Home may be where the heart is, but it is not, at least for most people, where the whole body wants to be 24/7. Even though our home is fixed to our liking and is where we feel the most secure, most of us develop “cabin fever” if an illness, inclement weather, or stay at home orders prevent us from leaving for more than a few days. This was never more evident than during the lockdowns during the pandemic.

Jaycee Dugard endured a different and far worse brand of confinement inside her “home” of over eighteen years. Kidnapped from her real home in 1991 when she was eleven-years-old, she was rarely allowed to leave her new living quarters and had no say in how they were furnished.

Sightings of the missing girl were reported as an adolescent, and, as the years passed, as a teenager and young adult, from across America. All the while, however, Jaycee Dugard was, for the bulk of the time, literally caged in her far from palatial “home” only one-hundred-fifty miles from where she had been abducted.

Jaycee Dugard

Terry Probyn and Ken Slayton, Jaycee’s parents, had a brief relationship and never married. For many years, Ken did not even know he had fathered a child.

Terry later married Carl Probyn and they had a daughter, Shayna.  In September 1990 the family moved from Arcadia, California, near Los Angeles, to the small rural town of Meyers, bordering the Nevada border in the South Lake Tahoe area of the Sierra Mountains.

Terry believed the small town that once served as a station along the Pony Express would be a better community in which to raise her daughters than crime-infested Los Angeles. The area was probably safer, but it proved not completely shielded from danger.

 Jaycee And Half-Sister Shayna

A car approached eleven-year-old Jaycee as she was walking from her home to meet the school bus on the morning of June 10, 1991. After rolling down the window, a man tazed her with a stun gun, knocking her unconscious.

Jaycee Is Attacked

Carl then saw a woman force Jaycee into the car, which he believed was a gray Mercury Cougar. In his haste, he gave chase on a bicycle but was unable to keep pace with the vehicle.

Composites of the woman failed to produce any solid suspects.

 Drawings Of Jaycee’s Abductor

Hundreds of volunteers combed the area in search of Jaycee but came up empty. Thousands of fliers were mailed nationwide and her abduction was profiled on several national shows, including America’s Most Wanted. Tips poured in, but none led to Jaycee.

No Jaycee

As the days turned into weeks, sightings of Jaycee continued to be reported. But as the weeks turned into months and the months into years, the tips dwindled.

Over eighteen years passed with no trace of Jaycee Dugard.

The Case Goes Cold

Though Terry often thought that her daughter could now be a mother herself, she was taken aback by a phone call she received in August 2009. On the other end, a young woman’s voice enthusiastically greeted her with the words “Hi, Mom, I have kids.”

Terry’s prayers had been answered. Her daughter was alive and she was coming home.

The details of Jaycee Dugard’s eighteen years of hell were soon learned.

“Hi, Mom, I Have Kids!”

Something seemed amiss when an awkward looking man entered a University of California office on August 24, 2009. His request was odd; he inquired about holding an event for his “Gods of Desire” religious organization on the Berkeley campus. That, however, was not what stood out to Special Events Manager Lisa Campbell.

Accompanying the man were a young woman and two young girls, all of whom Lisa sensed were acting excessively timid and looked overly pale. She took the man’s name and asked him to return the following day. Unable to shake her misgivings about him, Lisa asked campus police to obtain more information about Phillip Garrido.

A background check revealed the actions of the man who fancied himself as a man of God were more akin to those of the devil. Garrido, a registered sex offender, had been paroled from prison in 1988 after serving only twelve years of a fifty year sentence.

Phillip Garrido

In 1976, Garrido kidnapped and raped twenty-five-year-old Katie Callaway in South Lake Tahoe.

Katie Callaway

In the eighteen years since his release from prison, Garrido had been visited many times by parole officers, local sheriff’s deputies, and federal agents. None of them, however, knew anything of his having children, and all were horrified at the prospect.

Garrido was arrested following his visit to the University of California because he had recently been barred from having contact with minors. He told the parole agents the two young girls who had accompanied him were the daughters of a relative who had given him permission to be in contact with them and to take them to the Berkeley campus.

After reviewing his file, the parole agents drove Garrido home but ordered him and the woman to report to the office again the following day to further discuss his purpose in visiting the campus and to follow up on their concerns about the two young girls.

