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

I rode the school bus everyday with Janis and Cameron's brother to highschool. I would see Janis in the grocery store and stop and say hi. I cannot beleive all this happened in Red Bluff and to people I KNOW. Scary world out there.

interesting how she stayed with them and how she was treated. I still can't imagine if someone put my head in a box for that long how I would ever want to stick around with them and feel sorry for them.

I have picked this up to read several times. However because it's a true story, it was so well written, I can't finish reading the entire book. Just so sad that anyone would have to give up their life to another person.

I went from feeling sorry for her to thinking dang she loves this nutcase and his wife it almost like if the court didn't pursue a trial she probably would have gone back to them. Writing them letters of love and missing them I wasn't convinced she was held against her will st first but over the years she didn't want to go anywhere.

Hated this story. It was too disturbing, too sick. I know that true crime can be graphic but I am fascinated by the psyche of the person, the background, the police investigation and trial. I couldn't finish this.

Colleen Stan went hitch-hiking and ended up being held captive by her captor Cameron Hooker and his wife, Janice, in Red Bluff, California for seven years. The prosecutor Christine McGuire and author Carla Norton have written a harrowing, terrifying account of those seven years in captivity. I had seen an episode about this case on the A&E series, "American Justice." Colleen Stan was tortured, raped, beaten, brainwashed and indoctrinated into a life as a slave to Cameron Hooker's cruel and merciless sadist acts against her.

This book chronicles the abduction and Cameron's life including his marriage to Janice as well. In spite of all appearances in their hometown, everybody believed Colleen was Kay, their live-in-babysitter. The photographs of the makeshift bed to keep a separate compartment for their prisoner where she slept and lived for hours a day. Smaller than any prison cell, Colleen had spent countless hours enclosed in a small box unfit for any human being or animal. Then there was the head box which words can't explain here.

Thankfully, justice was done with Cameron Hooker and hopefully he will never be released from prison. As for his victims, Colleen Stan was the perfect victim by playing the part for seven years. She deserves peace, happiness, and love even almost forty years since that fateful day when she agreed to take a ride with a couple and their baby daughter.

When she was at a restroom along the way, she had a sudden thought of running away as if her instincts were trying to tell her something. You should always trust your instincts. If Colleen had only listened to those instincts of danger back then, it should be lesson to all of us about our instincts. During those years in confinement, Colleen had the instincts to fight and survive her bizarre captivity.

While the account was good and it was very riveting, what irks me is how the author wrote this without permission from Colleen, then insinuated that there was something in Colleen that predisposed her to be a "victim", which I thought was awful. Colleen was abducted. It could have happend to anyone. The Christine McGuire goes on in the book about how hard her life was trying to juggle and marriage, a baby and the courtcase (cry me a river) and that part was beyond boring. No one cares, tis life. . Colleen did NOT suffer from Stockholm syndrome. She was lied to, and confused from being abused and starved. She left as soon as the opportunity presented itself. If anyone had the Stockholm Syndrome, it was Jan Hooker, not Colleen! A better book is Colleen Stan-The Simple Gifts Of Life. I wouldn't buy this book unless it was second hand. No need making McGuire any more richer off the suffering of others. Shame on her! Although she's a great prosecutor, I'll give her credit for that.

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.

I learned of this book after attending the Tehama County Crime Victims' Rights ceremony last April 2015. Colleen Stan was one of the speakers at this event, as her kidnapper Cameron Hooker was up for a parole hearing later that month. I was amazed at how calm and collected she was, as she described her life since the trial. She is such a courageous woman. I finally read this book (January 2016) after finding it at the Goodwill Store. I should have read PERFECT VICTIM sooner! In my opinion, this books ranks right alongside of IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote. PERFECT VICTIM tells of a disgusting, heinous crime perpetuated by a sexual deviant narcissist. In addition to the descriptions of the physical torture and abuse on both Janice Hooker and Colleen Stan, the brainwashing aspect of torture against these two women came across these 370 pages. If you're into TRUE CRIME, this is a MUST READ!

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.

This book was disturbing, heartbreaking, interesting for sure. I am studying Criminal Behavior, and it takes quite a bit to shock me, and this story most certainly did. I do like how this book is through the eyes of the prosecutor, and many details obviously had to come from Coleen.

I cannot image that this crime, such horrendous acts, actually taking place - yet so little news was made public. I hate to say it, but Cameron Hooker is/was intelligent. It's too bad Hooker couldn't have put his talents to good use rather than make sport of his sick fantasies. Hooker is what every woman fears, especially for their daughters. I just wish he could finish out his days in a box the same size he kept "K" rather than in a cell, and be treated the exact same way he treated women.

I read this book several years ago and IT TERRIFIED ME. I simply cannot fathom how one human being could do this to another person...oh, wait a sec, Hooker's not human, he's a monster! The atrocities this man committed made Hell look downright appealing...that man better hope he lives a long, long time because it will take eternity to come up with an answer for this on Judgement Day!
Oh, and one other thing, this should really serve as a lesson for folks who hitchhike or easily open up to strangers! I got purely claustraphobic reading about the headbox, the box under the bed...I found myself twitching, wanting to flex, wanting to run out in the open!!!
I saw Colleen Stan on Hard Copy back in 1995, she had gotten married, had a child, and was living some semblence of a normal life. Things appeared "normal" on the outside but surely has got to be tortured by the memories, nightmares...Godspeed to Colleen for health healing.

Norton's treatment of the subject matter, which crosses the line of merely cruel and unusual, is handled with tact, while still maintaining the ability to shock the reader in some places. But the shocks are only to give you a glimpse into the life of Colleen Stan, who was kept a prisoner for 7 years by the Cameron and Janice Hooker.

Mrs. Norton is part a recollection, from the statements and conversations with Colleen, of what led up to her imprisonment and the specific methods the Hookers used to control her. Interspersed with the horrible images of her life inside the small box Cameron fashioned for her to live in, is the subsequent trial of Cameron Hooker.

Carla Norton was living in Japan at the time of the crime, but the disturbing tale of modern-day slavery led her to quit her job and move for a time to the area in California where the case was being tried. She attended the trial and met with many of the people involved. Her immersion into the case allowed her to write a compelling book on the case of a woman that was subjected to some of the worst instances of mind control seen since World War II. She brings to light facts and paints a picture of those involved that could only have come from being there while the events were unfolding in the courtroom.

The case of Colleen Stan is one that highlighted the role that pornography can play in the life of a man that already has certain predispositions regarding sex. It also shows the power that faith can have in the life of someone who has been systematically stripped of all independence and self-worth.

I highly recommend this book for every true crime fan. Not only is it well-written and researched, it is a testament to the dedication of the prosecutors who try these cases, sometimes sacrificing their own lifestyles in the search for justice.

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.

Its so hard to believe someone like the victim in this book could actually believe a story so outrageous as the one they told her about why she had to stay with them and be their slave. She could have walked away at anytime. I think she must have been missing something in her ability to "reason" in order to go along with this very long, intense life with this young couple. This story is "almost" unbelievable except for the fact that she did, indeed, become their "slave", more afraid of the "made-up" company that would do terrible things to her if she escaped or even tried to escape. With every page I read, the story became more and more bizarre. And she only had to hear the truth one time in order to believe the truth. I just wanted to shake her and tell her to "think"!!!
One part of the story I think is really true is that this young man did, in fact, murder someone they kidnapped before this "perfect victim". The Perfect Victim's life was, in fact, in danger every single moment she was with them. Read this book and you'll come away believing some people make better victims than others.

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.

When I first began reading this book, I could not even fathom what was about to happen. 20 year old Colleen Stan was on her way to visit a friend when she decides to hitchhike from Oregon to California. A man and a woman with a baby stops and picks her up. Quickly they bound and blindfold her and take her to their home. Colleen is subjected to excruciating torture and confinement in the home of Cameron Hooker. By brainwashing Colleen, Cameron now has exactly what he wants.. a slave. For seven years Colleen lives with the Hooker's until one day Janice Hooker, Cameron's wife, informs Colleen of the truth.

A fascinating read about a real monster. Highly recommended. People read true crime books to discover real monsters as opposed to supernatural ones...and Cameron Hooker is fully qualified. Of especial interest is the authors' focus on the brainwashing approach selected by prosecutor and co-author McGuire against a sexual psychopath who kidnapped a young hitchhiker, his "perfect victim...sufficiently submissive not to threaten or even seriously resist her captor's techniques. I agree the psychology of the submissive impulse could've benefitted from some background, at least on the concept if not on specifics about Colleen (which might not be readily available anyway). The brainwashing defense failed with Patty Hearst, but McGuire's use of it in this case also sheds some light on the Hearst case, a subject I don't think was adequately explored at the time despite the tremendous publicity. As for the victim failing to run off when not under constant surveillance, McGuire notes that Colleen's family was also under threat by Hooker and, following torture, long isolation, conditioning, and unremitting fear, I have no problem with the idea, however exagerrated it may seem, that she felt she could not get away. Not a unique idea at all...pedophile cases are based firmly on the idea of powerlessness paralyzing the young victim. Penthouse Columnist Emily Prager wrote something years ago that stayed with me about the Hearst case, about asking a pimp how long it took to turn out some young Midwestern girl fresh off the bus...and the answer was something like one, two, or three days, I forget which. Several interesting issues explored in this book and an unforgettable crime make it a fine purchase.

This book tells the story of Coleen Stan, the woman who was kidnapped and kept prisoner, most of the time in a coffin size wooden box, by a couple in California. Written by the woman who prosecuted this case the book spares none of the shocking details of the case while still not appearing sensationalistic. It's a riveting and mesmerizing look into the true depths of human evil as well as a testament to the power of the human psyche to survive. One of the best books of its kind I have read!

This is a very intense book showing the crime and following court case. Very involved story with good arguments on both sides. If the book had not included the actual story and only the court case, I would say the defense did a great job fighting it. However, knowing the truth made all that moot.

This book was very well written in my opinion. It is very graphic and detailed. I felt so much heartache and anger at the same time while reading this. It just amazes me (not in a good way) at how people can be such disgusting sick human beings.

An unbelievable and true story that unfortunately is the result of a sadomasochistic monster's fantasies. It is hard to tell the difference between fiction and reality when you browse the details of Colleen Stan's ordeal. I strongly sympathise with the victim, and the book arouses my utter anger at her tormentors and the callousness of some legal practitioners in plea-bargaining. However, there are a few points that the book fails to reveal - Janice Hooker's testimony which is not entirely true, her claim that "Colleen was submissive" is to cover her skin, Janice's personality and the author's tendency to defend Janice (I suppose it's because of her female gender). Janice IS a monster aiding and abetting a MACHOMONSTER and I hope Colleen Stan reads this review. I'm female, so don't accuse me of sexism. There are also insufficient medical details that Colleen's torture and sensory deprivation affect her reactions and health - e.g. the fact she didn't flinch when burnt is due to death of neurons in her breasts NOT courage as it is impossible in this case; the hangings+whippings+dunkings all contribute to mental torture and enslavement. Also the brainwashing details are straight from Dr. Hatcher's description, but they are not in depth. I find the references to McGuire's personal background as irrelevant, and I doubt that Janice's daughters can be lovely girls, hopefully not monsters like their parents. I'll make sure no nephew of mine ends up with those girls since such parents are incapable of teaching them what morality is. As for those who still think of Colleen's role as a willing participant, I suggest they go and see a shrink to improve their IQ. To Colleen, I wish her the best of health, happiness, no more nightmares, and my unconditional friendship though I'm in Australia and am Vietnamese.

Stay on the author's good side. Otherwise all of your good qualities will be disregarded and everything else will be revealed.
It amazes me that some psycho could treat someone the way the defendant did, let her go jogging and get a job, and still keep her under his control so she'd return. I would have thought she'd take ANY chance to try to escape.
If this wasn't a true story I'd never have thought it was believeable.

I read this many years ago and still cannot believe this could happen to anyone. How she endured those years is amazing. Great read, will stay with you long after your done reading it. I will never except a ride from anyone even if I break down in the middle of no where after reading this!

Christine Mcguire did a wonderful job of telling this horrible true story. The crimes committed against these two women are almost unbelievable. I had a hard time putting the book down, because I became so ingrossed into finding out what happened. I needed to know if Colleen was able to move on with her life. Colleen is a remarkable woman. The only thing that I did not feel was necessary was all the information of the writer's life, while prosecuting this case. I felt that it took away some of the attention from the main story, and really wasn't something that the reader would really care about.

The author grabs the reader's attention immediately, and has it hence forth. The book describes the horrors the victim suffered, but also jumps back and forth to the trial.

The book is very descriptive of the characters, but leaves out some of their personal histories. It would have been nice to know more about the victim's past, rather than just the immediate. Same goes for her predator.

Nevertheless, I rate this a four star book, because it captured, and kept my attention, but lacked a few details that I would have appreciated.

This was a very interesting book, but pretty standard fair for this class of book. The one thing I kept asking myself was why didn't she leave, the explanation of this issue in the book did not convince me. Overall a well written book that is easy to fly through.

I saw this book was mentioned Buried Memories - Katie Beers' Story and decided to search for it to download. Instead I came across one written by Jim B Green that tells Colleen's story, not the prosecutors. Y'all should read it.

Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts of Life: Dubbed by the Media "The Girl in the Box" and "The Sex Slave"

Written by the Colleens Lawyer, it takes you through the whole crime and court case very thoroughly. Its hard to believe what Colleen went through as a victim but the book does a good job making you see it from all points of view. A great book for those readers who love the terror and love the pyschology behind the captors and the victims.

I really enjoyed this book...both times I read it. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I couldn't put it down. I am a college student and am currently writing a report on this book. It is definitely a must read.

The authors provided a clear and effective chronology of a multi-crime activity. Their attention to detail and description of physical and emotional abuse committed by a psychopath made this book difficult to put down.