Aug 28, 2009 12:07 am US/Pacific
Kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard Found 18 Years Later
ANTIOCH (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
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Jaycee Lee Dugard shown (left) at age 11 when she was abducted and (right) in a computer-generated age progression image.
CBS
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Phillip Craig Garrido, Nancy Garrido
El Dorado Co. Sheriff's Office
Jaycee Lee Dugard, a girl who was kidnapped nearly two decades ago from South Lake Tahoe at age 11, was found alive and well in the East Bay, authorities said Thursday. A registered sex offender from Antioch and his wife were arrested in the kidnap case and officials said the man confessed.
Witnesses in 1991 reported that a vehicle with two people drove up to the blond, ponytailed girl outside her home and abducted her while her stepfather was watching.
Dugard spent the 18 years since she was abducted living in the backyard of an Antioch home, raising her two daughters who were fathered by the convicted rapist who kidnapped her, according to investigators.
Lt. Les Lovell of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office said the case unfolded on Wednesday when the now 29-year-old woman came into the Concord police station with her two alleged captors.
"We are very confident at this point in time that it is her," said Lovell, who described Dugard as being in good health.
Dugard was reunited Thursday afternoon with her mother, Terry Probyn, who was overjoyed to learn that the daughter she feared dead was actually alive and well.
Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, said the news was like winning the lottery.
"To me, it's a miracle. I mean, I never thought after 18 years we would get her back alive," he said in an interview Thursday. "To have this happen where we get her back alive, and where she remembers things from the past, and to have people in custody is a triple win."
The pair arrested in the case were identified by police as 58-year-old Phillip Craig Garrido, a registered sex offender, and his wife, 55-year-old Nancy Garrido. The two were being held on $1 million bail each at the El Dorado County jail.
Phillip Garrido was booked on five pending charges -- kidnapping, rape, lewd behavior, sexual penetration and conspiracy; Nancy Garrido was booked on two pending charges of kidnapping and conspiracy, jail officials said.
The Megan's Law database said Phillip Garrido had a prior conviction for rape by force or fear and was paroled from a Nevada state prison in 1999.
In addition, Antioch police told CBS 5 that he was currently a suspect in an on-going abuse investigation involving the care of his elderly mother.
"He's a real creep," said one officer, who asked not to be identified.
California state corrections officials said they called in Phillip Garrido for questioning Wednesday after receiving a report that the parolee was seen with two children at the University of California, Berkeley.
Accompanying him to the police station were two girls aged 11 and 15, and two adults — Nancy Garrido and another woman who went by the name "Allissa," officials said.
"Allissa" turned out to be Dugard.
"The diligent questioning and follow-up by the parolee's agent of record led to Garrido revealing his kidnapping of the adult female," the department said in a statement. "It was further revealed by Garrido that she was Jaycee Lee Dugard, and that the children were his."
Investigators said Phillip Garrido apparently fathered the children with Dugard while she was held captive.
Ironically, federal prison officials said Phillip Garrido was on parole for a conviction in another kidnapping case at the time Dugard was taken.
He was convicted of kidnapping in U.S. District Court in Nevada, and in March 1977 was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was later transferred and paroled in Northern California in 1988, officials said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday collected evidence at the Garridos' gray, one-story home home at 1554 Walnut Avenue in Antioch, which is where authorities indicated Dugard raised her two girls in a tent complex that had been set up in the backyard.
"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, if you will."
There was electricity from electrical cords, rudimentary outhouse, rudimentary shower, "as if you were camping," he said.
Residents of Walnut Avenue grappled with the news that their neighbors had been arrested for Dugard's kidnapping.
Helen Boyer, 78, said she had known the Garridos for a while but had never met Dugard.
"They were very good neighbors, this is a shock to me," Boyer said.
Betty Unpingco said she had lived on the street for 10 years and Phillip Garrido moved into the neighborhood shortly after she did.
"We're all shocked, scared that it can happen just a few doors down," she said. "He was social but he just had a mannerism about him that you didn't trust."
Angela Crabaugh, whose son lives across the street from the Garridos, described Phillip Garrido as a religious fanatic who was trying to form his own church.
"I just always thought he was very bizarre," she said.
In recent years, Phillip Garrido wrote a blog full of rambling passages in which he claimed he could speak in tongues unknown to mankind.
"The Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world," he wrote in one of the many blog posts reviewed by CBS 5.
Dugard was kidnapped around 8 a.m. on June 10, 1991, while walking from her home to a school bus stop.
Carl Probyn said he heard his stepdaughter scream and then jumped on a bicycle and frantically pedaled after the two-toned gray sedan in a failed effort to follow it up a hill. He then turned around and screamed at neighbors to call 911.
The case attracted national attention after it was featured on TV's "America's Most Wanted," and the stepfather said he endured years of suspicion from the FBI — who believed he might have been involved in the abduction.
"It broke my marriage up. I've gone through hell, I mean I'm a suspect up until yesterday," Carl Probyn said. "I'm the last person to see her."
Probyn eventually lost hope that he would ever see his stepdaughter alive. He said he was struggling to understand why Dugard didn't come forward earlier.
"I have a million questions, but I'm just delighted," he said.
Lt. Lovell, who was among the detectives assigned to investigate Dugard's kidnapping at the time it occured, said investigators had worked the case consistently since the abduction and followed leads that had surfaced over time.
But Lovell concluded, "This is not the normal resolution to a kidnapping... You bet it's a surprise."
News organizations as a matter of policy typically avoid identifying victims of alleged sexual abuse by name in their reports. However, Dugard's disappearance had been known and reported for nearly two decades, making impossible any effort to shield her identity now.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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