Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
In early 1973, 13-year-old Paul Martin Andrews experienced a true nightmare when he was not only kidnapped, but also locked in a damp wooden box buried in the forest, chained, beaten and raped several times a day over a period of eight days. It was 11 January that would change Paul Martin Andrews’ life forever. It snowed so heavily in Portsmouth that day that it was considered the heaviest snowfall in a single day since 1963. Due to the heavy snowfall, schoolchildren had the day off. One of them was Paul Martin Andrews. Paul Martin Andrews was born in 1959 and was the eldest of three children. With both parents working, he and his siblings grew up as so-called ‘latchkey kids,’ often left to their own devices. Life changed dramatically when his parents separated when Andrews was just eleven years old. A year later, they divorced. Despite all the adversity, the family coped with this difficult time. When Andrews was 13, his mother remarried and moved with the children from rural Isle of Wight County to her new husband’s house in Portsmouth. Here, a new world full of temptations opened up for the young Andrews, with cinemas, amusement arcades and cigarettes. However, his nicotine consumption put such a strain on his pocket money that he took a job as a newspaper delivery boy. On 11 January, Andrews had to deliver newspapers again, but this time, due to the snow-covered roads, he had to use skates and a sledge. When he returned and noticed that there was no milk left in the house, Andrews went out to buy some. On the way there, about three blocks from his home, a blue van pulled up beside him. The driver asked him if he wanted to help move furniture at his brother’s house in exchange for some cash. The man introduced himself as Peewee. Andrews, who was short on cash, agreed and got into the stranger’s car. During the drive, Andrews noticed a long knife in the van, which made him very uneasy. After a stop at a shop, they returned to the van, and again Andrews felt the urge to flee, but fear of possible consequences prevented him from doing so. But Peewee managed to calm Andrews down by engaging him in conversation. After a 30-minute drive, they arrived at Dismal Swamp State Park, a wooded area on the border between the US states of Virginia and North Carolina. Peewee turned onto a remote road. Then he parked the van and they both walked to a hunting hide that Peewee referred to as his brother’s ‘game box’. It was located under a mound of earth, beneath which a concealed metal hatch glistened in the snow, leading to a plywood box buried in the ground. Although alarm bells were ringing in Andrew’s head, he climbed into the box at Peewee’s request to help him load the supplies they would need during the hunting season when they were observing game for long periods of time. As soon as Andrew was in the box, Peewee pulled out the long knife he had taken from the van and announced: ‘I have bad news for you. You’ve just been kidnapped.’ Andrews quickly tried to wrestle the knife away from Peewee, but Peewee punched him hard in the face and overpowered him. He tied Andrews’ legs and arms and chained him in the small, damp box. Then Andrews’ suffering began, as Peewee raped him several times a day and severely abused him. The repeated sexual assaults left not only physical scars, but also deep psychological ones. Peewee showed no affection or remorse. He saw Andrews merely as an object of his sick fantasies. Despite his nightmare becoming reality, Andrews soon realised a way to reduce the frequency of the abuse by constantly trying to engage his tormentor in conversation. During the week, the kidnapper’s carefully planned machinations gradually began to lose their effect. Without a clear exit plan, Peewee became increasingly nervous. In the meantime, Andrews’ sister Jennifer, after her brother failed to return from getting milk, immediately informed her parents, who alerted the police. They immediately launched a large-scale search operation. Initially, it was suspected that Andrews might have accidentally drowned in one of the waterways or rivers that flow through Portsmouth and Norfolk. For this reason, the coastguard drained a nearby waterway and the fire brigade conducted a helicopter search. But there was no trace of Andrews. After a week of unimaginable suffering, during which Andrews lived in constant fear that Pewee would kill him, Pewee left him alone in the cramped, bitterly cold box. But Andrews was lucky. The next morning, he heard the sounds of hunters out hunting rabbits. Andrews screamed for his life and actually managed to get them to come to his dungeon. Andrews told them that he had been kidnapped. They immediately notified the police, who freed Andrews and took him to Obici Memorial Hospital, where his mother Ann worked as a nurse. After Andrews’ rescue and a short stay in hospital, the next, no less painful phase began for him: dealing with psychologists who showed him little understanding and admitted him to a psychiatric institution. But what became of Andrews’ kidnapper? Andrews’ description enabled Peewee to be identified as Richard Alvin Ausley. He was a known child molester who had already kidnapped and repeatedly raped a 10-year-old boy in 1961. He was sentenced to 26 years for this, but was released on parole in 1971. On the day Ausley abducted Andrews, he was due to stand trial for the abuse of a 14-year-old boy. Ausley was sentenced to 48 years in prison for the abduction and abuse of Andrews, which was increased by 5 years when another boy came forward who had been sexually abused by Ausley on multiple occasions since 1972. When Ausley was due to be released on parole in 2002, it triggered panic in Andrew. Andrew had kept silent about his traumatic experience for almost three decades. But Andrew now broke his silence and went public with his story. He campaigned for the passage of the Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders Act. This law would require extreme sex offenders to be placed in psychiatric facilities after serving their sentences. The law on the civil commitment of sex offenders was finally passed a year later. Andrews, who is now open about his homosexuality, was grateful for this. For a long time, he kept it secret because Ausley repeatedly portrayed himself as a victim of Andrews, who had seduced him. But in the end, fate caught up with Ausley. At the age of 64, he was killed by 24-year-old inmate Dewey Keith Venable at Sussex I Prison in Waverly on 13 January 2004. The autopsy revealed that Ausley had been strangled and had suffered blunt force trauma to the upper body. Venable had been serving an 18-year sentence since 2004 for car theft, kidnapping and robbery. He himself had been the victim of a paedophile named Dennis L. Sewell, who had warned the prison guards never to put him in a cell with a child molester. But when this happened, Venable saw red, and his sentence for Ausley’s murder was extended by 12.5 years. For Andrews, Ausley’s death marked the end of another chapter that he will never forget, just as he will never forget the ordeal he endured. The grim story of Paul Martin Andrews is not only a symbol of injustice and pain, it also serves as a reminder to the community to stand together for justice and healing. And so I stand here at the end of my story and share with you some photos from Portsmouth. They are not only meant to remind us of the shadows, but also of the light that defines this city. May they inspire you to pause and reflect on the strength and resilience that can make people and entire communities shine despite much suffering.
