Customer Reviews

Perfect Victim: The True Story of the Girl in the Box

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book has been around for a few years now. I first read it about six years ago and have since read it again. It's just as good the second time round. A very shocking story of sex,brainwashing and sick perversions. Not for the easily disturbed. Very graphic details and very shocking in places. On reading the back of the book I almost laughed at the idea of someone being held captive for seven years and being brainwashed into staying. On reading the book however,you come to realise just how this can happen and how frighteningly real it was for the poor victim, Colleen Stan. All the way through I couldn't help but wonder why on earth Colleen's family didn't suss out that something was going on. I mean, hey, your daughter suddenly goes missing and when she finally turns up she is like a different person and totally controlled by two individuals that she normally wouldn't associate with. Surely someone must have thought that something was up? Really excellent read. Buy it,don't borrow it as you'll definitely want to read it again.Comes with quite a few photos too. Powerfull and compelling.

true story about seven years in captivity full of deprevation, sexual abuse and torture. Colleen Stan is an amazingly strong person to be able to live through her ordeal at the hands of Cameron Hooker. This book starts with her abduction while hitch hiking, ironically she refused a few rides because she felt unsure about them. Along comes they typical American family and she accepts their offer of a ride.

The story continues back and forth between her captivity and the investigation/trial after her escape. While reading the chapters about Colleen you often wonder why she didn't try to escape when she was free of the box or when she was allowed certain freedoms. But, I guess that unless we were in her situation we would never be able to comprehend exactly what she was feeling.

This book is a great read, however, it's extremely graphic at times and is not for the weak at heart.

The journey begins when young Colleen Stan is hitchhiking in California and passes up several offers by people she felt uncomfortable accepting rides from. Then along comes a nice American family and she accepts. So begins a 7-year ordeal presumably unmatched by anyone else. I find the book filled with details not only of the horror Cameron Hooker inflicted on Colleen, but also of the earlier horror he inflicted on a young Janice in the days before their marriage. As difficult as it was to believe how Hooker could have Stan so under control he would allow her to hold down a job, it becomes crystal clear when trial testimony describes hostages undergoing the same experience. My only problem is the book is not wholely written in chronological order but jumps back and forth between the current investigation and the years prior when Stan is held captive by a cold, calculating, very intelligent but depraved individual. If you can handle descriptions of immense pain, torture and terror get your hands on this book immediately.

One of the criticisms in reviews of this book is that it fails to answer the question, Why didn't Colleen Stan leave when she could?

I am simply amazed that readers of this book could come away from it not knowing the answer to that question. It may seem impossible that after enduring three years of isolation and extreme torture, that Colleen wouldn't run away the first chance she got. But on the other hand, who among us has gone through anything remotely like what she went through? How can anyone suggest that they know what pyschological impact being kept in a coffin for eight months after being kidnapped would be?

Colleen Stan didn't have the opportunity to "leave" until over three years of on-going control and abuse. To suggest that this might not put her in a mental state that would allow her to believe the lies she was being told is simply naive.

The author of this book does NOT fail in attempting to make clear why Colleen Stan didn't leave and also why some people might not believe her. It is a very balanced and well-written tale. It is in no way boring as one reviewer suggested. It is a horrifically fascinating story of a bizzare sadist, his compliant wife, and their victim.

I am a true crime die hard, and this book has got to be one of the most interesting, mind baffling books I have ever read. The way the author tells the story of this girl kept locked in a box, makes you feel as if you are going through her experience and feeling her fear. The details are extremely meticulous and detailed. Anyone who reads true crime should read this book!

Cameron Hooker appeared to the outside world as a quiet, hard-working, mild-mannered young man with a nice, quiet wife. But inside, Cameron was driven by sadistic fantasies of having a dungeon of female slaves totally under his control, to torture, have sex with, and order about as he wished. Cameron put many hours into studying up on psychological dominance and constructing appropriate places and devices to keep and torture a slave, before he put his plan into action to actually grab one. His mousy wife, not wanting to be tortured herself and not wanting to lose her husband, went along with the plan. Cameron's first attempt was a failure in that he went too far and actually killed his victim. His second attempt, in which he kidnapped Colleen Stan, was more successful in that he managed to keep her around for years, after breaking her psychologically through torture, deprivation and isolation. As part of his coercion, he showed her an official-looking "slave contract" saying that if she escaped, she would be hunted down and killed by a national network of slave masters, and her loved ones would also be killed.

Colleen Stan was fortunate in that she managed to survive Cameron's tortures, including being hung by her arms for extended periods, burned, electrically shocked, and kept in a coffinlike box under the Hooker's bed in a sweltering trailer for several days with almost no water. Eventually she was able to forge a bond with Cameron's neglected and fearful wife, who helped her escape and also helped the authorities bring Cameron to justice. Colleen was not so fortunate in that the prosecutor in her case, Christine McGuire, apparently wrote this book about her experiences and did not share the profits with Colleen, which is pretty sleazy in my opinion. The book delves into a bit of McGuire's private life and frankly, even before I heard about her running off with the profits of Colleen's story, she came off like an unstable, egomaniacal person. I am just glad she didn't somehow mess up Colleen's case and let Cameron go free.

