What happened to Jaycee Dugard?

This article mentions child sex abuse. Please read with caution.

In August 2009, Phillip Garrido and his two daughters inquired with the University of California Berkeley about holding a religious event on the campus. Berkeley ran a background check on Garrido and discovered he was a registered sex offender and on parole for kidnapping and rape.

From that information, the terrifying ordeal of Jaycee Dugard was uncovered who Garrido abducted in 1991 at the age of 11 from near her home in South Lake Tahoe. Garrido, who was married, kept Duggard hostage in his backyard for 18 years before he finally admitted what he’d done. Today, Dugard is free, and her story is one of the most terrifying child abduction and sex abuse cases in recent memory.

Dugard’s stepfather witnessed her kidnapping

June 10, 1991, began like any other day for Jaycee Dugard and her family. That morning, Carl Probyn dropped Dugard off at the bus stop for school, just yards from their home. Probyn witnessed two people — Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido — force Dugard into their car after shocking her with a stun gun and then drive away. “I heard Jaycee scream, and she was gone,” Probyn told People in 1991.

Desperate, Probyn ran to his bike and gave chase, but to no avail. Dugard would not be seen again for almost 20 years. The authorities searched for Dugard, but no trace of her could be found. In reality, Dugard lived in a shack in Garrido’s backyard less than 200 miles from home, in Antioch, California. Garrido kept Dugard handcuffed, and naked, or dressed up to fulfill his twisted fantasies.

In her time kept captive, Garrido raped Dugard repeatedly, and Dugard — who Garrido called “Allissa” — became pregnant twice: Once when she was 14 years old, and again when she was 17. Garrido delivered both daughters, without medical assistance.

In her testimony at Garrido’s trial, Dugard recalled, “I just wanted to go home. I kept telling him that, you know, ‘I don’t know why you’re doing this. If you’re holding me for ransom, my family doesn’t have a lot of money,’ ” The New York Times reported.

Phillip Garrido’s criminal record

When Phillip Garrido and his wife took Jaycee Dugard, Garrido had abducted and raped several women, and was sentenced to 50 years in prison for rape and abduction in Reno, Nevada. Phillip only served 11 years of that sentence, however, and he was released on parole. Phillip had regular check-ins with a parole officer the entire time he held Dugard hostage in squalid conditions in the backyard of his home.

Retired Parole Officer Edward Santos Jr. visited the Garridos several times, but — controversially — he said he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Santos later told Sacramento NBC affiliate KCRA, “I searched the entire house and never found anybody else, I looked in the backyard and it was a typical backyard. A typical backyard that was just, it wasn’t atrocious. It wasn’t well kept. A lot of debris and a lot of appliances left on the lawn, overgrown shrubbery and grass. Nothing unusual about that.”

Phillip Garrido’s two daughters

In 2009, UC Berkeley alerted Edward Santos — Garrido’s parole officer — that Garrido had inquired about a religious event at the school, and that they had discovered his criminal record, but Santos said he didn’t even know Garrido had children. Garrido was the father of the two girls, but Nancy Garrido wasn’t their mother. Their mother was Jaycee Dugard.

Not long afterward, Garrido was called into the parole office. He arrived with his wife, the two young girls, and Dugard, who identified herself as Allissa. Finally, Garrido admitted everything, and a parole officer pressed Dugard on her real name. Dugard later testified that she told the officer, ” … I can’t because I hadn’t said my name in 18 years.” Then, Dugard added, “I wrote it down.”

The aftermath

Carl and Terry Probyn, Jaycee Dugard’s mother and stepfather, had long since split up when Dugard was rescued in 2009. Terry was informed the same day Dugard said her real name for the first time in 18 years and rushed to Concord, California, where Dugard was. Former police chaplain Tim Grayson, who was there that day, later said, “They opened the double doors, and Jaycee went walking through. We heard the shout of her mother, ‘My baby!’ and then her arms were open. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

Two years later, Nancy Garrido was sentenced to 36 years to life for her role in Dugard’s kidnapping and imprisonment, and Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years for his crimes. Because the Garridos waived their right to appeal, they are eligible for parole in 2034.

“What happened to me will always be a part of who I am,” Dugard later said, “but I don’t let that be the only thing that makes me who I am. I don’t let those experiences or those people, meaning Phillip and Nancy, define the relationships in my life now. When I do have something from the past pop into my head, I don’t shy away from it either, it’s important for me to acknowledge that thought or feeling and figure it out.”

Today, Dugard has rebuilt her life as best she can, has published several memoirs, and speaks openly about her harrowing experience. As of 2016, Dugard’s daughters were in college, but little else is known about their private lives. Dugard says she never tried to escape because of her children.

If you are experiencing domestic abuse, or if you believe someone you know is being abused, contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE or spoken with online via the hotline’s website. Mobile phone owners can also text “START” to the number 88788.