The Woman Kept Locked In Her Bedroom By 2 Neighbors For 4 Years During WWII
In the 1940s, fear over being labeled a spy helped create a situation where two women used paranoia to imprison a neighbor and steal everything they owned
Sadly, the news occasionally reports on bizarre instances where people are held captive against their will in very unusual circumstances until they are finally discovered and set free. One of the stranger stories was from 1946, when a New York woman was found to have been locked inside her bedroom by two neighbors in her building who threatened to turn her in as a spy, and held her captive for four years so they could take her belongings.
World War II waged for much of the first half of the 1940s, creating fear and paranoia that swept across the United States. It was this that helped contribute to the unusual imprisonment of Marion Marshall. The May 3, 1946 issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on the sad plight of the 56-year-old Schenectady, New York woman, who was found to have been locked inside her bedroom for the previous four years only after the building landlord sent workers in to remove furniture because the occupants had stopped paying rent and he believed they had vacated the premises.
