. It was the one with several screens near the bridge on RT 30.

I used to drive by the house every once in a while just to see what was going on but I haven't done so recently. From what I've heard though it has fallen into a state of disrepair, and the neighborhood ain't what it used to be...sigh. Maybe I'll take a ride past when the weather gets a little warmer.

prisoner6

[Vinnie]

Thanks, I'll show her tonight.
Wasn't there talk of building maglev trains in McKeesport? Using some of the old steel mill bldgs.
The city sure could use some revitalizing.

[vannrox]

Tanya Kach was 14 when she walked out of her father's McKeesport home more than a decade ago. 
The Cornell Middle School eighth-grader vanished. There were no sightings. No phone calls. 

The case went cold and stayed that way until Tuesday - 10 years, one month and 11 days later - when Kach walked back into her father's life and told the world that a school security guard with whom she had fallen in love held her captive since Feb. 10, 1996. 

The guard, Thomas John Hose, 48, surrendered to police Wednesday afternoon and was charged with child sex offenses. 

Jerry Kach collapsed upon seeing his long-lost daughter. 

"I've got my baby back," he said, sobbing and stroking her face. "I can't believe it." 

This is her story: 

Kach spent most of the past 10 years locked in a bedroom of Hose's parents' Soles Street home. 

Hose and Kach met in late 1995 at the school where Hose, then 37, worked as a security guard. They secretly dated. She believed they were in love. 

No one could take care of her better, she believed. He invited her to move in with him, but told Kach she would have to remain hidden from his parents until he mustered the courage to tell them about her. 

She agreed and dreamed of their future together - a wedding, and maybe even children. 

But it was mostly a nightmare. 

He locked her in an upstairs bedroom where she used a bucket as a toilet. He brought her water and food - mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

She was allowed to watch television and listen to the radio, but only with headphones so his parents wouldn't hear. She tiptoed around the room. Hose made her memorize which floorboards creaked. 

Hose gave her a new first name - Nikki - and told her to pick another last name. She opened the telephone book, closed her eyes and pointed: Allen. 

"So from then on, I was Nikki Allen," she said. 

Hose never physically abused her, but he left emotional scars. He often threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave. 

"You're stupid. You're immature. Nobody cares about you but me," he told her. 

Secret revealed 

As the years went by, he convinced her that she was no longer Tanya Kach and that he was her only ally. 

"He told me no one even cared I was missing and no one was looking for me," she said as her eyes welled with tears. "He said the case was cold. I believed him." 

Hose rarely allowed her to leave until 10 months ago, when Kach began attending church and taking walks to a nearby deli. 

A woman who answered the door yesterday at Beulah Park United Methodist Church in McKeesport said Kach recently began attending Sunday services and volunteered in the church's thrift shop on Wednesday nights. 

In the past 10 months, Kach befriended Joe Sparico, owner of JJ's Deli Mart on Evans Street, and visited his store just about every day. Some days she would linger for hours. She lived with an older man, Kach told him, and didn't have a driver's license or an education. 

The store owner gently prodded Kach for details because "I knew something about her situation just wasn't right," Sparico said. 

On Tuesday morning, something had changed in his young friend. Her hands trembled, and she was crying. 

They sat down together in a back room and she revealed her secret: Nikki Allen didn't exist. She was really Tanya Kach, the girl who disappeared from her daddy's house long ago. 

"To be honest with you, I really didn't believe her at first," Sparico said. "I mean, who could believe that?" 

Sparico called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which confirmed Kach's disappearance. 

"I don't know what she was running away from, but he convinced her that she was better off staying with him," said Ron Jones, a senior case manager with the missing children's center. "He certainly coerced this young woman into staying with him, which is exploitation. But I don't believe the young woman realized that she was being exploited." 

Charges filed 

Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said investigators believe Kach's story. 

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released about 400 million exposures of her picture - on television, milk cartons and elsewhere - and there were no sightings. Periodic checks on her Social Security number also revealed no activity. 

"This bolsters her contention that she wasn't outside the home," Moffatt said. "That's where she was all the time." 

Police charged Hose with statutory sexual assault and three counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. 

Defense attorney James M. Ecker, who accompanied Hose yesterday to county police headquarters in Point Breeze, said that his client is a "good person" who has no criminal record and a full-time job, and that he should not be prejudged. 

"She is 24 years old now," Ecker said. "She definitely was not held against her will." 

Moffatt, however, said charges are warranted even if Kach went willingly because she was a minor at the time. 

"I think it's very easy to play mind games with a child her age," he said. "He was 24 years older. He was an authority figure. He told her what to eat, when to eat and what to wear." 

Unanswered questions 

Many unanswered questions remain. 

Police want to interview other people who might have information about the case, including a White Oak hair stylist who, at Hose's behest, changed Kach's hair color, style and length as part of her identity makeover, Moffatt said. 

Hose also has a son a few years younger than Kach who lived with them part of the time, he said. Police believe Hose's parents lived in the house at some point during Kach's stay, but they are not certain when, Moffatt said. 

The house is within view of a cemetery where the remains of murder victim Kimberly Krimm, also 14, were found in 1998. Moffatt would not say if Hose would be questioned in that unsolved slaying. 

Kach's reappearance and Hose's arrest rocked the McKeesport Area School District, which suspended him without pay. 

"This is just devastating to the district," school board President Kathy Ritchie said after last night's board meeting. 

Hose worked as a security guard for 15 years and has been an exemplary employee who was well-liked by the students and staff, Ritchie said. 

Big adjustment 

McKeesport police went to Hose's home Tuesday afternoon, helped Kach gather her belongings and then reunited her with her father. 

Clinging to him yesterday, Kach said she was stunned to learn her father had never stopped looking for her and that he became deeply depressed each February as the anniversary of her disappearance neared, and again on Oct. 14 - her birthday. 

She is happy to be back with her family and said her biggest wish is to get a high school diploma. She's still getting used to being called Tanya again. When introducing herself, she has to pause to think about who she is. 

She is surprised how much the world has changed, noting, for example, the higher price of everyday items such as gas, milk and bread. 

During an interview yesterday at her father's home in Elizabeth Township, where he moved after his daughter disappeared, she was alternately giddy and unsure of herself. 

She asks him for permission to smoke a cigarette and to go clothes shopping in the next few days. 

"You're 24 years old, Tanya," he tells her. "There are no locks on these doors and no bars on these windows." 

These words make her cry. 

"I can't believe I'm free." 



Jill King Greenwood can be reached at jgreenwood@tribweb.com or 412-380-5602. 

[Chasaway]

Do I understand right that no kidnapping charges have been filed in this case? Just sex crime-type charges?

Isn't that kind of odd?