Registered sex offender Phillip Garrido, 58, and his 54-year-old wife Nancy were arrested in a kidnapping case that spans almost two decades. On June 10, 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted on the way to her bus stop while her stepfather watched.
On Aug. 27, Dugard walked into a San Francisco Bay area police station and told detectives who she was. The story of what has happened since the day she was kidnapped 18 years ago is still unraveling.
The case was featured on America’s Most Wanted.
UPDATE:
Garrido has admitted to fathering two girls, 11 and 15, with Dugard, who spent the last 18 years hidden in a collection of shacks in Garrido’s backyard. Dugard has expressed guilt over bonding with the registered sex offender, while Garrido, during a jailhouse phone interview, has said he has “completely turned my life around” in the past several years:
“You’re going to find the most powerful story coming from the witness, from the victim,” he said. “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, heartwarming story.”
How the story of a man who kidnapped an 11-year-old girl, kept her hostage for 18 years, raped her and forced her to give birth to two of his children at home, and never allowed any of them to see a doctor, will be considered “heartwarming” is anyone’s guess.
