Girl locked up for 18 years in a backyard

[FCAAP_Dan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8226165.stm

Jaycee Lee Dugard and her daughters, 11 and 15, were kept in a "hidden backyard within a backyard", police say.

Alleged kidnapper Phillip Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy Garrido, 54, are being held in custody in California.

DNA tests are being done to confirm Ms Dugard's identity, but meanwhile she has been reunited with her mother.

"She was in good health, but living in a backyard for the past 18 years does take its toll," El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said.

See a map of the area

Ms Dugard disappeared in 1991, aged 11, apparently taken by two people who bundled her into a car.


The garden of Phillip Garrido
The house where Jaycee was kept had a "hidden backyard within a backyard"

Mr Kollar said that since the kidnapping she had lived with the couple, isolated from view at a property in Antioch near San Francisco, 170 miles (273km) from her home in South Lake Tahoe.

"The tents and outbuildings in the backyard were placed in a strategic arrangement to inhibit outside viewing and to isolate the victims from outside contact."

She and the children spent "most of their lives" there, he said, adding that they had never been to school or seen a doctor.

Their identities were revealed after police spotted Mr Garrido as he handed out religious literature at the University of California Berkeley campus with the two young children.

He raised suspicions because as a registered sex offender he was not allowed to be with young children.

Jaycee's alleged kidnapper Phillip Garrido: "I'm in a very serious situation"

He was called in by his parole officer for questioning, and brought the two children and a young woman he called Allissa with him.

During questioning he revealed that Allissa was actually Ms Dugard. She also confirmed her identity to police.

In a telephone interview from prison with the KCRA-TV station, Mr Garrido said he had not admitted to abduction and that the birth of the first child 15 years ago had changed his life.

"If you take this a step at a time, you're going to fall over backward and in the end you're going to find the most powerful, heart-warming story," he said.

"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 with me in the beginning. But I turned my life completely around," he said.

Some of those who had had contact with Mr Garrido over recent years said he had developed increasingly strong religious beliefs.

Tim Allen, who did business with Mr Garrido's printing firm, told Associated Press that Mr Garrido gave the impression he was planning to establish a church. "He rambled. It made no sense," Mr Allen said.

'Given up hope'

Police said they had found a vehicle hidden in the backyard of the Antioch property that matched the vehicle described at the time of the abduction.


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Although Mr Garrido was previously visited by a parole officer, there was nothing odd noticed about the backyard.

The area occupied by Ms Dugard and her children was concealed by shrubs, rubbish bins and a tarpaulin.

Ms Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, who witnessed the abduction on 10 June 1991, said he had "given up hope" she would be found alive.

"It broke my marriage up. I've gone through hell, I mean I'm a suspect up until yesterday," Mr Probyn, 60, told AP.

Mr Probyn saw the young girl being taken away by two people as she walked from her home to a school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe.

He said a stranger drove up and grabbed Ms Dugard, bundling her into a grey car even as she tried to resist by kicking and screaming.

Mr Probyn believed a man and woman were in the vehicle. Despite several false reports of sightings in the intervening years, Ms Dugard was never seen again.

"She sounds like she's okay," Mr Probyn said. "I hope she's been well-treated this entire 18 years.

emphasis was mine.

 

[FCAAP_Dan]

http://rgj.com/article/20090828/NEWS18/90828025&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews

now the guy is under investigation for killing hookers.



oh yeah, he call also speak the language of angels.

 

[benoitms]

On the funny side, he plaid "non guilty" in front of the judge, so he have sense of humor...

 

[scalyblue]

--dons flamesuit--

Things Jaycee Lee Dugard could have done to escape her captors:

1) Walked Away

2) Anything

I don't see no Erica Pratt being held for no 18 years.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=elizabeth_smart

 

[FCAAP_Dan]

That's what I don't get. When she got older....why not escape? Was she chained up or something?

 

[Giliell]

That's what I don't get. When she got older....why not escape? Was she chained up or something?

Looks like nobody even knew she was there, the prison was well hidden and from what I've heard the neighbours didn't notice.
But why didn't she try to escape?
Imagine the girl was barely a teen when abducted. If the Stockholm-Syndrome gets adults after a few hours of kidnapping, how would she have felt?
And then she had the kids, hard to escape with them, and probably unimaginable for her to leave without them.

I s'pose that he didn't let her outside in the first years of her imprisonment.

 

[scalyblue]

And then she had the kids, hard to escape with them, and probably unimaginable for her to leave without them.

leave without them, come back with a SWAT team at your back. --shrug--

 

[Neverwhere]

leave without them, come back with a SWAT team at your back. --shrug--

Would you, as a parent, leave your children alone with a child-abducting fundie know for being a sex offender?

 

[Aught3]

Betty Mahmoody made it from Iran to the US embassy in Turkey with her daughter in tow, not bad going.

