Perfect Victim: The True Story of "The Girl in the Box" by the D.A. That Prosecuted Her Captor

by Christine McGuire, Carla Norton

Overview

“True crime at its most shocking, most harrowing, and . . . most thought-provoking.”—Booklist

In 1977 twenty-year-old Colleen Stan left home to hitchhike from Oregon to California. Seven years later she emerged from hell, the victim of a bizarre and extraordinary crime.

This is Colleen's incredible true story, told by the determined young district attorney who prosecuted the man who had forced her to endure years of sexual perversion . . . and held her captive in a coffin-like box under his and his wife's bed. A story of riveting psychological intensity and gripping courtroom drama, Perfect Victim reveals the whole truth about Collen Stan's real-life nightmare . . . and the psychopath who enslaved her body and her mind.

“Horrifying!”—The Cincinnati Post

“Hard to put down!”—Chicago Tribune

“A gripping and disturbing story of the secret life of apparently normal people. At once, horrific and engrossing.”—Vincent Bugliosi, author of Helter Skelter

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780440204428
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/1989
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	434,231
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.65(h) x 1.08(d)

About the Author

Christine McGuire is a veteran prosecutor of murder cases in a California District Attorney's office. She has taught at the academy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Quantico, Virginia. Her first book, Perfect Victim, a nonfiction account of a sexual enslavement case, was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Carla Norton is a novelist and true crime writer. Her books include Perfect Victim, Disturbed Ground, What Doesn’t Kill Her, and The Edge of Normal.

Table of Contents

Part 1	Not Even a Scream	1
Part 2	The Chorus of Disbelief	41
Part 3	"K"	71
Part 4	Dangerous Precedents	101
Part 5	Homecoming	111
Part 6	The Malleable Psyche	135
Part 7	Return to Darkness	159
Part 8	Scandal	173
Part 9	Confession	187
Part 10	The Machinery	221
	Epilogue	364

Editorial Reviews

True crime at its most shocking, most harrowing, and . . . most thought-provoking.”—Booklist
“Horrifying!”—The Cincinnati Post

“Hard to put down!”—Chicago Tribune

“A gripping and disturbing story of the secret life of apparently normal people. At once, horrific and engrossing.”—Vincent Bugliosi, author of Helter Skelter

From the Publisher