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No Angels: The Short Life And Brutal Death Of Brandaline Rose Duvall
New York Times-Bestselling Author: The true story of a teenager's horrific murder by a vicious Denver gang--and the investigation and trials that followed.
A little before midnight on May 30, 1997, fourteen-year-old Brandy DuVall waited at a bus stop in the Denver area for a ride back to her grandparents' home after spending the evening at a friend's. She was wearing a bright-red Chicago Bulls jersey bearing the number of her favorite player, Michael Jordan.
It was the shirt that attracted the five young Bloods gang members in the car that circled the block and came back to where she stood. Why Brandy got in the car that night would remain an unanswered question. Was it voluntary? Was she abducted?
Whatever the answer, the consequence was an unimaginable nightmare of torture, rape, and murder at the hands of a vicious Denver street gang, particularly "Pancho," a violent psychopath, and other members of the Deuce-Seven. The crime, the investigation, the betrayals and deals cut with the devil, and the subsequent court cases--including four murder trials and two death penalty hearings--tore apart families, and affected all who were caught up in the brutal crime and its aftermath. No Angels delves into the circumstances that would forever change the fate of Brandy, two previously inseparable brothers, and the mothers who sat on opposite sides of the courtroom and yet shared a common grief.
"[Steve Jackson] writes with both muscle and heart." --Gregg Olsen, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of If You Tell.
A little before midnight on May 30, 1997, fourteen-year-old Brandy DuVall waited at a bus stop in the Denver area for a ride back to her grandparents' home after spending the evening at a friend's. She was wearing a bright-red Chicago Bulls jersey bearing the number of her favorite player, Michael Jordan.
It was the shirt that attracted the five young Bloods gang members in the car that circled the block and came back to where she stood. Why Brandy got in the car that night would remain an unanswered question. Was it voluntary? Was she abducted?
Whatever the answer, the consequence was an unimaginable nightmare of torture, rape, and murder at the hands of a vicious Denver street gang, particularly "Pancho," a violent psychopath, and other members of the Deuce-Seven. The crime, the investigation, the betrayals and deals cut with the devil, and the subsequent court cases--including four murder trials and two death penalty hearings--tore apart families, and affected all who were caught up in the brutal crime and its aftermath. No Angels delves into the circumstances that would forever change the fate of Brandy, two previously inseparable brothers, and the mothers who sat on opposite sides of the courtroom and yet shared a common grief.
"[Steve Jackson] writes with both muscle and heart." --Gregg Olsen, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of If You Tell.
291 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 21, 2020
116 people are currently reading
497 people want to read
About the author
Steve Jackson
19 books208 followers“He writes with both muscle and heart”—New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen
New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Steve Jackson has written ten non-fiction books in true crime, history and biography genres; he has also written fourteen crime fiction thrillers for the long-running and Times bestselling "Butch Karp Series" in collaboration with former New York assistant district attorney Robert K. Tanenbaum.
He is currently in the process of writing three more contracted non-fiction books: ALL SECURE (Hachette), FINDING ANASTASIA (Potomac) and SAVING ANNIE (WildBlue Press), as well as working on a sequel to his bestseller NO STONE UNTURNED. He is also finishing a novel, ISLAND OF WOMEN. The publishers of his previous books include: HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Pinnacle, Atrium, De Capo, and WildBlue Press.
Steve is also the co-owner of indie publisher WildBlue Press (wildbluepress.com) with partner Michael Cordova. As of July 2018, WildBlue Press will have published more than 75 books by fifty authors in true crime, crime fiction, romance, history, current events, memoir and business genres after less than four years in business. Many of these books have become award-winning bestsellers, and several have been optioned for film and television productions.
The company is rapidly expanding both the number of authors and titles, and will be moving into other genres in the Summer and Fall of 2018.
