Jaycee Dugard kidnapped 18 years ago So Lake Tahoe, CA FOUND ALIVE / 2 arrested

[Northern Rose]

From Twitter:

ashleereann: Press confrence about Jaycee tomorrow morning at 10:00am...I believe my Aunt Tina is going to talk.
21 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

http://twitter.com/search?q=jaycee#search?q=jaycee

[Northern Rose]

Dugard case: The circus comes to town
There are high-profile stories. There are major journalistic events. And then there is the media tornado inside a three-ring circus tent known as the Jaycee Lee Dugard case.

When I called an Antioch hotel this morning to ask how the invasion of reporters from around the world was affecting business, the manager told me she had sold 30 extra rooms a night since Dugard emerged, alive, from 18 years of captivity last week. But she declined to answer further questions.

"One of the other papers put me under contract," she explained. "I'm not supposed to talk to any reporters."

She's far from the only one who has cashed in. Desperate for juicy interviews, media outlets have been throwing around money in an area beaten down by the foreclosure crisis -- paying everyone from the father and the next-door neighbor of suspect Phillip Craig Garrido to local hotel managers. The one I spoke to said she had no scoops of her own, but added in the spirit of a big-city concierge, "I know people."

For days, Garrido's one-block street on unincorporated scrubland just outside Antioch has been packed with television satellite trucks. The stream of curious onlookers, snapping photos of Garrido's house, has at times caused traffic jams. One local offered to fly a model airplane over Garrido's backyard and sell the footage.

The real battle is between competing television producers and hosts. According to sources, Oprah Winfrey's team tried to deliver a personal note from the media mogul to Dugard in an effort to land her first interview.

"Inside Edition" booked Garrido's first wife for her first interview, while CNN's Larry King got the exclusive on the victim of Garrido's earlier kidnap and rape.

For humble local reporters who don't pay for stories -- which The Chronicle does not -- it's a tough atmosphere in which to report and write. When I talked to Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, on Sunday afternoon, he said he was at the Trump World Tower in New York City and had just returned from an excursion on celebrity newsman Geraldo Rivera's boat. When I called a day later, a woman answered and told me to send a message to a special e-mail account that had been set up for inquiries. She declined to identify herself.

The first pictures of Garrido's backyard compound came from Nick Stern, a Hollywood photographer who sneaked over the fence. Some of his fellow media members admired his feat; others wanted him prosecuted.

With an influx of reporters from Britain and beyond, accuracy appears to have been a casualty.

Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that Garrido and his wife, Nancy, who was also arrested, were on suicide watch. "Guards at Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez," the paper revealed, "are checking his cell every 15 minutes around the clock to make sure the former LSD addict does not try to kill himself."

The Garridos, however, are behind bars in El Dorado County.

Britain's Daily Mail quoted one of the neighbors as saying Phillip Garrido held drug-fueled orgies where men "of Mexican appearance" would arrive with crates of beer, line up for sex and then high-five each other as they "emerged from the tent." The neighbor's niece told me the article was "appalling" and that her uncle had almost certainly been misquoted.

It wasn't much of a story anyway, at least compared to the truth.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/crime/detail?entry_id=46730&tsp=1

[Northern Rose]

How Jessica's Law turned Antioch into a paedophile ghetto

Antioch is one of the few places in California where convicted sex offenders can legally reside. Was the strain of monitoring them all too much for the local police?

By Guy Adams

Wednesday, 2 September 2009

Antioch, outside San Francisco, is home to 122 registered sex offenders

 More pictures
They have called it scruffy, cheap and unloved. They have sneered at the wire mesh fences and unmowed lawns and the rusting trucks in almost every driveway. And in time, when the media writes the final chapters of the appalling story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, they may very well conclude that in Antioch, her story was simply an accident waiting to happen.


A staggering 122 registered sex offenders live here, in a small, blue-collar city in northern California that has suddenly found itself at the centre of an international media storm. More than 100 of them – 102, to be precise – live in the compact zip-code area containing the suburb that Jaycee Lee's alleged kidnapper, Philip Craig Garrido, called home.

