18 yrs later missing girl shows up

[_Simpson_ 250]

A girl abducted in 1991 as an 11-year-old has been found alive in California, the El Dorado County sheriff's office said Thursday.

Jaycee Dugard is in good health, the office said in a statement, but provided no details.

Jimmy Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department, confirmed that a man and a woman have been arrested in connection with the case, but could provide no other details.

Earlier Thursday, Carl Probyn, Dugard's stepfather, told CNN that an FBI agent had called his wife, Terry, on Wednesday afternoon to tell her that Dugard had been found.

The girl was last seen walking to her bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, California, on June 10, 1991, according to the FBI.

At the time, "it was reported that a vehicle occupied by two individuals drove up to Jaycee Dugard and abducted her in view of her stepfather," the El Dorado County sheriff's office said Thursday.

Despite extensive investigations, no sign of her or her possible abductors was ever found, authorities said.

Probyn said Dugard walked into a police station in Northern California earlier Wednesday. He said the FBI agent told his wife that authorities had "Jaycee and the people who she was with."

He said no further details were provided, and that the conversation with the FBI agent was brief.

"It was short and sweet, and 'Can you fly up here?'" he said.

The El Dorado County Sheriff's office has scheduled a news conference for 3 p.m. (6 p.m. ET) to discuss the case.

Probyn said his wife, who is flying Thursday from Southern California to meet with Dugard, spoke to her on Wednesday.

"Jaycee remembers everything," he said. "They talked back and forth and she had the right answers to all my wife's questions."

He said, "I'm feeling great! ... It's like winning the lotto."

Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the reappearance of Dugard is "absolutely huge."

"One of the things that we preach to searching families all the time ... is that even in these long-term cases there's hope," he said.

"Even in these long-term cases ... it's important that we not let the world forget."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/27/califo...girl/index.html

Edited August 27, 2009 by -Simpson-

[Otto 83]

What (if anything) are people thinking...?

[Amby 490]

weird we posted at the same time

[_Simpson_ 250]

They are supposed to have a press conference at 6pm eastern time.

weird we posted at the same time

That was wierd

Edited August 27, 2009 by -Simpson-

[meowmeowmeow 1]

wow....amazing!!!

[Danno 1,228]

It's hard to fathom the day to day, never ending torment parents live with who have a child vanish like that and never know what happened.

Up dates on this story would be welcome.

[HAL 9000 96]

Very great news!

[Nagishkaw 510]

just....wow.

[Krikit 1,166]

[alienlovechild 75]

Jaycee Dugard is in good health, the office said in a statement, but provided no details.

Reminds me of the boy who was kidnapped and lived with his abductor for years. Then there was that Smart girl who didn't tell police she had been abducted because she was so brainwashed.

Edited August 28, 2009 by alienlovechild

[almaty 19]

Jaycee Dugard is in good health, the office said in a statement, but provided no details.

Reminds me of the boy who was kidnapped and lived with his abductor for years. Then there was that Smart girl who didn't tell police she had been abducted because she was so brainwashed.

that young man brother alc is from st louis and is now finishing his final year in high school and already accepted to a college...which ia amazing as he was not allowed to attend school, while he was a captive

[_Simpson_ 250]

Jaycee Dugard is in good health, the office said in a statement, but provided no details.

Reminds me of the boy who was kidnapped and lived with his abductor for years. Then there was that Smart girl who didn't tell police she had been abducted because she was so brainwashed.

that young man brother alc is from st louis and is now finishing his final year in high school and already accepted to a college...which ia amazing as he was not allowed to attend school, while he was a captive

Then there was that boy Steven that was with his abductor for 7 years before coming home. He later died in a motorcycle wreck and his brother was a serial killer. Parents have gone thru a lot, don't know how they do it

Edited August 28, 2009 by -Simpson-

[ddartt1 2]

It's hard to fathom the day to day, never ending torment parents live with who have a child vanish like that and never know what happened.

Up dates on this story would be welcome.

I would also like to follow up on the story.

[Danno 1,228]

I saw this update. Seems this event cause the break up of marriages and one of the Grandfathers to live under suspicion all these years.... certainly more victims of this crime.

Kidnapped woman hidden in CA backyard for 18 years

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Aug 28, 8:34 AM (ET)

By JULIET WILLIAMS and SAMANTHA YOUNG

PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) - A girl snatched on her way to school was hidden for nearly two decades behind a series of fences, sheds and tents, even giving birth to her suspected abductor's children in the suburban backyard compound less than 200 miles from her childhood home.

Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 when she was abducted from a South Lake Tahoe street in 1991, was taken directly to the house and sheltered from the world in a secret, leafy backyard, investigators said Thursday.

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

"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."

Even a parole agent who visited 58-year-old Phillip Garrido's home didn't have an inkling about the hidden compound, Kollar said. Garrido is a registered sex offender on federal parole for rape and kidnapping convictions.

"The way the house is set up, the way the backyard is set up, you could walk through the backyard, walk through the house, and never know," Kollar said.

"He's had her for 18 years. Now, it's our turn. I have no compassion for this guy," he said Friday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America."

But neighbors said there were clues even before a parole agent on Wednesday noticed Dugard, now 29, who accompanied Garrido, his wife and the children to a parole office.

Neighbor Diane Doty said she could see the tents and often heard children playing in the backyard, the corner of which abuts her own backyard. She said she even suspected the children lived in the tents, but her husband said she should leave the family alone.

"I asked my husband, 'Why is he living in tents?'" she said. "And he said, 'Maybe that is how they like to live.'"

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, told The Associated Press at his home in Orange, Calif.

Carl Probyn told CBS'"Early Show" Friday morning that he spoke to his wife late Thursday after she reunited with Dugard and everyone was "doing great."

"I think they're pretty happy," he said, noting six people were together at the reunion - Jaycee Dugard, her two daughters, her sister, mother and another relative.

In interviews on NBC, ABC and CBS Friday morning, Probyn said the most surprising thing to his wife was that Jaycee looks very young, almost like she did when she taken.

Probyn also said Dugard felt terribly guilty for bonding with her captor, and her family felt troubled by learning the facts of how she was forced to live for 18 years.

Garrido, 58, is being held for investigation of various kidnapping and sex charges. Authorities said his 54-year-old wife, Nancy Garrido, was with him during the kidnapping in South Lake Tahoe and she also has been arrested.

The case broke after Garrido was spotted Tuesday with two children as he tried to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature. Officers said he was acting suspiciously toward the children. They questioned him and did a background check, determined that he was a parolee and informed his parole officer.

Garrido was ordered to appear for a parole meeting and arrived Wednesday with Dugard, who identified herself as "Allissa," his wife, and two children. During questioning, corrections officials said he admitted to kidnapping Dugard.

Investigators said he did not yet have an attorney.

Dugard was reunited Thursday with her mother as her family learned that their blue-eyed, blonde ponytailed little girl had spent most of her life in captivity. Police said they had no evidence that she had ever reached out to anyone beyond the compound walls.

"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.

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

Garrido's compound was located in Antioch, a city of 100,000 about 170 miles from the Dugard family home in South Lake Tahoe.

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, president of East County Glass and Window Inc. in Pittsburg, Calif., who bought business cards and letterhead from 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 to the California Secretary of State. During recent visits to the showroom, 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.

In a blog that appears to have been maintained by Garrido, he wrote that he had hired a private investigator to verify his ability to speak to people using only his mind. In an "affadavit" posted there, he said he had the ability to "control sound with my mind and have developed a device for others to witness this phenomena."

Garrido gave a rambling, sometimes incoherent phone interview to KCRA-TV from the El Dorado County jail Thursday in which he said he had not admitted to a kidnapping and that he had turned his life around since the birth of his first daughter 15 years ago.

"I tell you here's the story of what took place at this house, and you're going to be absolutely impressed. It's a disgusting thing that took place from the end to the beginning. But I turned my life completely around," he said.

In addition to kidnapping allegations, court records showed both Garridos were being held for investigation of rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and kidnapping someone under 14 with intent to rape. Phillip Garrido also faces allegations of sexual penetration.

The AP, as a matter of policy, avoids identifying victims of alleged sexual abuse by name in its news reports. However, Dugard's disappearance had been known and reported for nearly two decades, making impossible any effort to shield her identity now.

Garrido has a long rap sheet dating back to the 1970s.

He was convicted of kidnapping a 25-year-old woman whom he snatched from a South Lake Tahoe parking lot, handcuffed, tied down and held in a mini-warehouse in Reno, according to a November 1976 story in the Reno Gazette-Journal.

He also has a conviction for rape by force or fear stemming from the same incident, and was paroled from a Nevada state prison in 1988, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In 1991, police believe he was trolling for victims in South Lake Tahoe in a Ford Granada when he snatched Dugard from a bus stop outside her 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.

Her stepfather 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," Probyn recalled. "I rode back down and yelled at my neighbor, 911!"

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.

Jaycee Lee Dugard has retained custody of her children and was staying at a Bay area motel, authorities said.