His first non-fiction book, MONSTER, a true crime, was published in October 1998 and within two weeks became a New York Times bestseller. In 2003, his World War II dramatic narrative, LUCKY LADY, received The Colorado Book Award, best biography/history, from the Colorado Center for the Book; Lucky Lady was also the runner-up that year for the Admiral Samuel Morrison Naval History Award.
In June 2013, Jackson joined forensic investigative team NecroSearch International (the group featured in NO STONE UNTURNED) searching for the remains of the Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov in Perm, Russia as part of his research for an upcoming dramatic narrative history FINDING ANASTASIA.
Honored with NecroSearch membership in 2014, he and the team returned to Russia to continue the search in 2015, 2016, 2017 and will return to conclude their search in June 2018.
Born in 1955, Jackson grew up in Hawaii and Colorado. He graduated in 1979 from Colorado State University with a BA in Journalism.
A newspaper journalist for 25 years, he worked in locales as varied as Montana, Hawaii, Guam, Micronesia, Indonesia, Indiana, Washington D.C., Florida, Oregon and Colorado. During his career with newspapers, he received numerous national and regional awards for feature writing and investigative reporting.
Outside of writing, his interests include backpacking, fly fishing, skiing, guitar, reading, softball, music, wine, beer and spending time with his family and friends.
New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Steve Jackson has written ten non-fiction books in true crime, history and biography genres; he has also written fourteen crime fiction thrillers for the long-running and Times bestselling "Butch Karp Series" in collaboration with former New York assistant district attorney Robert K. Tanenbaum.
He is currently in the process of writing three more contracted non-fiction books: ALL SECURE (Hachette), FINDING ANASTASIA (Potomac) and SAVING ANNIE (WildBlue Press), as well as working on a sequel to his bestseller NO STONE UNTURNED. He is also finishing a novel, ISLAND OF WOMEN. The publishers of his previous books include: HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Pinnacle, Atrium, De Capo, and WildBlue Press.
Steve is also the co-owner of indie publisher WildBlue Press (wildbluepress.com) with partner Michael Cordova. As of July 2018, WildBlue Press will have published more than 75 books by fifty authors in true crime, crime fiction, romance, history, current events, memoir and business genres after less than four years in business. Many of these books have become award-winning bestsellers, and several have been optioned for film and television productions.
The company is rapidly expanding both the number of authors and titles, and will be moving into other genres in the Summer and Fall of 2018.
His first non-fiction book, MONSTER, a true crime, was published in October 1998 and within two weeks became a New York Times bestseller. In 2003, his World War II dramatic narrative, LUCKY LADY, received The Colorado Book Award, best biography/history, from the Colorado Center for the Book; Lucky Lady was also the runner-up that year for the Admiral Samuel Morrison Naval History Award.
In June 2013, Jackson joined forensic investigative team NecroSearch International (the group featured in NO STONE UNTURNED) searching for the remains of the Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov in Perm, Russia as part of his research for an upcoming dramatic narrative history FINDING ANASTASIA.
Honored with NecroSearch membership in 2014, he and the team returned to Russia to continue the search in 2015, 2016, 2017 and will return to conclude their search in June 2018.
Born in 1955, Jackson grew up in Hawaii and Colorado. He graduated in 1979 from Colorado State University with a BA in Journalism.
A newspaper journalist for 25 years, he worked in locales as varied as Montana, Hawaii, Guam, Micronesia, Indonesia, Indiana, Washington D.C., Florida, Oregon and Colorado. During his career with newspapers, he received numerous national and regional awards for feature writing and investigative reporting.
Outside of writing, his interests include backpacking, fly fishing, skiing, guitar, reading, softball, music, wine, beer and spending time with his family and friends.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 22, 2020
She was seen getting into a car at the bus stop. Did she do so willingly .. or was she coerced? No one will ever know.
Brandy DuVall, later that same night, was bound, raped, tortured, stabbed.... murdered, dumped by the side of the road like garbage. Brandy was just a couple months away of turning fifteen.