Two convicted rapists reside on Vine Lane, the street next to Walnut Avenue where Jaycee Lee's imprisonment and sexual abuse went unnoticed for almost two decades. On Viera Avenue, less than 200 yards away, is the home of Henry Lee Mickens, a 46-year-old man who recently served time for "lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old".

Dozens of other paedophiles can be found within walking distance. A mile and a half from Garrido's front door is Gragnelli Avenue, where the occupant of No 420, one Shayne Patrick Gaxiola, was convicted of molesting a 12-year-old girl and impregnating her in 1994, when he was aged 20.

Gaxiola was also found guilty of giving marijuana to a string of pubescent girls. He then took indecent pictures of them. In 2000, three months after his release, he was sent back to prison for violating parole after being caught with cannabis and a stash of pornographic magazines.

In a town full of such men, the activities of Philip Garrido seemed simply to slip below the radar – despite the awful track record that has emerged since he and his wife, Nancy, were arrested and charged with 29 counts related to Jaycee Lee Dugard's abduction, imprisonment, and serial sexual abuse over 18 years (to which, it must be stressed, they have so far pleaded not guilty).

Court papers released yesterday from Garrido's 1977 trial for the kidnap and rape of a young woman in Nevada portray him as a dangerous sexual predator. During a psychiatric evaluation, he admitted to using LSD and cocaine as sexual stimulants and said that he would often masturbate in public, by the "side of schools, grammar schools and high schools, and in my own car while I was watching young females".

There is, however, no shortage of similar stories in Antioch. That is perhaps why, after Garrido was released in 1988, 10 years into a 50- year sentence, he and his wife were able to slip virtually unnoticed into the fabric of this community, which stretches for roughly four miles along the Sacramento River.

At first glance, Antioch may look like any other small American city. Its 100,000 residents are largely white and working class. Some work in industrial plants. Others are commuters, unable to afford the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay area. In keeping with most of California, about 10 per cent are unemployed.

Yet as police continue to investigate Garrido's past – and look into potential links to 10 murdered prostitutes and three missing girls (on Monday they announced the discovery of a bone fragment in his garden) – the city is being forced to confront a grisly truth: for reasons largely beyond its control, it has become a paedophiles' ghetto.

At fault are laws governing America's treatment of sex offenders, which control where they are allowed to live and how much information the public should be given regarding their whereabouts. These laws were passed with the laudable intention of protecting children. But their actual effect is open to debate.

The most prominent is Megan's Law, which requires the public to be given access, usually via an internet site, to the names, addresses and "previous" of every man and woman convicted of a sexual offence. It is a well-intentioned exercise in open government. But in practice, critics say, it was introduced in such a way as to be of little help to anyone but the voyeuristic. "Thanks to political pressure, they made the criteria for including someone on the registry so wide that it has become totally ineffective," says Michael Risher, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It doesn't just carry details of violent rapists but also people who, say, lost their temper during a road rage incident and flashed at someone, or an 18-year-old boy convicted of statutory rape for sleeping with his 17-year-old girlfriend."

In California, the Megan's Law website contains 90,000 entries. Given this extraordinary statistic, it isn't hard to see why the residents of Walnut Avenue – who had 121 other convicted sex offenders in their city to worry about – might have allowed a man with Garrido's dubious profile to pass largely ignored.

The second group of laws that make Antioch a magnet for paedophiles governs where they are allowed to live. In California, as in many states, voters have in recent years endorsed Jessica's Law, which bans paedophiles from residing within 2,000 feet of a school or a park where children regularly play.

This has driven sex offenders out of major cities and conurbations, where they have access to rehabilitation and treatment facilities, and into suburbs and secluded rural areas, where they don't. In some smaller cities, they have now become concentrated in such large numbers that parole and law enforcement officers are unable to properly vet them.

This may explain why local authorities never noticed that Garrido was apparently keeping the kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard and her two small children concealed in the elaborate series of sheds and tents in his back garden. Thanks to the influx of offenders to Antioch from major cities, they were simply too overstretched to do their job properly.

