KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As police continue to search for double homicide suspect James Horn, a woman told FOX 4 that she’s spent the last 26 years looking over her shoulder in fear of him.
FOX 4’s Linda Wagar spoke to Horn’s ex-wife, Nancy, who has testified against him twice and knows firsthand how violent he can be. We’re not revealing any more about her to protect her.
“I always told my friends that he would kill somebody some day,” she said.
Nancy said she quickly realized she had married a monster.
“We got married in December. We weren’t even married a year when I left. He already had started acting bizarre and abusive,” she said.
She remembers he repeatedly tried to stop her from leaving their home, even to go to work.
“He would throw my clothes away. Hide my glasses. Hide my car keys,” she said.
When she divorced him and moved away, Horn stalked her until he found her.
“I had a bolt lock on my apartment door, but it was hard to get the key in that day, so obviously he knew how to jimmy it,” she said.
He was waiting inside. He held her at knife point, tied her up and raped her. She believes she saved her life by convincing him she would move to Missouri with him.
“He was hungry and I convinced him that I would not try to get away, so he took me with him. As soon as we got to the restaurant, I ran up to the counter and asked if I could use their phone,” she said.
A friend came and picked her up, and she took the first plane out of town. The FBI has interviewed her twice since then to help build a case against Horn regarding attacks against two other women.
In both cases, she said he pleaded guilty. She didn’t know about his latest victim until FOX 4 called her. When she heard he’d kept the woman in a box, she wasn’t surprised.
“I could see him doing that. I had a hope chest in my room that he tried to put me in once, but of course it was too little,” she said.
Even 26 years later she still lives in fear of Horn, and worries where he’ll strike next.
“You are never safe from animals like that until they are put away for good when the system starts working,” she said.
