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Kidnapping survivor was taken from home before having penis zip-tied and cut off as roommate recalls details

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Warning: This article contains content that some readers may find distressing.

A woman who survived a brutal abduction has come forward to share the chilling details of the night she and her housemate were kidnapped and tortured.

Michael, a successful marijuana dispensary owner in California, was violently taken from his home and left for dead in the Mojave Desert.

The then 28-year-old and his housemate, Mary Barnes, were abducted in October 2012 from their Newport Beach residence. The attackers blindfolded and gagged them before subjecting them to a horrifying ordeal.

Their hands and feet were tightly bound with zip ties before they were thrown into a van and driven over 140 miles into the desert.

While the kidnappers assured Mary that she wouldn’t be harmed if she complied, Michael endured unimaginable torture. During the two-and-a-half-hour drive, he was beaten, electrocuted with a taser, and burned with a blowtorch.

The violence escalated even further when the attackers severed his penis, doused him in bleach, and allegedly laughed as they fled—taking the severed organ with them.

After the kidnappers left, Mary managed to free herself using a discarded knife and flagged down a passing car.

By a stroke of luck, the driver was a deputy from the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, who immediately assisted Mary and found Michael barely conscious and covered in blood.

Now, more than a decade later, Mary is sharing her story in Wicked Game: The Devil in the Desert, a new true-crime series from ABC News Studios, available to stream on Hulu.

Mary has spoken out about the horrific ordeal (YouTube/ABC News)
Twisted Kidnapping Plot Unraveled

Authorities later discovered that the kidnappers had devised a bizarre plan, convinced that Michael had hidden $1 million somewhere in the desert. Their goal? To locate the buried fortune.

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