Parolee Sought in Girl’s Death

Authorities are searching for a parolee with a history of sex crimes whom they interviewed once and now believe is connected to the strangulation of a 7-year-old girl, court documents revealed.

Sheriff’s investigators want to question Warren James Bland, 51, about the killing of Phoebe Ho, who disappeared Dec. 11 while walking to school in South Pasadena, according to Riverside County Superior Court documents obtained Friday by the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

The girl’s body was found a week later in a Glen Avon field about 45 miles east of Los Angeles. A coroner’s autopsy revealed that she had been sexually molested.

The court documents say that about a dozen rust-colored carpet fibers found on the child’s jacket and body matched the carpet inside a van owned by Bland’s employer.

At the time of Phoebe’s disappearance, the documents say, Bland was assigned by his employer to paint an apartment in South Pasadena, two blocks from the elementary school the second-grader attended and four blocks from her home.

Bland is described in the documents as a house painter who has served time in prison and a state mental hospital for sex crimes, including the 1976 rape of an 11-year-old girl and the sexual assault of an 11-year-old boy in 1981.

Authorities said that they do not know the whereabouts of Bland, whom they questioned Jan. 3 and released.

During that interview, Bland said that “he has never met Phoebe Ho . . . nor has he come in contact with her, nor has he been anywhere at the same time with her,” according to the documents.

Sheriff’s Lt. Jan Duke said Friday that the department would not comment on the case nor the contents of the affidavits, filed earlier this month by sheriff’s detectives to support search warrants.

After obtaining the warrants, detectives searched Bland’s house in Alhambra, five miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, and his employer’s van. Besides the carpet fibers, the documents say, investigators found paint chips on Phoebe’s clothing and body that could match “white paint debris” found inside the van.

The affidavits also said that a van was seen near the area where Phoebe disappeared, and that witnesses told deputies that a white van was seen parked near the field where her body was found.

Bland’s sexual offenses date to 1960, when he was convicted in Los Angeles of forcible rape and sent to Atascadero State Hospital, the documents said.

Bland was paroled in January, 1968, but was arrested 10 months later for crimes including rape and attempted kidnaping. He was convicted and sent to the California Institution for Men in Chino. He was released in August, 1975.

One year later, Bland kidnaped a mother and her two children in Long Beach and sexually assaulted the woman’s 11-year-old daughter. He served four years in state prison before being released in 1980.

Eight months later, he was arrested in the sexual assault of an 11-year-old boy. He was convicted and served five years at Chino. He was paroled last January, the affidavits said.

The documents also reveal some of what happened to Phoebe Ho the day she disappeared. A woman who lives near the girl’s family told authorities that she saw the girl skipping by her house, then saw a woman approach the girl, take her by the hand and lead her away from the school.