Kidnapped at 11, Woman Emerges After 18 Years

Kidnapped at 11, Woman Emerges After 18 Years



ANTIOCH, Calif. — A woman who was kidnapped as an 11-year-old in 1991 was reunited with her family on Thursday after the police here arrested two suspects in the case and discovered a hidden compound where she had apparently been kept for nearly two decades.

The woman, Jaycee Dugard, was dragged into a car on her way to a bus stop 18 years ago as her stepfather watched helplessly from the family home in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. The police could find no trace of the car, or Ms. Dugard, a blond, blue-eyed girl last seen wearing a pink windbreaker and stretch pants.

On Wednesday, the police arrested Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, and charged them with Ms. Dugard’s abduction.

Mr. Garrido, a convicted sex offender who was on federal parole for a 1971 rape and kidnapping, was also charged with rape and acts of child molestation and sexual penetration of a minor. The police said that he had apparently fathered two girls — now 11 and 15 — with Ms. Dugard.

Ms. Dugard, 29, and her two children had apparently lived in a collection of ragged tents and sheds secreted behind the Garridos’ home, a ranch-style house in a ramshackle neighborhood in an unincorporated area outside Antioch, a Bay Area suburb of 100,000.

“None have ever gone to school; none have ever gone to a doctor,” Fred Kollar, the under sheriff for El Dorado County, said at an afternoon press conference. “They were kept in complete isolation.”

The break in the case came Tuesday afternoon when a University of California, Berkeley, police officer noticed Mr. Garrido trying to hand out religious literature on campus and asked him for identification. A check of police databases revealed that Mr. Garrido, 58, was on parole.

On Wednesday, Mr. Garrido was called to a parole office in Concord, about 35 miles east of San Francisco, for a meeting with his case officer. At that meeting, Mr. Kollar said, Mr. Garrido brought the two children, his wife and Ms. Dugard, who was using the name Allissa.

Mr. Kollar said the parole officer, who had visited the Garridos’ home on numerous occasions, had never seen Allissa or the children and was suspicious. At some point in the interview on Wednesday, Ms. Dugard apparently told the parole agent her true identity, and both she and the Garridos revealed information known “only by the victim and kidnappers.” The Garridos were subsequently arrested and were to be arraigned on Friday.

Ms. Dugard’s mother, Terry Probyn, was told on Wednesday that her daughter was alive and apparently in good health, and she flew to the Bay Area on Thursday morning to meet her.

Ms. Dugard’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, reacted with relief and with anger, telling reporters that he wanted the Garridos — and accomplices, if any — “prosecuted to the hilt.”

Mr. Probyn said he had no doubts that the woman was his stepdaughter. “She answered all the right questions. That’s why DNA isn’t necessary,” he said, adding that Ms. Probyn, Ms. Dugard, Ms. Dugard’s sister and her aunt were staying at a Bay Area hotel. “It’s her. We know.”

On Thursday, Mr. Garrido told KCRA-NBC in Sacramento that “it’s a disgusting thing that took place with me at the beginning” but that he had redeemed himself. “My life has been straightened out,” he said.
While officials said that they were shocked by the secret compound, neighbors said they had known that Mr. Garrido had structures behind his house. But they had no idea anyone was living there.

“I knew he was always strange,” said Diane Doty, whose back fence was adjacent to the compound. “But I never saw the girl.”

Another neighbor, Heather McQuaid-Glace, said that children had long known to avoid Mr. Garrido — his registration as a sex offender was online and known among parents — but that nothing had aroused suspicion that a crime might be ongoing.

“We never heard screaming; we never heard anyone crying for help,” Ms. McQuaid-Glace said.

On Thursday, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies were combing the compound.

In one tent, a bouquet of yellow flowers was visible through a window. In front of another, a pair of children’s pink pajama bottoms had been removed and laid out by agents, near an evidence tag. Several ragged lawn chairs were laid about, as was a couch, a well-used barbecue, and several parched garden plants. On one shed, a heart-shape wall hanging was painted with the word “spring.”

Mr. Kollar said that the car believed to have been used in the kidnapping had also been found in the secret backyard area, which he said was strategically arranged “to isolate the victims” and not visible from the street.

Ms. Doty’s 9-year-old granddaughter, Megan, said that she had always found the area behind the fence “creepy,” but that she did not feel that way Thursday. “Finally,” Megan said, “I’m not scared anymore.”

- NYTimes

Wow. 18 Years!

Can you imagine the phone call to her parents from the police? After 18 years to find out your daughter is alive. Amazing.

That's incredible. I hope the woman is okay, she can't be in a perfect state of mind over all this... but her life will definitely improve.

It's just unbelievable that it would happen though. Those people are sick.

Why did the step dad watch helplessly from the house though? I'd be out there in a hurry and be stopping those bastards.

Any update on this? How the woman's coping, what's happening to those responsible?

Stolen Jaycee Lee Dugard reconnects with family

RIVERSIDE, California: Terry Probyn took a brush to her daughter's blonde hair - a tender ritual she had not performed in 18 years, when her girl, Jaycee Lee Dugard, was 11.

Reunited with Jaycee last week in northern California, Ms Probyn got to play mother again to the girl who was snatched away.

Tina Dugard, Terry's sister and Jaycee's aunt, watched, disbelief mingled with joy. "I remember thinking, 'wow, she's French-braiding Jaycee's hair for the first time in 18 years'," Ms Dugard said.

The reunion of mother and daughter - and Ms Probyn's first meeting with Jaycee's two daughters, 11 and 15 - played out in private as the chilling tale of Jaycee's alleged abductor, Phillip Garrido, seized headlines worldwide. Ms Dugard spoke for the first time publicly about how the family was coping.