 

[FCAAP_Dan]

leave without them, come back with a SWAT team at your back. --shrug--

Would you, as a parent, leave your children alone with a child-abducting fundie know for being a sex offender?

They've got feet too!

 

[orpiment99]

It is easy to stand outside of a situation and think how one should react. It is an entirely different thing to be in the situation. Who knows what that man may have said to her or threatened her with. She was only 11 and over the intervening years anything may have been done to her to assure her compliance. I'd like to think that I'd be strong enough to escape if it was me, but I have no way of knowing.

 

[scalyblue]

It is easy to stand outside of a situation and think how one should react. It is an entirely different thing to be in the situation. Who knows what that man may have said to her or threatened her with. She was only 11 and over the intervening years anything may have been done to her to assure her compliance. I'd like to think that I'd be strong enough to escape if it was me, but I have no way of knowing.

Since you didn't read my link, I'll quote teh famous maddox

Almost a year before Elizabeth Smart was found, there was a 7 year old girl named Erica Pratt who was kidnapped, bound with duct tape around her arms, legs and eyes, and left in the basement of a building:

Did she lie back and take it? Hell no. She broke a window, gnawed through her duct tape, and escaped. She was back home the next day before her parents could enjoy the solitude of having one less kid around, and she's only 7 years old.

 

[orpiment99]

Since you didn't read my link, I'll quote teh famous maddox

Which makes me happy for her, I'm glad she is a strong person. However, I don't see how that should change what I said. :?

 

[scalyblue]

I would make a distinction between strength and common sense; the only way somebody's keeping me prisoner in a back yard for 18 years is if I had a quadratic amputation or I was drugged unconscious the whole time.

 

[orpiment99]

There are many situations that I have been in that if I had been asked how I would have handled them, the answer would have been quite different than the reality.

Regardless, I think it takes a certain strength of character and sense of self, which she apparently didn't have. After all, there is a reason for the saying "better the devil you know than the devil you don't". (Though that works for either side of the argument, it just depends on when she had the opportunity)

 

[Giliell]

Betty Mahmoody made it from Iran to the US embassy in Turkey with her daughter in tow, not bad going.

Betty Mahmoody was a grow woman with an education, and a good knowledge about how the world works and what the embassy would do for her.
We're talking about an 11 year old girl here who probably got all the information about the worls outside from her offender.
I think it shameful how some people her put part of the blame on that young woman for not leaving.
That's like saying a child who's been sexually abused over many years is to blame for it or enjoyed it because the child didn't go to the police.
That's not how the psychological brainwashing of offenders works

 

[Aught3]

Yeah... I think this is more of a stupid joke.

 

[Marcus]

scalyblue, the bonds that kept the kid from escaping weren't physical. She became entirely psychologically dependent on her captor. Given her age when she was abducted and the time he had to do so, he likely had her in such a frame of mind that the reason she didn't escape is because she either didn't want to or she saw no way of doing so as she firmly believed that nobody in the outside world would believe or help her.

 

[scalyblue]

scalyblue, the bonds that kept the kid from escaping weren't physical. She became entirely psychologically dependent on her captor. Given her age when she was abducted and the time he had to do so, he likely had her in such a frame of mind that the reason she didn't escape is because she either didn't want to or she saw no way of doing so as she firmly believed that nobody in the outside world would believe or help her.

This makes the assumption that she isn't just an idiot, which is just as possible given the information that we have; If you stay somewhere against their will without being bound, it is not kidnapping, it is domestication. Baa. But, then again, even a sheep would roam off and need to be herded back in.

When you think about it, she didn't even need to make it far, I'm sure a neighbor's house would do. She didn't even have to run, I'm sure screaming would have been adequate, this criminal mastermind had her held in a tent outdoors. I have no respect for this woman until I hear accounts of 6500+ thwarted escape attempts, and that's only assuming one a day.

 

[Marcus]

This makes the assumption that she isn't just an idiot, which is just as possible given the information that we have; If you stay somewhere against their will without being bound, it is not kidnapping, it is domestication. Baa. But, then again, even a sheep would roam off and need to be herded back in.

When you think about it, she didn't even need to make it far, I'm sure a neighbor's house would do. She didn't even have to run, I'm sure screaming would have been adequate, this criminal mastermind had her held in a tent outdoors. I have no respect for this woman until I hear accounts of 6500+ thwarted escape attempts, and that's only assuming one a day.

You're not quite getting it. She was either utterly convinced that things were normal, or that any attempt to escape would fail and make things worse.

Imagine if you're being held captive on a small rock surrounded with magma, and all your needs are airdropped in using containers that turn to dust a second after they land. You have no way of escaping or communicating with the outside world without breaking the laws of physics, and you know this for an absolute fact. Would you still try to escape, even knowing with absolute, unshakeable certainty that it is utterly and irredeemably futile?