Jaycee Lee Dugard was 11 when she was snatched from a bus stop by two strangers within sight of her home on June 10, 1991. Yesterday she was reunited with her family for the first time in 18 years.
Jaycee’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, witnessed the kidnapping as he stood at the fence in his yard and watched Jaycee walk to a bus stop two blocks from her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. Probyn said he saw two individuals in a grey sedan pull up beside the little girl and drag her into the car. “I saw them pull her in and I tried to get her,” Probyn said.
He jumped on a bicycle and pedaled furiously after the car but the vehicle disappeared over a hill. Probyn said he screamed for a neighbor to call the police.
In the 18 years since Jaycee went missing, Carl Probyn was under constant suspicion by the FBI and family members who thought he was somehow involved in the kidnapping. Jaycee was featured on America’s Most Wanted and her kidnapping garnered national media attention.
The case was finally solved this week by an alert UC Berkeley campus police officer who spotted 58-year-old Phillip Garrido and two children handing out pamphlets on campus. The officer asked for identification and, after running a background check, learned that Garrido was a registered sex offender on lifetime parole after serving time in 1999 for kidnapping and forcible rape of a child. Registered sex offenders are not allowed to be in the company of children.
The officer notified Garrido’s parole case officer in Concord who called Garrido into the parole office for a meeting. Garrido showed up for the meeting on Wednesday accompanied by his wife, Nancy Garrido, 55, Jaycee Dugard, 29, and two girls, 11 and 15. Garrido told his case officer the two girls were his. But the case officer had visited the Garrido home on many occasions and never saw Dugard or the two girls.
Suspicious, the case officer interviewed Garrido and Dugard separately and the sordid story of kidnapping and rape began to unfold. Garrido admitted fathering Dugard’s two girls — the oldest of whom was born when Dugard was just 14. (Via SandraRose.com)
SMDH what is wrong with people...how in the HELL did he get away with this for sooo long? Im glad she is finally reunited with her family but I know she is REALLY DEVASTATED!!!
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