Jaycee Dugard: Kidnapped by Married Couple, Impregnated by the Husband

Neighbors described Phillip Garrido as “creepy,” a man who told them he established a church called “God’s Desire.” He would break into song, saying he heard God’s voice.

Garrido sometimes acted strangely around teenage girls, some of whom appeared to be living in tents in his unkempt backyard, the neighbors said.

But no one knew the horrors occurring inside his Antioch, Calif., home that stole innocence and freedom from Jaycee Dugard, starting when she was 11 in an abduction that lasted until she was 29. Garrido and his complicit wife, Nancy, would be caught and imprisoned much later than authorities admitted they should have. 

“I can hear my captor’s hollow footsteps coming from the room beyond,” Dugard wrote in her 2011 memoir, A Stolen Life. “He enters the door and has a milkshake in his hand. At first, I smile at him and want him to think I am doing well. For some reason, I think it is important for me to be happy around him. He comes in and crouches down and he says today will be a little different. He says I can have the milkshake and something to eat after we are done.”

That led Jaycee to wonder, “Done with what?” 

Garrido was a convicted rapist living in the San Francisco Bay Area community of Antioch after serving 11 years of a 50-year sentence when he and his wife kidnapped Jaycee on June 10, 1991.

She was walking to her school bus stop in the community of South Lake Tahoe at the state line with Nevada when Garrido and his wife Nancy pulled up in their car. Authorities said he rolled down his window, shocked Jaycee with a stun gun and pulled her into the car with help from Nancy.

At the couple’s home, about 160 miles away, she was held in a makeshift dungeon in their backyard, repeatedly raped and renamed “Alissa.” Jaycee had two daughters by Phillip and was put to work for his specialty printing business. There were intense searches for Jaycee, but no trace was found of her.

During Jaycee’s captivity, Garrido’s rapes made her a mother at ages 14 and 17. The Garridos raised Jaycee and her daughters as theirs, denying Jaycee the right to be their mother. Instead, the couple demanded Jaycee’s daughters call Nancy “Mom,” and referred to Jaycee as the younger children's older sister.

As her daughters grew, Jaycee taught them what she could with her fifth-grade education. After her rescue, Jaycee told authorities she was too afraid of her captors to try to escape. Garrido, she said, threatened to use the stun gun on her again and told her he had Doberman pinschers on the property to attack her if she left. 

Jaycee said she had no idea where she would go if she escaped and feared leaving her daughters behind.

On August 24, 2009, Garrido went with his two daughters by Jaycee, then ages 15 and 11, to the UC Berkeley campus police station and told officers he wanted to hold a religious event on campus.

Lisa Campbell of the department’s special events unit and officer Ally Jacobs sensed something was wrong. The girls seemed sullen, submissive and pale, like they lacked exposure to the sun.

Campbell and Jacobs questioned the girls, asking their names and where they went to school. Garrido, meanwhile, volunteered that he had been convicted 33 years earlier of rape and kidnapping but said he was now “doing God’s work.” 

Garrido made an appointment to return the next day, and without reason to arrest him, Jacobs let him go.

Checking Garrido’s record later, Jacobs discovered his status as a registered sex offender who was on parole after being released from prison in 1988 for raping a 25-year-old woman in 1977.

Concerned about the girls, Jacobs called Garrido’s parole officer, Edward Santos Jr., who thought Garrido had no children and went to his house the next day.

"I asked about the two little girls. Where are they? And he said, what are you talking about?" Santos told California's KCRA 3 news. "He said they're gone and their dad picked them up."

Santos told Garrido to bring the girls to his office the next day with their parents. Garrido showed up with his wife, Jaycee and the girls and each of the adults gave different stories about the identities of the girls’ parents.

After questioning, Garrido confessed, admitting to Santos what he had done to Jaycee.

“I kidnapped her and raped her when she was a child,” he told Santos, according to  KCRA 3.

As the details of Jaycee’s life as a hostage emerged, Jaycee reunited with her mother and stepsister and retained custody of her children. She has kept their lives private, revealing later that they attended college. 

Authorities reviewed the case and acknowledged Jaycee could have been found much earlier if not for numerous law enforcement mistakes. The errors included Garrido’s early release from prison despite a criminal history of previous attacks on young women in Antioch and South Lake Tahoe and failure of his parole supervision. 

The Garridos pleaded guilty and did not go to trial. At their sentencing, Jaycee’s mother, Terry Probyn, read a statement written by Jaycee.

“As I think of all those years, I am angry because you stole my life and that of my family,” the statement said. “Thankfully, I am doing well now and no longer live in a nightmare. I have wonderful friends and family around me. Something you can never take from me again. You do not matter anymore.”

Phillip got a 431-year sentence and is an inmate at an undisclosed California prison. Nancy is serving a 36 years to life term at the California Institution for Women in Chino.

Phillip likely will never appear before a parole board and will die behind bars.

Nancy will be eligible for parole in 2029 under California’s Elderly Parole Program, which allows inmates ages 50 years or more who have served the bulk of their sentences to be considered for release.