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Cheryl Dempsey is the main protagonist of the 2007 pseudo-documentary horror film The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Initially one of Edward Carver's victims she becomes mentally damaged during her captivity with the serial killer and ends up becoming his reluctant assistant in murder.
She was portrayed by Stacy Chbosky.
Biography[]
Cheryl Dempsey became Edward Carver's fourth victim having been stalking her for a while, he proceeds to sneak into her house while her parents are away and murders and mutilates her boyfriend Tim before abducting and imprisoning Cheryl in his basement and abusing her sexually, physically and psychologically making her his "slave".
Over the long period in which Cheryl remains in captivity she gradually breaks to the point where she ends up becoming completely dependent on her captor to the point where she willingly begins to assist him in his murders having personally slit the throat of at least one of his victims, and even takes to wearing a fetish costume complete with a face concealing bondage hood.
Eventually after several years of unsuccessful searching, the cops finally figure out where Edward Carver is and storm his house to arrest him but instead discover Cheryl in her costume and having been stored away in a coffin, she is rescued but has been irreversibly damaged from the experience, suffering from malnourishment and harming herself in secret even going so far as to remove one of her own hands.
In an interview, she identifies with her captor and defends him saying that he loved her and that he would come back for her showing that she's now suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Two weeks after the interview, she kills herself and she's buried in a cemetery, though its later discovered that someone had exhumed her body, and a tape was left in her empty coffin implying that Edward Carver really had come back for her after all.
Legacy[]
In the post-credit's scene, it is revealed that Carver has moved somewhere else in order to avoid being caught and has restarted abducting, torturing, and killing women again. The footage from the tape he left in Cheryl's coffin shows a restrained woman whom he warns that he will kill her if she blinks. This is similar to the type of bargaining that he did with Cheryl, implying that he has now found a new "slave" and assistant.
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Trivia[]
- Though she became almost entirely dependent on Carver, there were moments seen where she knowingly defied her captor such as when after hearing some kids selling cookies agree to come into his house, she started whimpering while concealed beneath the coffee table so as to warn them away before Carver could try to harm them. Not wanting to bring any unnecessary heat down on him, the frustrated Carver had no choice but to allow the unsuspecting kids to leave the house.