Brit backpacker, 24, raped on 1,000-mile road trip reveals her torturer tried to gouge out her eyes during month-long ordeal
A BRIT backpacker raped and beaten by a gun-toting gang member said he tried to gouge her eyes out during a horrifying two-month ordeal.
Elisha Greer, 24, drove 1,000 miles through the Australian outback with a gun to her head after being kidnapped by drug-crazed Marcus Martin, 23.
The face-tattooed monster attacked her repeatedly, leaving her scarred across the face and forcing her to drive at knife point.
Elisha told The Daily Mail: “He shattered my nose so that it had to be rebuilt in hospital. The cartilage exploded out the side.
“He tried to gouge out my eyes. He smashed my legs so I could hardly walk.”
Terrified Elisha was too scared to ask for help despite around 100 people seeing her battered face.
‘PEOPLE LOOKED AWAY’
She tried to make eye contact with strangers to signal her distress, but nobody came to her rescue.
Elisha added: “When he had me in the car, I would try to make eye contact with anyone and just stare out the window — the sort of look that forces someone to ask: ‘What are you looking at?’
“But people would just look away. One time, in the toilets of a McDonald’s, a little girl asked her mum: “What’s wrong with that lady’s face?”
“Her mum told her to be quiet and hurried her away. I wonder if she will read this now?”
TOO PETRIFIED TO SPEAK OUT
Cops even spoke to her over an unpaid petrol bill, but she was still too petrified to speak.
Elisha tried writing a note in a hotel visitors’ book warning she was a captive and almost asked for help while getting a stitch in A&E.
But she was frozen in fear as Martin kept her in hellish conditions for the duration of her ordeal.
She added: “I genuinely thought he would kill me himself, or he would have me killed.
I genuinely thought he would kill me himself, or he would have me killed
Elisha Greer
“He manipulated me. He made me feel I had no choice but to go along with him. Why did I do it? Because I wanted to live.”
Elisha, who described herself as “quite tough”, was encouraged to go travelling by her mum in 2015.
She met Martin in January, 2017, at an Australia Day party in Cairns, North Queensland.
He seemed “perfectly normal, not a psycho at all. When you are a backpacker you meet all sorts”, Elisha thought.
But Martin was actually a sadistic brute involved in drug dealing and gangs.
Speaking to Oz’s Channel 7 Sunday Night program, Elisha told how she was lured in by Martin before he suddenly snapped.
Brave Elisha said: “He just seemed like a nice guy, and I just chatted away to him. He seemed fun.
“He didn’t seem like a psycho, to say the least. He just seemed like a normal guy at the time.”
He started hitting me. Just hitting me and hitting me and hitting me
Elisha Greer
But her adventure of a lifetime turned into a nightmare when Martin flipped before holding her captive for eight terrifying weeks.
She was only saved after an heroic petrol attendant spotted her black eyes and bruised neck when she stopped to buy fuel in a remote town in March 2017.
The station boss followed the 4X4 then alerted police who chased after Elisha and found Martin hidden in a secret compartment in the back.
He is now facing life behind bars after admitting rape, kidnapping, ABH, wilful damage, and strangulation or choking.
‘ZOMBIE LIKE’
Elisha, from Liverpool, told how he turned violent whilst high on crystal meth after they booked a room at the Colonial Club in Cairns.
She went on: “He started hitting me. Just hitting me and hitting me and hitting me.
“He wrecked the whole room, punched through the cupboards. He flipped the beds around.”
Martin then forced Elisha to drive her white Mitsubishi Pajero 4×4, stopping at remote spots along the way to rape her.
I was forced to drive the car with a gun to my head. I thought he would kill me.
Elisha Greer
She said: “I was forced to drive the car with a gun to my head. I thought he would kill me.”
Elisha considered stabbing Martin, who would apologise after he raped her and accused her of working for Interpol.
He even sent pictures of them together and sent them to her parents from her phone.
She denies they ever had consensual sex.
But Elisha insisted: “I want people to know it’s okay…that being a victim isn’t the end of everything and that everyone can get through something.
“I want people to know that it’s not the end for them.”
Elisha’s backpacking pals said Martin, who claimed to be in a biker gang, became obsessed soon after they hooked up.
FIEND TRASHED HER PASSPORT
He changed his Facebook status to “married” a week later.
And he damaged her passport to stop her flying home to worried family in the UK.
But her ordeal only ended when heroic petrol station boss Beverley Page spotted Elisha when she stopped to refuel.
She said: “She was distressed, she was shaking, she was crying and that.
“Tears were running down her face.
“But what struck me was her black eyes. She looked bad.
“She was nervous and shaking. She was like a person in a trance.
“I asked her if her black eyes were due to her ex-boyfriend and she nodded.”
Beverley alerted cops and pulled Elisha over at a traffic stop. She was frozen in fear at the steering wheel, they later revealed.
Martin pleaded guilty to three counts of rape and one count of deprivation of liberty at the Cairns District Court in north Queensland in October 2018.
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He also pleaded guilty to other charges, including assault occasioning bodily harm, wilful damage, and strangulation or choking.
Prosecutors dropped 10 other charges – eight of rape, one of serious cruelty to animals, and one of torture.
He will be sentenced on May 28.
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