Kidnapped girl found alive after 18 years

Danny Tse · August 2009

This is the big news around here in the Bay Area. I am watching the press conference by the El Dorado County undersheriff....backyard within backyard? soundproof shack? Just like an episode of "Without A Trace"

New Details Emerge About Kidnapped Girl

PLACERVILLE, Calif. Authorities say an alleged kidnapper fathered two children with the woman who emerged 18 years after being snatched from a bus stop.

The new details came as authorities provided more information about the saga Jaycee Lee Dugard, who vanished when she was 11 years old and turned up at a police station in Northern California this week.

El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar says the woman spent most of her time in sheds, tents and outbuildings to isolate her from the world. Police say her captor was Phillip Garrido. He is being held for investigation of kidnapping, rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and sexual penetration.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) A woman who was snatched from a bus stop as an 11-year-old child in 1991 turned up at a California police station after 18 mysterious years, and a convicted sex offender and his wife were arrested in the kidnapping.

Jaycee Lee Dugard was reunited with her mother, who was overjoyed to learn the daughter she feared dead was actually alive.

It was not immediately clear how Dugard spent the 18 years since she was abducted as a blond, ponytailed child outside her South Lake Tahoe home.
Police said she recently walked into a Northern California police station with Phillip Garrido, 58, one of her alleged captors. He and his wife Nancy Garrido, 54, were arrested for investigation of kidnapping and conspiracy on Wednesday, police said.

Phillip Garrido is also being held for investigation of rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and sexual penetration, said Jimmie Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa Sheriff's Department.

Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 50 years in prison and served nearly 11 years in Nevada for a federal kidnapping conviction, said Suzanne Pardee, a spokeswoman for Nevada state prisons.

He also served seven months concurrently for a conviction for rape by force or fear at the medium-security Northern Nevada Correctional Center. Pardee said Garrido was paroled in August 1988.

A public records search showed Garrido as president of a company called God's Desire.

Dugard was in good health when she came into a San Francisco Bay area police station and revealed her name.

"We're 99 percent sure it's her," said sheriff's Lt. Les Lovell of the El Dorado Sheriff's Department, who was a detective assigned to help investigate the kidnapping in 1991. DNA tests were being conducted.

California corrections officials said they called in Phillip Garrido for questioning Wednesday after receiving a report that he was seen with two small children at the University of California, Berkeley.

Two children and two adult women accompanied him to the station.

"The diligent questioning and follow-up by the parolee's agent of record led to Garrido revealing his kidnapping of the adult female," the department said in a statement. "It was further revealed by Garrido that she was Jaycee Lee Dugard, and that the children were his."

It was not immediately clear who was the mother of the children.
FBI spokesman Joe Schadler said the woman was reunited with her mother Thursday morning. He declined to provide details.

The suspects were being held in El Dorado County. Jail records showed Nancy Garrido was being held on $4.195 million bail and Phillip Garrido was not eligible for bail because he is a parolee.

A house in the city of Antioch where the Garridos live was cordoned off with police tape as it was searched by FBI agents and the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.

Neighbor Helen Boyer, 78, described the Garridos as nice and friendly and said they cared for Phillip Garrido's elderly mother.

"If I needed something, they would be the first I would call on," Boyer said.
Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, 60, said he was overwhelmed by the news that Dugard was alive. He said for years he had done everything he could to help find her, especially because he knew suspicion had fallen on him.

"It broke my marriage up. I've gone through hell, I mean I'm a suspect up until yesterday," he told The Associated Press at his home in Orange, Calif. "I'm the last person to see her."

Witnesses reported that a vehicle with two people drove up to Dugard and abducted her while her stepfather watched on June 10, 1991.
Probyn said he saw someone reach out and grab her before the car sped away.

"As soon as I saw the door fly open, the driver's door, I jumped on my mountain bike and I tried to get to the top of the hill but I had no energy. I rode back down and yelled at my neighbor, 911!" he recalled.

Probyn said his wife, from whom he is separated, was devastated by the kidnapping. He said for 10 years after the crime, she would take a week off work at Christmas and on the anniversary of the abduction and spend the time crying at home.

The case attracted national attention and was featured on TV's "America's Most Wanted," which broadcast a composite drawing of a suspect seen in the car.

Probyn eventually lost hope that he would ever see his stepdaughter alive. He said he was struggling to understand why Dugard didn't come forward earlier.
"I have a million questions, but I'm just delighted," he said.

Lovell said investigators have been working the case consistently since the abduction and new leads had surfaced over time.

"You bet it's a surprise. This is not the normal resolution to a kidnapping," he said.

audiobliss · August 2009

Wow. That is...astounding. I'm glad she's reunited with her family and the rest of the world. I hope she can do as best she can at adapting to a more normal lifestyle.

Danny Tse · August 2009

Latest is that the kidnapped girl has 2 kids fathered by the kidnapper :mad:

disneyjoe7 · August 2009

I can't imagine the F'up shape this woman is now, because of this. Sad. I say a prayer to help this woman and place all this behind her.

ben62670 · August 2009

audiobliss wrote: »

Wow. That is...astounding. I'm glad she's reunited with her family and the rest of the world. I hope she can do as best she can at adapting to a more normal lifestyle.

Amen. While reading that I figured she would never recover.
Prayers sent for her and her family.

wz2p7j · August 2009

Yeah - happy she finally escaped. But jeez, this is so sad. What a sicko to do something like this to a little girl. And for 18 years. I can't even imagine.

:(:(

Chris

Kex · August 2009

What a sad story. I find it crazy that the kidnapper was a known sex offender. Obviously, like all criminals, there are varying degrees of sex crimes, but how do the serious offenders still get away with such crimes for so many years when they're released from a prior offence? How come psychological profiling isn't capable of detecting that they're still high risk offenders before (and even after) release? I hope she does well now, and that her estranged parents can patch things up perhaps, thanks to this.