It may also explain – but not necessarily excuse – the fact that a police officer dispatched to investigate claims of children living in Garrido's garden in 2006 seemingly did not have either the time or the wherewithal to thoroughly research his suspect's background.

"If you look at maps that show where offenders are actually able to live under Jessica's Law, there's almost nowhere in the whole of Los Angeles and San Francisco where they can now legally settle," Mr Risher adds. "Everywhere is within 2,000 feet of a park or school. So they all end up in places like Antioch."

Even police admit that this leaves them struggling to cope. Daniel Terry, from the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department, which oversees Antioch, has about 1,700 registered sex offenders in his jurisdiction. His station is responsible for about 350 of them, or "349 more than the number of detectives I have dedicated to monitoring these people."

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times this week, he said that the region's concentration of sex offenders was "significantly higher" than other areas in California and the rest of the United States."This is the reality. These people are walking amongst us everywhere." Adding to his woes are wider problems in the cheap parts of Antioch where Garrido and many other convicted sex offenders live. In the ramshackle area around Walnut Avenue, petty theft is rampant, drug abuse endemic – the favourite local tipples are crystal meth and crack cocaine – and lawns are littered with junk.

The city, which grew prosperous on the proceeds of the 1849 gold rush and then the steel mills and concrete factories that allowed it to ship the building blocks of San Francisco down-river during the early 20th century, is now among those caught in the storm of America's economic downturn.

Nearly 2,500 homes, roughly 5 per cent of the city's stock, are in foreclosure, with 699 new homes entering arrears last month. Property values have dropped 40 per cent in the past year and unemployment is soaring. Garrido's bungalow, a four-bedroom home built on a large plot of land between the wars, is worth just $100,000 (£61,800).

Against this background, and helped by laws that encourage ghetto-isation of sex offenders, it now seems that a man known as "Creepy Phil" by neighbours was able to take a little girl hostage, hold her for 18 years, father her two children, and even take them to community events, while barely raising an eyebrow.

In January, Zion Dutro, a convicted child rapist who lived on Alpha Way, not two miles from Walnut Avenue, appeared in court to plead not guilty to performing rape, sodomy and "lewd acts" on at least eight small girls. He faced 21 counts; his wife, a co-defendant, faced four.

In any other town, this kind of case would have sparked a mixture of shock and outrage that would be heard across the world. In Antioch, it merited no more than a few paragraphs in the local newspaper – a reaction which suggests that Jaycee Lee Dugard may not be the last grisly secret that the city reveals.

Sex offenders' register: Megan's and Jessica's laws

Megan's Law requires the public to be given details regarding the identity, whereabouts, and criminal record of convicted sex offenders living in their midst. It was named after the New Jersey schoolgirl Megan Kanka, who was kidnapped, raped and killed by a serial sex-offender in 1994. Today, it's being enacted to varying degrees in every US state.

Like any law passed in response to a public tragedy, the law has been dubbed knee-jerk by opponents, who say it encourages vigilantism and is an infringement on the civil liberties of ex-offenders. A study last year concluded that the law achieved no demonstrable reduction in child sex offences.

Jessica's Law prevents convicted sex offenders from living within a certain distance of schools, parks, and other areas where children gather. It was first adopted in Florida in 2005 after nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford was snatched from her home, before being raped and murdered by a convicted paedophile. Today, a version is in force in 42 US states. Critics say it has made major cities off-limits to offenders, forcing some to declare themselves homeless, and ghettoising others. There is little evidence that it works. Many police forces say it has the opposite effect: stretching resources and doing nothing to prevent paedophiles travelling to commit crimes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-jessicas-law-turned-antioch-into-a-paedophile-ghetto-1780287.html

[San]

The two girls thought Jaycee was their sister, and the expense of mental health doctors and school, etc, will be very costly. The state of California needs to step up and help with a lot of this expense. I can just imagine what the girls thought when they found out their sister is their mother. 

They need to step up and pay for all expenses.  JMO.