Two witnesses come forward who knew who the culprits were .. .all members of a violent street gang ,, the Deuce-Seven.
The young men involved had grown up together ... their families were all friends or well known neighbors. When the crime was investigated, these 'brothers' started turning on one another.
All in all, there were four murder trials and two death penalty hearings.
This is a tale of families, ripped apart at the seams. Brandy wasn't the only victim. Family and friends were also affected. Two mothers whose sons had grown up in the same household .. their lives were altered and their close ties were destroyed even as they shared a common grief.
Well-written narrative that delves into the backgrounds of all concerned ... why did this happen? How did it happen? It's a close look at a tragic death that didn't need to happen.
Many thanks to the author / WildBlue Press for the digital copy of this true crime. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
August 10, 2020
Brandaline (Brandy) Rose DuVall was 14 when she died. She had been raped, tortured and stabbed multiple times. Those responsible were members of a street gang in Denver.
This is the true story of an horrific murder, but it’s also the story of the effects this horrific and brutal murder had on Brandy’s family and friends, and the families of the young men responsible.
No Angels tells of these gang members' early lives and how they got drawn in to gang culture.
The excellent writing by Steve Jackson really brings to light just how many people are affected by this violent crime and its aftermath. It gives an emotive depth to a true crime story.
Thank you to Natalie at Wild Blue Press for an acopy of No Angels. This is my honest and unbiased review.
This is the true story of an horrific murder, but it’s also the story of the effects this horrific and brutal murder had on Brandy’s family and friends, and the families of the young men responsible.
No Angels tells of these gang members' early lives and how they got drawn in to gang culture.
The excellent writing by Steve Jackson really brings to light just how many people are affected by this violent crime and its aftermath. It gives an emotive depth to a true crime story.
Thank you to Natalie at Wild Blue Press for an acopy of No Angels. This is my honest and unbiased review.
August 20, 2020
Oh boy, this one gave me nightmares. You know you've just read a great book when it disturbs your sleep as No Angels did. The disturbance couldn't be helped. The truth told here is so painful, it stays with you for days. This level of violence shreds the very fabric of lives, and it happens often. Way too often.
Jackson shines a much-needed light on the horrifying impact this type of crime has on so many lives. Well written, researched, and recounted, this book is another true-crime classic by Jackson. Thank you for the brutally honest but tender way you told this story. And thank you for making us look beyond the veil of gang life and feel something for everyone involved in this story.
Jackson shines a much-needed light on the horrifying impact this type of crime has on so many lives. Well written, researched, and recounted, this book is another true-crime classic by Jackson. Thank you for the brutally honest but tender way you told this story. And thank you for making us look beyond the veil of gang life and feel something for everyone involved in this story.
August 20, 2020
Once again Steve Jackson does a fabulous job on telling the story of a Young 14-year-Old girl called Brandy Duvall. Brandy was 14 when she died. She had been bound, raped, tortured and stabbed multiple times then dumped by the side of the road and left to die.
Those responsible where all members of a street gang in Denver called the bloods who did such terrible things to a Young 14-year-Old who was wearing the wrong colour top and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A handful of people in the gang go to trial for Brandy’s murder and the book goes through each trial individually. It is very graphic and written in horrific details about Brandy’s last hours of pure hell and torcher on this planet. Steve shows the reader how lives are changed, not only for the victim's family but for those accused also. Both mothers are in a courtroom, and both are hurting only for different reasons.
It is an incredibly sad book and your heart goes out to everyone in court except the perpetrators. Animals behave better. I can see how the book affected everyone and thankyou once again Steve for telling the story of Brandy.
Those responsible where all members of a street gang in Denver called the bloods who did such terrible things to a Young 14-year-Old who was wearing the wrong colour top and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A handful of people in the gang go to trial for Brandy’s murder and the book goes through each trial individually. It is very graphic and written in horrific details about Brandy’s last hours of pure hell and torcher on this planet. Steve shows the reader how lives are changed, not only for the victim's family but for those accused also. Both mothers are in a courtroom, and both are hurting only for different reasons.
