How It Changed Them

Oliver Mackson: ONE OF THE WORST THINGS EVER to happen in the placid village that the locals call "Slow-Motion Goshen" occurred on a sunny afternoon on June 4, 1991. Two girls, best friends, went exploring off North Church Street, near where the village gives way to the more woodsy, spread-out Town of Goshen. One girl was 14. The other was a month away from turning 14. They were curious about an old hotel, tumble-down and vine-strangled, fallen into decrepitude long before they were born.

They were poking around the crumbling foundation of the building when they were confronted by a tall man, 6-foot-3 before you counted the pile of his reddish-brown afro. He carried a long knife and a .22-caliber rifle.

The younger girl tried to joke it away: "Are we on 'Candid Camera'?"

The tall man's name was Josh Duggan. He was 28. He had a juvenile record for arson, and he'd been the target of an investigation into a 1981 rape in the village, according to court records.

He bound the girls with plastic strips and forced them to walk back to his nearby home. He marched them upstairs, to a bedroom filled with so many porn magazines and X-rated videotapes that police would later have trouble opening the door.