[QuietMonkey]

Sorry if this was posted already:

Jaycee's alleged kidnapper on Google Street View?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10323374-71.html

[Babybear]

Geraldo Rivera seems to have a habit of taking people in the news out on his boat.  He took Baez, now he's taken Jaycee's stepfather.  But, IMO, it doesn't make him any better looking or less of a sleaze.

[Northern Rose]

California Kidnapping Sex Suspect has Metro Ties

LEAVENWORTH, KAN - There are local ties to a high profile kidnapping and sexual assault case out of California, as the man suspected of holding a young girl captive for 18 years spent time in the Federal Penitentiary, and met his wife, in Leavenworth.

In 1977, Phillip Garrido arrived at Leavenworth federal prison on kidnapping and rape charges. It was there he met his wife, Nancy Garrido who, for a time, lived in Leavenworth.

"I probably met her right here where we're standing" said John Sanders, Garrido's landlord, as he remembered the day he met her. "I would say she was very friendly at the time."

Today, Garrido and her husband, Phillip, are at the center of a recent, high-profile abduction and sexual assault case, involving a little girl named Jaycee Dugard, who was held captive for nearly two decades in California.

Sanders says he couldn't believe this is the same woman who rented his apartment in 1985.

"I guess, just like anybody, my gosh!" said Sanders. "I didn't see any red flags at all. Like I said, I checked her out and didn't get any indication at all she's a criminal."

At the time, she wasn't. Sanders met Garrido in 1985 when she answered an ad for this $300 a month, one bedroom apartment on the corner of Broadway and Spruce in Leavenworth.

The apartment is about 10 minutes from the federal prison where her husband, Philip was being held on kidnapping and rape charges stemming from a 1971 incident.

Sanders said Garrido lived in the apartment for about 10 months. He says that he never realized Garrido's connection to the penitentiary because there was never a reason to be concerned. Garrido paid rent in full, on time, every month.

"I hate to use the term, but you see it often, a prison follower," said Sanders.

http://www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-story-leavenworth-garrido-090209,0,3540294.story

[Northern Rose]

EXCLUSIVE: Interview With Jaycee Lee Dugard’s Grandmother, “Jaycee felt guilty that she was kidnapped”

Jaycee Lee Dugard’s grandmother, Wilma Probyn, has suffered along with the rest of the family for the past 18 years since 11 year old Jaycee’s abduction. In an exclusive interview with RadarOnline.com, Probyn shares how happy she is to have Jaycee back in the family, how Jaycee, and her mom, Terry, are adjusting to her life out of captivity and how Jaycee suffers on even now.

"I speak with Terry all the time,” Probyn tells RadarOnline.com. “She is so happy to have Jaycee back. We all are.

“Terry told me that Jaycee is really amazing. That little girl still remembers all of the family as if it was yesterday. She has not forgotten a single family member.

“She is in a state of shock but Jaycee also feels guilty for not having called her mom or dad or anyone - even though she was captive! 

“Terry told me that Jaycee felt guilty that she was kidnapped. She was sorry for making her mommy and daddy worry. I cried when I heard that. Terry told me that she still sees Jaycee as a child. She is having to really learn to communicate with her as an adult who has children of her own. She said that Jaycee even sounds the same.

"They are both taking it really slow. Shayna, Jaycee's sister is also up there. They are already getting close again and trying to make up for those lost years. Its a lot for Shayna to take in also.

“Terry is hoping they can go home soon but she told me she is not rushing anything. They have had lots of offers for interviews but they want to give it time. Jaycee and Terry are both very delicate right now.

"The other wonderful outcome is that Carl has overcome that shadow of suspicion that he has lived under for so long. Our friends were wonderful and believed in us - neither Carl nor I ever lost of friend because of these false accusations.

“Terry reminded me that she had never believed that Carl had taken her. Even when they separated they still remained firm friends. We have all gone on cruises and vacations together and we have all supported each other through these hard years.

“Terry really wants everyone to be a family again. But Jaycee comes first. We will work around her needs.”