It is an incredibly sad book and your heart goes out to everyone in court except the perpetrators. Animals behave better. I can see how the book affected everyone and thankyou once again Steve for telling the story of Brandy.
August 18, 2020
I received a copy of this book from WildBlue Press In return for an honest review:
Jackson revisited the case of the rape and murder of 14-year-old Brandy DuVall, a case so brutal that he considered no longer writing true crime. It’s a sobering and violent read; DuVall was raped, tortured and murdered by a group of other teenagers. Jackson does a fine job of balancing sharing the details in order to honor Brandy’s suffering and not lingering over them in the service of salaciousness. I think knowing what a victim suffered is important; when true crime consumers hear “raped and murdered” over and over, it loses its meaning. What happened to DuVall at the hands of seven boys and young adults is not encompassed by that throwaway phrase, and Jackson understood this, but also did not overwhelm the reader—the details were dealt with sensitively and powerfully over the period of the book, which also gives the reader a fascinating insight into gang culture, which also led to the related murder of young Venus Montoya.
Jackson revisited the case of the rape and murder of 14-year-old Brandy DuVall, a case so brutal that he considered no longer writing true crime. It’s a sobering and violent read; DuVall was raped, tortured and murdered by a group of other teenagers. Jackson does a fine job of balancing sharing the details in order to honor Brandy’s suffering and not lingering over them in the service of salaciousness. I think knowing what a victim suffered is important; when true crime consumers hear “raped and murdered” over and over, it loses its meaning. What happened to DuVall at the hands of seven boys and young adults is not encompassed by that throwaway phrase, and Jackson understood this, but also did not overwhelm the reader—the details were dealt with sensitively and powerfully over the period of the book, which also gives the reader a fascinating insight into gang culture, which also led to the related murder of young Venus Montoya.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 27, 2024
***Trigger warning this is an extremely violent crime against a child. Take care when reading this***
“Crimes conceived in hell don’t have angels as witnesses”
Oh boy this one is going to stay with me for a long time. It is a very brutal crime.
However, this book falls short of expectations for me. A few reasons:
1. They spent too much time talking about the killer’s family. A brother to one of the killers who turned around his life from a gang should have been saved for the prologue or epilogue of this book as he had no hand in the crime.
2. The book gets scatterbrained from jumping from trials to the lives of other family members. Also the amount of characters in the story wasn’t flushed out very well. I was very confused. This one married this one’s cousin etc.
3. Not much talk on the victims of the case(there ended up being two crimes in this book)
Don’t get me wrong I loved monster very much but that book was very organized but this one falls short of it.
It’s not recommended from me.
“Crimes conceived in hell don’t have angels as witnesses”
Oh boy this one is going to stay with me for a long time. It is a very brutal crime.
However, this book falls short of expectations for me. A few reasons:
1. They spent too much time talking about the killer’s family. A brother to one of the killers who turned around his life from a gang should have been saved for the prologue or epilogue of this book as he had no hand in the crime.
2. The book gets scatterbrained from jumping from trials to the lives of other family members. Also the amount of characters in the story wasn’t flushed out very well. I was very confused. This one married this one’s cousin etc.
3. Not much talk on the victims of the case(there ended up being two crimes in this book)
Don’t get me wrong I loved monster very much but that book was very organized but this one falls short of it.
It’s not recommended from me.
November 30, 2022
This is a well-written no-holds-barred account of the horrific kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of 14-year-old Brandaline Rose DuVall. She was abducted from a bus stop by members of the Deuce-Seven Crenshaw Mafia Gangsters Bloods gang in Denver.
If you are squeamish, give this one a pass.
Photos.
10
If you are squeamish, give this one a pass.
Photos.