Shocking Findings

Garrido, the woman, and the girls arrived as scheduled at the parole office in Concord the following day, August 26.  The woman introduced herself as “Alissa.” She and Garrido were questioned separately, initially repeating his claims that the girls were the daughters of relatives.

The skeptical parole officers contacted the police who arrived to further question Garrido. He soon confessed the two girls were his daughters and that he had kidnapped and raped the young woman countless times.

Garrido Comes Clean

When questioned, “Alissa” was initially defensive and agitated. She claimed she was a battered wife in hiding from an abusive husband. When told of Garrido’s confession, however, her demeanor changed.

After a few moments of crying, she softly uttered three words she had not said in eighteen years: “I’m Jaycee Dugard.”

“I’m Jaycee Dugard”

Improbable as it seemed, the woman’s claim was true. She was Jaycee Dugard, but she was a far cry from the typical little girl when she was last seen.

After being examined by doctors, Jaycee returned home– to her real home– the following day.

National News

Many homeless had better living conditions than Jaycee Dugard. For most of the nearly two decades following her kidnapping she was confined to a run-down shed and later to two homemade tents, equipped only with a camping-style shower and toilet, behind Garrido’s Antioch home, thirty-five miles northeast of Oakland and one-hundred-fifty miles southwest of where she had been taken. The area was surrounded by tall trees and a six-foot high fence; the privacy was enhanced by other tents and outbuildings.

For the first three years of her captivity, Jaycee told investigators she was handcuffed the majority of the time and given only the necessary food and water and a bucket to relieve herself. She was occasionally allowed to watch television but was not permitted to watch the news because it might have reports of the search for her.

 

Jaycee’s House Of Horror And Tent Of Terror

Garrido raped Jaycee almost daily for several years. He told the young girl his actions were justified because he was a servant of God, and the almighty creator had chosen her to help him with his sexual problems.

Two of the rapes resulted in pregnancies, one in 1994, when Jaycee was thirteen-years-old, and the other in 1997, when she was sixteen. Garrido himself delivered the children, both girls; they were generally confined to the same living quarters as their mother.

Daily Rapes

In April 2011, Phillip Garrido, along with his wife Nancy, pled guilty to kidnapping, rape, and unlawful confinement. He was sentenced four-hundred-thirty-one years to life imprisonment, while Nancy received thirty-six years to life.

Phillip Garrido is serving his sentence at California State Prison, Corcoran, while Nancy is incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.

Jaycee’s Captors Are Sentenced

Nancy often visited Jaycee in her confinement, sometimes acting as friend, but at other times berating her. While Garrido had driven the car, Nancy had committed the literal kidnapping of Jaycee, as it was she who snatched the young girl and threw her into the vehicle.

Police are continuing to investigate the couples’ possible involvement in several other murdered and missing children cases from central and northern California during the 1970s and ’80s.

Nancy And Phillip Garrido

1988 Photo

Investigations revealed several possible missed opportunities of rescuing Jaycee Dugard sooner:

• Garrido had never emerged as a suspect in her kidnapping because police failed to make the connection that she was kidnapped south of South Lake Tahoe, less than ten miles from his 1976 kidnapping and rape of Katie Callaway.

• On April 22, 1992, less than a year after her kidnapping, a man reported seeing Jaycee in a gas station staring at a missing child poster of herself and later leaving in a large yellow van, possibly a Dodge. The man was unable to get the license plate; when police arrived at the gas station, the caller, the girl, and the van were gone. The caller did not identify himself, and the police did not pursue the matter any further.

  When Garrido’s property was searched following his arrest, a yellow Dodge was found. In contradiction to this story, however, Jaycee says she never left the Garrido property from June 10, 1991, the day she was kidnapped, until shortly before her first child was born in August 1994.

  • In June 2002, the fire department responded to a report of a juvenile with a shoulder injury incurred in a swimming pool at the Garridos’ home. This information was not relayed to the parole office, which had no record of either a juvenile or a swimming pool at the residence.

  Four years later, in 2006, a neighbor called the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, saying he saw tents in the backyard of the Garrido home in which it appeared children were living. A deputy sheriff arrived at the home and spoke with Garrido at the front of the house for nearly half-an-hour. He left after telling him that a code violation would be imposed if people were living outside on the property, but he did not inspect the property behind the home.