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2009/09/exclusive-interview-jaycee-lee-dugard%E2%80%99s-grandmother-%E2%80%9Cjaycee-felt-guilty-she-was

[Northern Rose]

EXCLUSIVE: Jaycee Lee Dugard’s Aunt, “Terry And Jaycee Are Going Day To Day And Doing The Best They Can”

In an exclusive interview with RadarOnline.com, Jaycee Lee Dugard’s aunt, Michelle Dugard, opens up about her frustrations regarding the investigation into Jaycee’s disappearance and how Jaycee and her mother are now.

"Everybody missed that little girl so much,” Michelle Dugard tells RadarOnline. “ I was so relieved when she was found. But I was really angry too.

“It is so frustrating that they were so close to where she was being held captive. It seems like we wasted so much time.How could everyone have dropped the ball.

“I am an Insurance Investigator so I understand the difficulties involved. Still, the same car was parked at that sicko's property for 18 years and no one investigated it. All that mess with tents and blue tarp and no one bothered to check it out.

“The fact that the neighbors callled him creepy. I don't know why they let peadophiles live in a group like that unsupervised. Can you imagine what Jaycee, the entire family, must have gone through? Thank God she is safe now. It really is a miracle.

"Terry is still in a state of shock. they are looking for a family spokesman and I am sort of the middle man right now.

"We have received lots of support from friends and strangers but right now we are trying to heal. Terry and Jaycee are still in protective custody and till that ends no one knows what will hapen. At this point there really is no plan. Terry and Jaycee are going day to day and doing the best they can. "

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2009/09/exclusive-jaycee-lee-dugard%E2%80%99s-aunt-michelle-dugard-interview-%E2%80%9Cterry-and-jaycee

[Northern Rose]

BLOCKED WEBSITE

[Northern Rose]

Wife of Phillip Garrido largely a mystery
Police allege Nancy Garrido was a full partner in the kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Lee Dugard, while acquaintances describe her as being under her husband's control.

Reporting from Antioch, Calif. - Nancy Garrido, tears running down her face, nodded as her husband confessed to a business acquaintance that angels were speaking to him and had helped him forswear his sexual compulsions.

The couple had barged into Maria Christenson's recycling shop in Pittsburg, and Nancy Garrido rested her hand on her husband's shoulder as he revealed his transformation.

The charges against Garrido do not indicate whether police believe she participated directly in the sexual assaults or acted more as an accomplice.

Some female sexual abusers, known as "male-coerced" or "male-accompanied," engage in abuse after being introduced to it by a man, research shows.

These women tend to suffer from low self-esteem, antisocial behavior, poor social and anger management skills, fear of rejection, passivity and other mental problems.

By most accounts, Nancy Garrido was indeed passive.

Christenson, who did business with the couple for more than a decade, remembered that Nancy Garrido said little when she was in the shop and always deferred to her husband.

"She never was a happy-go-lucky person," Christenson said. "She always looked a little down."

It was in that meeting a year ago that Christenson said she saw Phillip Garrido's usual weirdness flare into something more intense.

"He kept saying, 'I am a changed man.' He said, 'I don't masturbate anymore.' "

In the semirural neighborhood near Antioch where the Garridos lived, many of the neighbors said they never saw Nancy Garrido. When her husband went out walking at night, he was usually alone, they said.

But Helen Boyer, 78, a retired cemetery manager, said Nancy Garrido moved into the ramshackle home before her husband, who apparently was still in prison.

She was caring for his ailing mother, Patricia Franzen, who owned the house.

Boyer said Nancy Garrido worked at local nursing homes, where Phillip Garrido did maintenance work.

"She took good care of her mother-in-law," Boyer said, describing her as a "good person."

Franzen was a retired maintenance worker for the Antioch school district, and Phillip was her favorite child, Boyer said. "That was her world," she said. "He really catered to her, he and Nancy both."

After Franzen could no longer walk, Nancy Garrido would push her wheelchair over to Boyer's white picket fence, where Franzen would praise her daughter-in-law, Boyer said.

Boyer said she knew Nancy Garrido was from Colorado, but she never saw any relatives or noticed the Garridos taking trips. She said she saw Dugard and her daughters but was told they were the children of a friend.

