Man 'turns into a beast,' holds woman captive for two years, prosecutor says. He gets 394 years in prison [View all]

• A man who kidnapped and abused a 74-year-old woman for years has been sentenced to 394 years in prison.

• Prosecutors say the relationship started as a friendship but turned ugly in 2020 when the suspect began raping and performing sex acts on his victim.

It started out as a friendship, but prosecutors allege it quickly turned into a nightmare kidnapping after Ian Edard Kroe held a 74-year-old woman captive in a hotel for two years, repeatedly raping her and threatening to torture her if she tried to escape.

On Tuesday, 58-year-old Kroe was sentenced to 394 years to life in prison in a case that San Mateo County Dist. Atty. Stephen Wagstaffe said was unlike anything he or his prosecutors had seen. Kroe was convicted Feb. 20 of 33 felony counts.

“It just started out as a friendship with the victim,” Wagstaffe said, “then suddenly this guy turns into a beast.”

Kroe, who lived in Minnesota, became friends with the victim in 2016 after his mother died and she reached out to offer her condolences, according to a statement from the San Mateo County district attorney’s office. Prosecutors did not explain what relationship the victim had to Kroe’s mother.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-04/man-holds-woman-captive-california-hotel-394-year-sentence

There really are monsters out there.