Customer Reviews

Evil Secrets

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Warren James Bland started his career of violent crime in 1958 by gut-slashing a man at a gas station. By the time he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed 7 year-old Phoebe Ho in 1986, he had already been convicted of rape, child molestation, kidnapping, and torture, and had spent most of his adult life in prison. The disappearance of Phoebe in December of 1986 while on her way to school in South Pasadena, California, sparked a media frenzy and a massive search, which ended after a week with the discovery of her battered and torn body in a ditch in Riverside County. With no crime scene and no suspects, cops were forced to rely on cutting-edge scientific techniques and computer records of sex offender profiles to try to identify the killer. Book gives step-by-step details of how the police and scientists solved the crime, with lots of interesting insights and details concerning homicide investigation, and the impact such a terrible crime has on the community, as well as police investigators. Follows the death-penalty trial and conviction of Bland, with actual excerpts of transcripts and interviews with the prosecutor and defense attorneys. A quick read, well written. Good for true crime fans.

Throughout this book, I noticed that the author, Kathy Braidhill, kept an emotional distance from the subjects of her book. At first, I thought perhaps she had a psychological problem. After finishing the book, I realized that she'd had to relive such horror that she probably had to take a step back.

This is the hellacious story of a madman who posed as the nicest guy on earth. He was let out of prison five times, FIVE TIMES!, before he tortured, sexually tortured,starved, raped, sodomized and murdered little 7-year-old Phoebe Ho over the period of a week. One of the scariest parts of this book is that no one ever learned where he'd kept this child all of that time.

Probably the most emotionally drenching part of this book is the sheer grief of Phoebe's parents. Here, Braidhill does an excellent job. I sobbed along with Mrs. Ho. How does she go on after this unspeakable evil was done to her favorite little one?

Since I finished this book, I've kept a light on in my little one's room.

This book is about a slasher, a rapist, a murderer, the devil incarnate, a sexual sadisst who could have been the guy next door. I suddenly realized what John Douglas has always warned...that murderers and rapists don't always LOOK like the monsters they are.

A gripping book. After I was finished, I asked myself, who has this much evil inside of himself? People like this really DO exist, and that is the most frightening thing to realize.

This book was absolutely gripping! My heart just ached for the family members of little Pheobe Ho! This guy was not only derranged but pathetic. He seemed somewhat childlike. Spoiled,self-absorbed and very immature! He knew just what he was doing and really planned ahead! But his carelessness finally got the best of him. The death penalty was too good for this man named Warren James Bland! When he was finally gunned down by officers during his arrest, I could not help but to wish that the bullet would have entered a more vital organ than his leg! I know that makes me no better than the killer himself, but you really grow to hate this man throughout the book after hearing what he had done to little 7 yr. old Pheobe Ho. Her family will never be the same, nor will I after reading this horrific true story! I get up nightly since finishing it, to check on my 9 yr old son as he sleeps. I think of the moms anguish, and I too start to cry. God bless the families of these victims (all). And may Mr. Bland burn in..... Well, you know!

It is inconceivable to me that a man could be so cruel. I only hope that Phoebe was unaware of most of the horrible things that that animal did to her. You know bland will be kept apart from the other inmates in prison because they will kill him for what he did to that little girl. He deserves everything that he gets. He is not a man. Even calling him an animal is to good for him. It made me sick to read what all he did to her. I am so glad he was caught before he could kidnapped another child. Her poor parents. Such pain for them. I hope they never found out everything that was done to their baby.

This book was absolutely gripping! My heart just ached for the family members of little Pheobe Ho! This guy was not only derranged but pathetic. He seemed somewhat childlike. Spoiled,self-absorbed and very immature! He knew just what he was doing and really planned ahead! But his carelessness finally got the best of him. The death penalty was too good for this man named Warren James Bland! When he was finally gunned down by officers during his arrest, I could not help but to wish that the bullet would have entered a more vital organ than his leg! I know that makes me no better than the killer himself, but you really grow to hate this man throughout the book after hearing what he had done to little 7 yr. old Pheobe Ho. Her family will never be the same, nor will I after reading this horrific true story! I get up nightly since finishing it, to check on my 9 yr old son as he sleeps. I think of the moms anguish, and I too start to cry. God bless the families of these victims (all). And may Mr. Bland burn in..... Well, you know!

To all readers of this book,"I ACTUALLY KNEW THIS ANIMAL."
I had just turnned 20 at that time, I was the Daughter of the family that sponsered "the so-called Evie,"The book was very well
written, This would have been a Perfect true life Minnie type of Series/Movie, as a lesson for all parents/children as graphic and
as horrific as it was,"And it was!" The scary thing about it was
when the so-called "Evie" Brought him down to our home with her 33 children,it was around Thanksgiving that year,to anounce to us her ingagement, we had no clue what his past was,there was some details in the book that were left out or maybe just unknown to the writer."THAT MAN SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURNNED IN THE STREETS FOR WHAT HE HAD DONE!!!" Evie was a the kindest women, she was like a Mother to me.I can see now how he fooled her in slithering his way into her life. She had daughter about Phoebe-Ho's age at that time which the reality of it till this day I still cannot fathom.Thank god we had live in detectives and police officers at that time when James Bland was on the run, we found out later that the entire time all the mahem was going on ,"That Animal" had beed hiding out the entire time across the street from where we were living, and watching our every move, he had also written a diary on how he was going to kill our families in the end. To this day I don't leave the house alone, I don't even step outside even in the daytime unless absolutely necessary.
And most of all, to the family of that Dear Dear Sweet Innocent
and unreplacible Phoe-Be Ho, "There is not a day that pass where she and her loving family are not in my thoughts and prayer's, (I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LOSS OF YOUR ANGEL)and all the peoples lives he had destroyed.