GIRL IN A CELLAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 February 1917, Page 6

GIRL IN A CELLAR.

PRISONER FOR TEN MONTHS. Lured to the isolated cellar of an infirmary, Mary Higgins, a pretty girl, was hold a prisoner for ten months by Joseph Serak, says Lloyd's Weekly. With aid only a few feet away, the girl's cries for help were futile against the thick stone walls of her dungeon, and for many weary weeks she lived a such as Edgar Allen Poe in his wildest fiction never painted blacker. The story was revealed when Serak, tortured by his conscience, alowed the girl to come out of her dungeon. Staggering above to the air and light, Mary reached safety. but at a tremendous cost, for no sooner had she walked out of the heavy darkness than she threw her hands to her faco and fell. The shock had been teo much. The sight temporarily had gone from her eyes. In the meantime her captor has been arrested. The room where the girl had been confined adjoined a shoe shop which Serak had set up in the cellar, where lie did work for the institution. He liveil in the room, which was deep in the foundations of the main building, and wns hidden away near an air duet. That part of the building seldom was visited by the infirmary officials. The girl disappeared on December 2S, 1915, and as inmates continually are running away from the place, it was supposed she had done likewise. A search of the used portions of the building failed to reveal her presence. Serak continued his work about the place as usual, and there was no cause to suspect him. Becoming frightened, however, he allowed the girl to come from her prison, and when she had been eared for she told her story. She said Serak told her to bring n pair of shoes to his room late at night, and when she entered the room he seized her. There he kept her, bringing her small quantities of bread and water, and occasionally a potato or some other food.