"Nancy worked hard out in that yard when she wasn't inside -- weeding, watering, mowing," Boyer said.

When Boyer recently adopted a cat, Nancy Garrido became enamored and the cat started to stay in her yard. When the elderly neighbor on the other side of the Garridos' house moved to a nursing home, the Garridos took in his dog, Boyer said.

"I really feel bad for Nancy," Boyer said. "I think he had her so brainwashed."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nancy-garrido3-2009sep03,0,5225759.story?page=2

"He kept saying he was a changed man," Christenson said. "And she kept nodding, it is true, it is true."

Although much is known about Garrido, his wife of almost 28 years remains largely a mystery. Acquaintances and family members have described her as being under her husband's control and a believer in his religious convictions.

Police insist Nancy Garrido, 54, was a full partner in her 58-year-old husband's alleged crimes, and she faces almost identical charges in the kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

In fact, for more than a month in 1993, authorities say, Nancy Garrido was apparently the sole jailer of the then-13-year-old Dugard while her husband was in prison for a parole violation.

The woman who allegedly grabbed Dugard as she walked the few blocks to her school bus stop 18 years ago told her lawyer that she loved Dugard and her daughters as "family."

She appeared to do much of the work at their home near Antioch and sometimes helped her husband in his printing business, though she stayed in the background.

Garrido, a nurse's assistant, is believed to have helped Dugard deliver the two babies that police say Phillip Garrido fathered.

Investigators have charged Nancy Garrido with nearly as many offenses as her husband. She faces two counts of rape, seven counts of forcible lewd acts and four counts of forcible rape in addition to the kidnapping charge.

Described as quiet, dour and dutiful, the former Nancy Bocanegra of Denver married her husband in 1981 at the U.S. penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., where he was serving a 50-year sentence for a 1976 kidnapping and rape. She is Garrido's second wife.

The couple reportedly met when she visited a relative at the prison, and they began exchanging letters.

Her attorney told television interviewers Wednesday that she misses Dugard and her daughters.

"What she said that I can tell you about is that there came a time when she felt they were a family, and she loved the girls very much, and she loved Jaycee very much," Gilbert Maines, Garrido's court-appointed lawyer, said on NBC's "Today."

He said her "state of mind" could become important to her defense.

"She's distraught. She's scared. She seems to be a little lost," said the lawyer, who did not respond to calls to his office.

"She doesn't seem to be able to really focus well at the moment," he said.

During her arraignment last week, Garrido looked exhausted, frequently crying into her hands.

Ted Cassman, a criminal defense lawyer not involved in the case, said any lawyer who claims Garrido was "brainwashed" will have a difficult time persuading a jury.

"I bet they are going to claim [her husband] was abusive, controlling and dominating and that she was under his spell," Cassman said. "But that is a really difficult defense. That is what Patty Hearst argued."

[MsVada]

The bone fragment they found, why would it take weeks to identify if human or not? In Caylee's case, they did it on the spot, at the Econ River. Maybe it is human, and they're waiting for something additional, before they announce it?

I dunno, just a thought...

That is my thought also...I just think if it was NOT human, they'd have said so right off the bat.  I think they are waiting for a formal report to come back . 

[A_News_Junkie_Monkey]

------------------------>  SNIP for space
There's a simple reason Garrido couldn't reach Medieros, Hernandez said - the nursing home had apparently barred Garrido from contacting him.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/01/BAVA19H138.DTL

-----------------------SNIP

--------------------------> more snips!
If you can clear this up for me with a link - I will give you next weeks bananas!

 At a property next door to the house of horrors, investigators -- bearing rakes, shovels and chainsaws -- searched an area where Phillip Garrido briefly lived in a shed while working as a caretaker from 2005 to 2006.

By midday, cadaver-sniffing dogs were also brought to the site. Two bags of evidence were carted away, but it wasn't clear what was inside or which property they were collected from.

Magdalena Miller, who owns the property next door, said she was "shocked" at the developments at the home she bought from her ex-husband, Delbert "Jack" Medeiros.