Colleen is also unfortunate in that many people who read this book will not understand how psychological control, threats and physical torture can break a person's spirit to the point where they do not try to run away when given the chance. Everybody always thinks they will run away if put in that situation, but the truth is that we don't know what we will really do until we're the victim. It's clear that Cameron Hooker did his homework; he paid attention to and enjoyed all the painstaking details of torturing and breaking a woman. Perhaps Colleen was a bit less assertive than many other women, but at the same time, when you have been tortured for days it would seem like it's pretty easy to believe that you might be hunted down and killed if you try to run away in an unfamiliar area. And of course, there is the well-documented phenomenon of "Stockholm syndrome." In short, there are many reasons why a kidnap/ torture victim might not try to escape, and this book provides an excellent exploration of many of them.

Although this is a worthwhile book to read, I don't like the comparison to Jaycee Dugard being made in the advertising of this book. First of all, Colleen Stan was not a snatched child like Jaycee Dugard (or Elizabeth Smart or other child sex-slave kidnap victims). Colleen was a young adult hitch-hiker in her early 20s when she was taken, although her personality seems to have been shy and perhaps child-like in some ways. Second, the events in this book took place, and the book was written, many years before Jaycee Dugard's case entered the public eye, and it seems grossly exploitative to use Jaycee's name to try and sell additional copies of this book. Because of that exploitation and the situation with the prosecutor, I cannot recommend that people buy this book new and put money in corrupt pockets. It's a good read, though, so buy a used copy like I did.

When I was browsing through the True Crime section at my local bookstore, I asked my sister to help me narrow down my choices: a Jeffrey Dahmer piece, the BTK Killer book, or one about a girl kept in a coffin beneath a couple's bed for over 7 years. She immediately recommended the latter.

And she was right--to a point. The subject is disturbingly fascinating for a True Crime novel about a victim who isn't murdered. How could they keep this young woman so carefully hidden away for so long? It seems outlandish, but the more you uncover, the more you realize that it IS feasible, and it's absolutely horrifying to imagine what Colleen Stan went through.

But the book is written by the DA who prosecuted her captor, and it shows.

We learned virtually nothing about what makes Cameron Hooker tick. Almost nothing is revealed about Colleen's past. And Janice Hooker, the most in-depth study, is more an accomplice/side victim than anything else.

But we learned all about the DA's marital problems, the vacation to reconcile her marriage, the eventual divorce, how cute her daughter is, how much she loves children, and virtually her every reaction to minute things--when all those small details should have been put into Colleen's story.

I could have enjoyed this so much more, but honestly--why should I care about the DA's personal problems? I read this book to learn about the crime, the victim, the captor, the associates. I didn't read it to hear about the author's personal issues throughout the trial.

Snip out those details, and this book would have gotten 1.5 stars more, if I could.

The story of what happened to Colleen Stan really is horrendous, and so therefore this book is automatically pretty interesting. Trying to imagine years - YEARS - spent in darkness and sensory isolation, periodically broken by abuse and rape, is pretty terrifying. It is a wonder that Colleen Stan was able to hold it together in any way and retain some fragment of herself. That head box is pretty horrifying to think about.

The writing is where this book falls short. It was a very bad move, in my opinion, to switch back and forth from Colleen's ordeal to McGuire's life. It was silly; going from this poor girl's trauma to the young prosecutor's new job in a redneck office. I was really, really, PAINFULLY aware that the author WAS the prosecutor. Growing more and more frustrated with updates on her marriage, descriptions of her daughter, and illustrated moments (holding her baby while juxtaposed against a backdrop of hardcore porn is one of them) written in third person, I became a wee bit annoyed with this book.

But, the facts of this case, the details of the "Company", the empathy you feel for Colleen Stan and the urge to understand what happened within her mind, all outweigh the prosecutor/author's fascination with herself, and make for a very interesting book.

Wow. I had thumbed through this book one day at a bookstore and could not forget the chilling details I had uncovered. 1 week later I was compelled to buy it. 2 days later I had finished it. This is a hard one to forget.

I can not comprehend how any human being can be THIS sadistic. I have read MANY true crime books. This guy makes John Wayne Gacy look like a mercy killer. There aren't words to describe Cameron Hooker's twisted sexual hell he inflicted. Like many people have said, this story is hard to believe. I think part of the reason for this may be that it is just too horrible to accept. Upon completing this well written book, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. I can't believe humans can reach this low.

Today, August, 27, 2009, Investigative Discovery aired the Story of Colleen Stan and I recalled reading the book back in the early 90's. This book gave me nightmares for months. I couldn't imagine how someone could have endured 7 years of pain, and suffering at the hands of such a cruel and sadistic person, who in this case is named Cameron Hooker.

Colleen's story was on my mind for months, and then one day I was introduced to one of the authors, Carla Norton, who I found to be a wonderful woman. We spoke extensively about the book and she answered a lot of my questions. After that meeting I was able to sleep at night without the nightmares, but I never forgot about Colleen Stan.

I'm sure that Investigative Discovery will air the story again sometime, but watching it today and seeing it narrated by the real Colleen Stan was eye opening and it brought back all of those scary feelings I had when I read the book, which contained so many graphic details.

If you're as sensitive as I am, I wouldn't read the book, but if you're into psychology and want to study the human mind and how fragile it is, then I would highly recommend it. Just don't read it at night. It's disturbing but a fascinating piece of work.