Abducted girl turns up after 18 years
CONTRA COSTA (CALIF.) TIMES
CONCORD, Calif. — Eighteen years ago, 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped as a child near her South Lake Tahoe, Calif., home. On Thursday, she was reunited with her family.What happened since that day in 1991 and her recovery is fodder for a TV mystery show.
According to authorities, Dugard had been hidden in an Antioch, Calif., backyard compound, where she lived with two children fathered by her abductor, Phillip Craig Garrido, a registered sex offender. She resurfaced in Concord on Wednesday when she accompanied the man accused of kidnapping her to a parole interview.
For St. Louisans, Dugard's story was reminiscent of the Shawn Hornbeck case, the teen found two years ago after being missing for the previous four.
On Thursday, Pam Akers, the mother of Shawn Hornbeck, expressed delight on the news that another missing child had been found.
"I was just as surprised as the rest of the world," Akers said. "It had to be pure hell for them. I only had to go through four and a half years. I don't know how it would have been to go 18 years."
Unlike Hornbeck, who was hidden in plain sight, authorities say Dugard, now 29, was held prisoner in an elaborate backyard compound made up of sheds, tents and outbuildings — one soundproofed — that were undetectable, even to the parole agents charged with checking on Garrido.
"You could walk through the backyard … and never know there was another set of living circumstances," said El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar.
Dugard and her two daughters, ages 15 and 11, spent most of their lives there with little contact with the outside world.
A parole agent brought Garrido to his office Wednesday for questioning after University of California-Berkeley police spotted him the previous day with two young girls. Kollar said police grew suspicious when Garrido tried to enter campus to distribute literature and a background check turned up his status as a parolee.
Accompanying Garrido to the interview were his wife, Nancy Garrido, the two girls and another woman. During questioning, the parole agent called Concord police to help identify the girls and the unknown woman, whom he had never seen during previous visits to Garrido's home. Authorities soon learned that the woman was Dugard, and that Garrido had kidnapped her.
Garrido and his wife were booked into the El Dorado County Jail on Thursday afternoon on kidnapping and other charges.
Jaycee Dugard and her mother, Terry Probyn, were reunited Thursday morning in an undisclosed location. They made no statements.
Akers, who runs the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, which aims to prevent child abduction and help families of missing children, said Dugard's appearance after so long a time proved that even if the chances are small, parents of missing children should remain hopeful.
"She proved to everybody that miracles happen," Akers said. "They don't all come home alive, but some do."
And she had this advice for Dugard's parents: "Sit back. Listen. Don't ask the questions. I know they've got so many questions, but in time the answers will come."
Greg Jonsson of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
For stepfather, Dugard's reappearance lifts cloud of suspicion.
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