Polly Klaas was taken from her home at knifepoint on October 1, 1993. She had invited two friends over for a sleepover, and the girls opened her bedroom door to find a stranger glowering in the hallway. He tied the girls up before asking who lived there, where the valuables were, and why there were so many people. He left the home with Polly, all while her mother and younger sister were asleep in the next room. The search for Polly and the mystery man brought about a lot of changes to police operations. The all-points bulletin was issued on the California Highway Patrol channel, and after this incident, policies were changed so that broadcasts could be heard by officers across all agencies within a specific area. This may have made a difference in Polly's case if other officers had been aware of what was going on. The three strikes law was implemented in California after this, because this man really should have never been released from prison to roam the streets. The use of alternative light sources, think luminol and fingerprinting techniques, were tried during this incident and put into practice in the aftermath.

The perpetrator in this case was Richard Allen Davis. He was born in 1954 to two abusive, alcoholic parents. His father was mentally unstable, which probably did not help matters much. Davis himself would later be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Davis began his life of crime before he was a teenager. He was around 40 at the time of this incident and had been in and out of jail and prison.

I started this book yesterday at work and finished it today. It was a bit long, but was extremely detailed about the crime, the investigation, and the people involved in the case. I really enjoyed learning about all the changes made in the wake of this incident. This was a solidly written true crime book.