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I’m old enough to remember when this story began, and when it ended almost two decades later. Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped in California on June 10, 1991, and in 2009 she reappeared in the company of the convicted sex offender who took her.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 10, 1991--
I do not wish to minimize the horrors experienced by Jaycee, but it is important to note that her kidnapping was international news due in no small part to the fact she was a sweet young American girl with white skin. Girls go missing around the world every single day, never to be seen again, but Jaycee’s story dominated the news.
She was only 11, waiting to catch the school bus in the small community of Meyers, California, near Lake Tahoe. Her stepfather saw a gray sedan pull up. The driver hit Jaycee with a stun gun then shoved her into the car. Driving the car was Phillip Garrido. His wife Nancy held Jaycee down in the back seat as they drove for three hours to their home in Antioch, California. This could have been avoided. Garrido was a very bad man convicted of doing very bad things and sentenced to 50 years in 1977. And yet, 11 years later he was out and stalking again.
I’m not going to describe the terrible things Jaycee Dugard endured. Garrido did a lot of drugs and talked about how he was chosen by God. His wife Nancy was complicit in every bad thing done to Jaycee. Dugard was never allowed to visit a dentist or doctor. When she was 14, she gave birth to her first daughter, and her second daughter arrived when Jaycee was 17. She learned how to care for them by watching TV. She protected them from Garrido’s rages.
Jaycee was brainwashed into submission so that when she was older, she wouldn’t take advantage of opportunities to escape. In August of 2009, Garrido visited the University of California with Dugard’s daughters in tow to ask if he could give some fucked-up religious sermon. The events manager was all this guy is a total nutburger and something is not right about these two girls. She had him make an appointment for the next day and called the cops. They ran a background check and Garrido was called in to see his parole officer. He brought in his wife Nancy, Jaycee, and her two daughters with him.
Jaycee was introduced as “Allissa” and maintained the fiction under questioning, saying Garrido was a “great person.” But Garrido broke under interrogation and said he’d kidnapped and raped Jaycee. Dugard then admitted who she was, later saying she was forced to show affection to her abductor in order to survive and protect her daughters. Jaycee retained custody of her daughters and was reunited with her family to begin rebuilding her life.
The Garridos are rotting in prison, and Jaycee Dugard was awarded a judgement of $20 million against the State of California for numerous lapses by law enforcement that contributed to her continued confinement.
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