3 months ago
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Ca. (USATODAY) -- For 18 years, Jaycee Lee Dugard was remembered as the blond, gap-toothed 11-year-old abducted as she walked to the school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
On Wednesday, the mystery of Dugard's disappearance came to a stunning end. She walked into a San Francisco Bay Area parole office with the man now suspected of kidnapping her 18 years before. He had been called in by his parole officer. They were accompanied by her two daughters, whom he fathered, and his wife, El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said.
Convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy, 54, were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and conspiracy. Phillip Garrido is being investigated on suspicion 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. El Dorado prosecutor Vern Pierson said charges would be filed today.
On Thursday, Dugard was reunited with her mother, Terry Probyn, and introduced her children, 11 and 15, to their grandmother, Kollar said.
"It's been very trying these last 18 years," said Joan Curry, Dugard's grandmother. "It's all so overwhelming right now."
Since her abduction on June 10, 1991, Dugard had been imprisoned in a maze of 6-foot sheds and tents hidden by fences and shrubs in the backyard of the home in Antioch, Calif., where Garrido and his wife lived with his elderly mother, Kollar said. Dugard's daughters have lived there since their births, he said.
"The children did not go to school or the doctor," Kollar said. "They were kept in complete isolation."
He said they had a "rudimentary outhouse and a rudimentary shower," and electricity came from an extension cord.
In a telephone interview with a Sacramento television station, the victim's stepfather said Dugard reunited with her mother on Thursday - and said despite the lonely years away, her daughter appeared much as her family remembered her.
"She looks healthy. She looks good," said Probyn, who is separated from the victim's mother.
But Probyn said Terry confirmed some signs of Jaycee's long confinement were present.
"She is very remorseful. She's very guilty that she bonded with these people," Probyn said.
Details began to emerge Tuesday after Garrido was spotted on the campus of the University of California-Berkeley with the two girls. A police officer who thought he looked suspicious questioned him and ran a background check, Kollar said. The officer found that Garrido is on parole after a 1971 conviction for rape by force or fear. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was alerted, the department said in a statement.
His parole officer in nearby Concord called Garrido in for questioning Wednesday. He arrived with Dugard - whom he called Allisa - the children and his wife. The statement said Garrido admitted he had abducted Dugard and the children were his. It did not explain why he brought her with him.
Carl Probyn, Dugard's stepfather, said his wife told him Dugard seemed in good health and had discussed things about her childhood that convinced her the woman was her daughter.
The El Dorado sheriff's office said DNA tests were underway.
On that morning in 1991, Probyn was watching Jaycee from his garage as she walked 200 yards to the bus stop. A late-model sedan with a man and a woman inside drove up and pulled her into the car. He said he chased after them on a bicycle but couldn't keep up.
"It broke my marriage up," Probyn, 60, told the Associated Press. The Probyns are separated. "I've gone through hell. I mean I'm a suspect up until yesterday."
The disappearance had mobilized communities across California, from the hamlets surrounding Lake Tahoe in the north to Jaycee's mother's hometown, Anaheim, in the south. Posters with school photos of the smiling girl were on light posts, buildings and car windows for years after her disappearance. Vigils were held every year on the anniversary of her kidnapping.
In Antioch, the suspects' neighbor, Helen Boyer, said Garrido and his wife were helpful people who had lived next door for about 15 years. She said they took care of his 88-year-old mother, who is bedridden.
Boyer said she never saw Dugard and believed that only the Garridos and his mother lived in the house. She said she occasionally saw girls that Garrido said were the children of friends.
Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has helped publicize Dugard's disappearance over the years, said her reappearance shows that parents and police should not stop searching.
He said it will be difficult for Dugard to return to normal life, and her situation is complicated by the fact that she has two children fathered by the suspect.
"She's going to need help. These children do not rebound overnight," he said. "Jaycee is the victim here and her children are victims. ... But Jaycee is alive and if nothing else, searching parents all over the country have been given hope."