"There's a sense of comfort and optimism, a sense of happiness ... Jaycee and her girls are happy," said Ms Dugard. Terry Probyn lived with her sister for 10 years before recently moving out.

"People probably want to think that it's been this horrible, scary thing for all of us," Ms Dugard said of the past week. "The horrible, scary thing happened 18 years ago, and continued to happen for the last 18 years. The darkness and despair (has lifted.)"

Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy, 54, were arrested last week and charged over the kidnapping, rape and imprisonment of Jaycee Dugard in their backyard. The couple has pleaded not guilty.

Ms Dugard said Jaycee's daughters "know what's been going on", but they have not been allowed to watch TV.

She said she had not pressed Jaycee and her daughters to discuss life in the cluttered backyard. "Right now, it's about reconnecting," she said.

Reports had said the girls believed Jaycee was their older sister. "I have heard them call my sister 'Mom'," Ms Dugard said.

While in captivity, Jaycee taught her girls to read and write.

"They are educated and bright," she said of Jaycee's children, whose names have been reported as Starlet, 15, and Angel, 11. "It's clear they've been on the internet and know a lot of things," Ms Dugard said. "It's clear that Jaycee did a great job with the limited resources she had and her limited education."
Ms Probyn, 50, was the first to meet Jaycee and the girls - separately, in a room.

Then it was Ms Dugard's turn. Jaycee Dugard threw open her arms. "Auntie Tina!"

The two instantly recognised each other. "I looked at her and I knew right away. After 18 years, you have a sense of, 'Could this possibly be true?"'
Ms Dugard said Jaycee and the girls looked healthy - although she declined to detail their appearances, saying she wanted to respect their privacy. "She does seem like a 29-year-old woman," she said of Jaycee. "She's fabulous, and she's beautiful."

The girls have their mother's blonde hair and bright blue eyes and big smile, she said.

Jaycee's sister, Shayna, 19, told Jaycee she was so happy to meet her - a girl she had known until then only through old photographs and family movies, and media accounts of her abduction.

There was an "instant connection. It was almost a genetic connection", Ms Dugard said.

For now, the family is focusing on the moment - and getting to know each other.

Agencies

awww, that's nice to hear.

Garrido 'sang love songs to girls'

Kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido recorded love songs with suggestive lyrics about young girls, a former customer of his home printing business has said.

Marc Lister told the Associated Press that he had dug up the music given to him by Garrido after he was charged with abducting Jaycee Lee Dugard in 1991 and holding her prisoner for 18 years.

Lister said Garrido had dreams of becoming a musician and had given him CDs with his songs on them because he had connections in the music industry.

In one song, Garrido sings, "The way she walks, yeah, subtle, sexy. What can I do? I fall victim too. A little child, yeah, look what you do."

In another, he sings, "I will tell you about the only one. She's a dream, dream come true. With a note saying you're my baby blue."

Lister said Garrido had penned the songs in 1976 while he was serving time in prison for kidnapping and raping another woman.

Garrido and his wife, Nancy, have pleaded not guilty to 29 felony counts, including rape, kidnapping and false imprisonment of Dugard.

Dugard, now 29, was allegedly snatched from outside her home when she was 11 years old and held in a prison of sheds and tents by Garrido until her release last month.

Garrido's family have expressed shock at his arrest.

His elderly mother, Patricia, said Garrido told her Dugard was her granddaughter.

Patricia, 88, said that her son introduced Dugard as "Allissa", his daughter by a former lover and had no idea of her plight until police raided their California home.

"I didn't know she was being kept there against her will. I was in my bed and all I knew was this smiley girl who came to see me," she told Britain's Sunday Mirror newspaper.

"She always seemed happy to be there. I thought she was my granddaughter. I don't know what's happened to her now but I love her. I hope she's OK."

Garrido told his mother that the two daughters he fathered with Dugard, who are now aged 15 and 11, were also from a previous relationship.

"I don't remember how her two little girls came to be there but I thought they were Phillip's. He told me they were all his children," Patricia said.

People magazine publishes first photo of Jaycee Dugard since her kidnapping



The first photograph of Jaycee Dugard published since her release from captivity shows a brown-haired woman who appears to have well endured 18 years in a backyard prison.

Dugard was freed from Phillip and Nancy Garrido in August after police at the University of California at Berkeley became suspicious of Phillip Garrido, a convicted sex offender, and phoned his parole officer.

People magazine today unveiled the much anticipated first photo of Dugard, in a website spread to promote a package set for release in the Friday issue.
Dugard was aged only 11 when she was kidnapped from a school bus stop in 1991 as her stepfather watched in horror.

"I'm so happy to be back with my family," she told the magazine, which said she is living in seclusion with her mother and two daughters fathered by Garrido, 15-year-old Angel and 11-year-old Starlit.

The magazine said Dugard passes her time riding horses and cooking, and is thinking about collaborating on a book about her ordeal.

A spokeswoman for the family described them as close, comfortable and happy, and said Dugard has bonded with her younger sister Shana, who was just a baby when Dugard was kidnapped.

Erika Shulte told NBC's Today show that Dugard decided to release photographs to the magazine to "share her joy with the world" and to show how well she is doing.

People managing editor Larry Hackett has declined to say whether the publication paid for the photos.

"We have bought photographs in the past," Hackett said on Today. "I don't want to go into the details."

The Garridos have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and rape charges. They are accused of holding Dugard incommunicado in a warren of tents and sheds in their backyard after kidnapping and sexually assaulting her.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/14/jaycee-dugard-people-magazine