Woman kidnapped as child found 18 years later

Published 10:50 pm Thursday, August 27, 2009

PLACERVILLE, Calif. — Miraculous news that a little girl kidnapped nearly two decades ago was found alive gave way Thursday to the horrifying details of how police say she has lived all those years: kept in captivity by a convicted rapist in his back yard and forced to bear two of his children.

Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 in 1991 when she was snatched from her Lake Tahoe school bus stop, was locked away from the outside world behind a series of fences, sheds and tents in the back of a suburban home.

Her abductor, investigators said, raped her and fathered two children with her, the first when Jaycee was about 14. Those children, both girls now 11 and 15, also were kept hidden away in the backyard compound.

“None of the children have ever been to school, they’ve never been to a doctor,” El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said. “They were kept in complete isolation in this compound.”

Dugard, now 29, appeared at a parole office Wednesday with her children and the couple accused of kidnapping her. She was reunited Thursday with her mother, but the family was also learning that their smiling, blue-eyed, blonde ponytailed little girl had spent most of her life in captivity.

“She was in good health, but living in a backyard for the past 18 years does take its toll,” Kollar said.

The backyard compound had electricity from extension cords and a rudimentary outhouse and shower, “as if you were camping,” Kollar said.

Convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido, 58, was being held for investigation of various kidnapping and sex charges. His wife, Nancy Garrido, 54, was also arrested, and authorities said she was with Garrido during the kidnapping in South Lake Tahoe.

Garrido was on lifetime parole and his arrest raises questions about how closely parolees are monitored. But Kollar said a parole officer who had visited Garrido’s house previously had not noticed anything amiss — the compound was well concealed by shrubs, garbage cans and a tarp.

Authorities said they do not know if Garrido also abused his daughters, but they are investigating.

People who knew Garrido said he became increasingly fanatic about his religious beliefs in recent years, sometimes breaking out into song and claiming that God spoke to him through a box.

“In the last couple years he started getting into this strange religious stuff. We kind of felt sorry for him,” said Tim Allen, who shopped at Garrido’s printing business for the last decade. Three times in recent years, Garrido arrived at Allen’s showroom with two “cute little blond girls” in tow, he said.

In April 2008, Garrido registered a corporation called Gods Desire at his home address, according the California Secretary of State. During recent visits, Garrido would talk about quitting the printing business to preach full time and gave the impression he was setting up a church, Allen said.

“He rambled. It made no sense,” he said.

Dugard’s stepfather, who witnessed her abduction and was a longtime suspect in the case, said he was overwhelmed by the news after doing everything he could to help find her.

“It broke my marriage up. I’ve gone through hell, I mean I’m a suspect up until yesterday,” a tearful Carl Probyn, 60, said in Orange, Calif.

Dugard retains custody of her children and was staying at a Bay area motel, authorities said.

At the Lake Tahoe Unified School District, employees huddled around television sets and computers to watch a news conference. Their tears of joy that Jaycee was alive became tears of horror and anger when details of her abduction and long captivity were recounted by police.

“Oh my God,” murmured Superintendent James Tarwater.