Page 3 - John Jamelske News Today

For a sentence of 18 to life. >> how do you plead? >> guilty. >> after 15 years of subjecting others to mental torture and sexual slavery, the syracuse dungeon master had quickly tired of the public spotlight. >> you are a sick coward. youre an evil man. youre a kidnapper and a rapist. your reign of terror is over. >> for once jamelske seemed uncharacteristically contrite. when his time came to speak, he was brief and emotional. >> im just truly sorry for what i did. ive had a lot of time to thi...

Hospitality was abused by captives like jennifer spalding. >>ar every time she requested something, just like that. she went through bottles of a-1. i bought the biggest bottles i could find of a-1 steak sauce, and she could use like a half a cup on a steak. >> youre saying youre waiting on jennifer hand and foot? >> yeah. i mean, thats the least i can do. i wanted to make it as nice as i possibly could for her. >> nice? its hard to believe, but in jamelskes mind, each of the women he imprisoned...

Time. he doesnt deny using them for sex or using lies and threats to insure their silence. but in jamelskes world, none of that makes him a criminal. >> how do you think you would feel if you were 15 years old and you were locked at your house in that room for a year? >> i would not mind living down there. it was absolutely beautiful. there was a bed. there was water. >> and youre saying everything a girl could want in that dungeon? >> anything that they wanted, except leaving at certain times, ...

Dubbed the dungeon master. animated. >> she is there like this with the music and she has her joint and -- >> angry. emotional. >> very, very much. >> even before his house became snared in a tangle of yellow police tape, jamelske was well known in his suburban syracuse hometown of dewitt but not exactly beloved. his upscale neighbors put up a fence to prevent his junk-strewn yard from spoiling their view. though many knew that jamelske, a retired grocer, collected returnable bottles for the dep...

>> probably. >> as for the women who once lived in john jamelskes world, life above ground has had its ups and downs. kirsten and jennifer now have families of their own. some are still living lives at risk on the street, but each says theyll never be entirely free of the cold chains and clammy dungeon air that colors the darkest corners of their minds. >> sometimes ill just start crying for no reason at all, and i wont even know whats wrong with me. >> john jamelske has now been moved to a maxi...

Second. it was enough to give even hardened cops the creeps. >> you also notice the bulge of the ceiling, which is kind of nerve-racking when you think you have about 3, 3 1/2 feet of soil above us. >> investigators were dumbfounded. not only was the 16-year-old apparently telling the truth, but police say she might never have been victimized at all if jennifer had given them more to go on two years earlier. >> had we believed everything she had to say, we still couldnt have found him. >> the on...

One native-american, one african-american, one hispanic, one vietnamese and one caucasian. three told investigators they had known their captor by a biblical name, joshua, peter or paul. one said he told her to call him fish. four positively picked jamelskes mug shot from a photo array. but each described the dungeon in detail. >> your honor, for purposes of the arraignment -- >> it was certain to be a sensational trial, and everyone wondered, would an elderly man looking at life behind bars mou...

Way, you can. >> though mental examination showed him competent to stand trial, jamelskes twisted perspective on the people, places and events that landed him in jail seemed to come from a parallel universe. according to jamelske, every female who stayed in his dungeon went there willingly and happily exchanged sex for cash, room and board. so hes guilty of nothing more than cheating on his wife. >> thats basically -- what do you call it? adultery. so anyway -- >> but when you go to someone whos...

Months at a time. he doesnt deny using them for sex or using lies and threats to ensure their silence. but in jamelskes world none of that makes him a criminal. so how do you think youd feel if you were 15 years old and you were locked at your house in that room for a year? >> i would not mind living down there in that dungeon. >> come on. >> it was absolutely beautiful. there was a bed. there was water. >> youre saying everything a girl could want in that dungeon? >> anything that they wanted e...

According to jamelske, the sexual obsessions that eventually landed him in prison began in 1985 when his wife, dorothy, a respected preschool teacher, became seriously ill. >> we rushed her to the hospital hemorrhaging. they couldnt get the blood in to her faster than it was coming out. we almost lost her a couple of times. >> and what happened to your relationship at that time? >> well, i always loved her very much every single second, but, you know, sex was pretty much out of the question. and...