  In November 2009, five months after Jaycee’s rescue, the California Office of the Inspector General issued a report enumerating lapses by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation which had contributed to her prolonged captivity. The central finding was that Garrido was incorrectly classified as needing only low-level supervision and that all other lapses derived from that error.

The report detailed an instance in which a parole agent encountered a young girl at the home but accepted Garrido’s explanation that “she was his brother’s daughter and the agent did nothing to verify it,” even though a call to Garrido’s brother confirmed he did not have children.

Missed Opportunities To Rescue Jaycee

Several neighbors reported having seen Jaycee during her years of captivity, but she never indicated she was being held against her will.

A year or two after her kidnapping, a Garrido neighbor spoke to Jaycee through the fence in the yard. He said she identified herself by the name “Jaycee” and she told him she lived there. At that point, Garrido came out and took her back indoors and soon built a taller fence in the yard.

As Jaycee grew older, she was given more privileges, such as occasionally being allowed into the house. Garrido operated a print shop from his home and Jaycee often acted as the graphic artist. A customer stated he spoke by telephone with her and that she did excellent work. During this time, Jaycee had access to the business phone and an email account. Another customer indicated that she never hinted to him about her childhood abduction or her true identity.

Several people also said Jaycee sometimes answered the front door and talked to people, during which time she also never showed any fear or signs that she was in trouble. These reports have led many to believe she had developed “Stockholm Syndrome” a condition in which hostages and/or kidnapped victims develop a psychological alliance with their captors.

Jaycee angrily rejects this assertion, saying her self-identity was stripped and that she did not try to escape or signal for help because she was too traumatized and afraid, not because she developed an attachment to Garrido.

Jaycee Rejects “Stockholm Syndrome”

In July 2010, the State of California approved a $20 million settlement with Jaycee Dugard to compensate her for: “various lapses by the Corrections Department [that contributed to] Dugard’s continued captivity, ongoing sexual assault and mental and/or physical abuse.” The bill was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

On September 22, Jaycee filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California accusing the federal government of failing to monitor Garrido while he was a federal parolee. The lawsuit claimed Garrido should have been returned to prison for numerous parole violations which occurred prior to her abduction, including testing positive for drugs and alcohol.

The lawsuit was rejected by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on March 15, 2016. In a 2–1 decision the court ruled Jaycee Dugard had not been victimized by Garrido at the time he was placed under federal parole supervision, and there was no way to anticipate she would become his victim. As a result, the court declared California federal authorities had no duty to protect her or other members of the general public from Garrido.

On August 26, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed Jaycee Dugard’s civil claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).

Jaycee’s Lawsuits Are Dismissed

Now forty-four-years-old, Jaycee Dugard has made tremendous progress since regaining her life fifteen years ago. Among other things, she has learned how to balance a checkbook, use a computer, and drive a car. In this photo on her Facebook page, she describes pumping gas as a “new phenomenon.”

Considering her ordeal, these are significant accomplishments.

“A New Phenomenon”

In a 2016 interview with ABC’s 20/20, Jaycee said her daughters were both in college. She says both were doing well but she wishes to protect their identities. Both girls have a circle of friends who do not know of their past.

When asked if she would allow her daughters to visit their imprisoned father, Jaycee said she hopes they would not want to do so but says she will not prohibit them if they wish. So far, she says her girls have not expressed a desire to see him.

Jaycee also said she has not reached the point where she feels comfortable developing a relationship with a man but is open to the possibility.

A Life Regained

When a child is kidnapped by a stranger, the first few hours after the act are the most crucial. If he or she is not found within the first few days, the chances of a safe recovery greatly diminish. After a year or two, the percentage of successful recoveries diminishes even further.

Jaycee Dugard’s recovery was an exception to the rule and is a testament to the importance, no matter how much time has elapsed, of never giving up hope that a kidnapped child will be found.

Never Give Up

SOURCES:

• ABC News
• America’s Most Wanted
• East Bay Times
• Los Angeles Times
• NBC News
• New York Times
• People Magazine
• The Telegraph