10
August 4, 2020
Mr. Jackson really gets to the heart of the matter in this book. It is a true-crime story about a gang in Denver who did terrible things to a 14-year-old girl, mainly for the shirt she was wearing! It pits mother against mother in a courtroom, even though both are hurting only for different reasons. He shows the reader how lives are changed, not only for the victim's family but for those accused also. There are more people's crime effects than just those that commit it and those that have been wronged. Excellent story.
October 21, 2021
I have to admit that I didn't finish this one. While I'm usually a fan of true crime stories, it wasn't the case with this one. For one thing, the language was too disturbing. For another, I kept getting all of the characters, their names and relationships confused. And... I felt that it rambled on and wasn't getting anywhere.
September 17, 2023
At the end of this one, Steve Jackson says that the hideous deaths of Brandy DuVall and her sister victim Venus Montoya stopped him from writing true crime for a long time. It's easy to see why. These two killings were just atrocious, and we hear all about them in these pages. This one is not for the faint of heart.
October 5, 2024
Another excellent book by this author
Mr Jackson is my favourite true crime author. I believe I've read most of his true crime genre books. This story is brutal but it sadly happened and although it made you gasp at the depravity it was so well written.What a pack of monsters these perpetrators are. Hard to believe there is human beings capable of such savagery.
Mr Jackson is my favourite true crime author. I believe I've read most of his true crime genre books. This story is brutal but it sadly happened and although it made you gasp at the depravity it was so well written.What a pack of monsters these perpetrators are. Hard to believe there is human beings capable of such savagery.
July 25, 2020
Horrifying story
This is a crime from the mid 90's. I don't know how I missed it since I am attuned to cases like this. Mr. Jackson never fails to catch and keep my attention, and this book is no exception. Horrible crime, excellent writing.
This is a crime from the mid 90's. I don't know how I missed it since I am attuned to cases like this. Mr. Jackson never fails to catch and keep my attention, and this book is no exception. Horrible crime, excellent writing.
August 29, 2020
This book is about my aunts killers. You got her Date of Death wrong. She was shot and killed on July 19th not July 15th as the book says. And Grandma Becky sat with Brandys mom at the trial, she was there for her because she knew how it feels to lose a child. Grandma had the biggest heart.
February 7, 2026
This book tells a tragic story with honesty and heart, showing the human cost of violence. Jackson captures both the crime and the impact on families with clarity and respect. Essential reading for anyone interested in true crime that goes beyond the headlines.
September 8, 2020
Great book
I like reading true crime. This one was a little hard on me due to the crime but it was an excellent look into gang think.
I like reading true crime. This one was a little hard on me due to the crime but it was an excellent look into gang think.
Read
October 8, 2020Gut-wrenchingly brutal. Beyond frightening that such evil people live amongst us.
October 17, 2020
Like all of Steve Jackson's books, this one is good, but it is extremely depressing! The author notes that he gave up true crime writing for several years after this case.
December 2, 2020
Link for our review is in the bio.
April 13, 2024
Hauntingly sad.
I thought this book was well written, hard to put down. The author really captured the savagery of this crime. Rest in peace Brandaline.
I thought this book was well written, hard to put down. The author really captured the savagery of this crime. Rest in peace Brandaline.
August 14, 2020
No Angels is definitely a book for the seasoned true crime reader. The murder of Brandaline Rose Duvall is brutal, upsetting and disturbing.
The book is incredibly descriptive (per suspect and witness interviews, and transcripts from the multiple trials).
My only issue is that this gets a little repetitive - a handful of people go to trial for Brandaline's murder and the book goes through each trial individually, even though the evidence and information presented is almost identical.
The book is incredibly descriptive (per suspect and witness interviews, and transcripts from the multiple trials).
My only issue is that this gets a little repetitive - a handful of people go to trial for Brandaline's murder and the book goes through each trial individually, even though the evidence and information presented is almost identical.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews