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.