Woman freed after being held captive by abuser for 10 years

Warning: readers may find some of the details of this story upsetting.  

A woman has been freed by Italian police after spending ten years imprisoned in an underground chamber at a man's house.

The woman, originally from Romania, had worked as a carer for the man's terminally ill wife and their two kids in the house. After his wife died, the man, Aloisio Francesco Rosario Giordano, offered to let the woman, who was then 19, stay with him. He then locked her into a room underneath the shed in his garden. She was kept there for 10 years. The room, according to the Mail Online, had no running water or electricity. While being held captive, the woman was allegedly beaten and raped by Giordano and gave birth to two children by him; a boy who is now nine and a girl who is now three. The woman was chained to a metal bar in the room and she and the children slept on cardboard beds on the floor. She was discovered with a number of injuries, which police belief Giordano tried to 'treat' by himself, including stitching up her wounds with fishing wire. Giordano was caught by police in Calabria in south west Italy at the weekend after being stopped by traffic police. The officers noticed a dishevelled and malnourished boy in the back of his car and demanded to see his home. It was at the home in the town of Gizzeria that they discovered the woman and the little girl. Images released by police show the grim conditions they were kept in. The woman told police she hadn't had any contact with the outside world since being taken captive. Giordano was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual abuse and mistreatment and the woman and children have been moved to a secret location. According to Italian news reports, this was not Giordano's first arrest for kidnapping. He reportedly spent time in prison after kidnapping, raping and torturing a woman in 1995.