Medeiros was forced by a medical condition to enter a nursing home in 2005, and Garrido moved in to act as a caretaker, she said.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08312009/news/nationalnews/i_believe_psycho_son_is_a_killer_187314.htm?page=0

BANANAS FOR ME!!!

YOU ROCK, as promised!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pink angel]

Stolen Jaycee Lee Dugard reconnects with family
September 04, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

RIVERSIDE, California: Terry Probyn took a brush to her daughter's blonde hair - a tender ritual she had not performed in 18 years, when her girl, Jaycee Lee Dugard, was 11.

Reunited with Jaycee last week in northern California, Ms Probyn got to play mother again to the girl who was snatched away.

Tina Dugard, Terry's sister and Jaycee's aunt, watched, disbelief mingled with joy. "I remember thinking, 'wow, she's French-braiding Jaycee's hair for the first time in 18 years'," Ms Dugard said.

The reunion of mother and daughter - and Ms Probyn's first meeting with Jaycee's two daughters, 11 and 15 - played out in private as the chilling tale of Jaycee's alleged abductor, Phillip Garrido, seized headlines worldwide. Ms Dugard spoke for the first time publicly about how the family was coping.

"There's a sense of comfort and optimism, a sense of happiness ... Jaycee and her girls are happy," said Ms Dugard. Terry Probyn lived with her sister for 10 years before recently moving out.

"People probably want to think that it's been this horrible, scary thing for all of us," Ms Dugard said of the past week. "The horrible, scary thing happened 18 years ago, and continued to happen for the last 18 years. The darkness and despair (has lifted.)"

Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy, 54, were arrested last week and charged over the kidnapping, rape and imprisonment of Jaycee Dugard in their backyard. The couple has pleaded not guilty.

Ms Dugard said Jaycee's daughters "know what's been going on", but they have not been allowed to watch TV.

She said she had not pressed Jaycee and her daughters to discuss life in the cluttered backyard. "Right now, it's about reconnecting," she said.

Reports had said the girls believed Jaycee was their older sister. "I have heard them call my sister 'Mom'," Ms Dugard said.

While in captivity, Jaycee taught her girls to read and write.

"They are educated and bright," she said of Jaycee's children, whose names have been reported as Starlet, 15, and Angel, 11. "It's clear they've been on the internet and know a lot of things," Ms Dugard said. "It's clear that Jaycee did a great job with the limited resources she had and her limited education."

Ms Probyn, 50, was the first to meet Jaycee and the girls - separately, in a room.

Then it was Ms Dugard's turn. Jaycee Dugard threw open her arms. "Auntie Tina!"

The two instantly recognised each other. "I looked at her and I knew right away. After 18 years, you have a sense of, 'Could this possibly be true?"'

Ms Dugard said Jaycee and the girls looked healthy - although she declined to detail their appearances, saying she wanted to respect their privacy. "She does seem like a 29-year-old woman," she said of Jaycee. "She's fabulous, and she's beautiful."

The girls have their mother's blonde hair and bright blue eyes and big smile, she said.

Jaycee's sister, Shayna, 19, told Jaycee she was so happy to meet her - a girl she had known until then only through old photographs and family movies, and media accounts of her abduction.

There was an "instant connection. It was almost a genetic connection", Ms Dugard said.

For now, the family is focusing on the moment - and getting to know each other.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26022243-2703,00.html

[pink angel]

Jaycee Lee Dugard's aunt: Kidnapped niece grew into well-adjusted woman, raised 'bright' daughters

By Nancy Dillon In Los Angeles and Corky Siemaszko In New York
Daily News Staff Writers

Updated Thursday, September 3rd 2009, 9:34 AM

Kidnapped by a rapist who made her a mother at age 14, Jaycee Lee Dugard somehow managed to create an oasis of normalcy for her girls in their backyard prison and even taught them how to read and write.

Despite having a demon dad, Dugard's daughters are "educated and bright" and remarkably well-adjusted given what they've been through, said an aunt who witnessed Dugard's remarkable reunion with her family after cops say she was held for 18 years by pervert Phillip Garrido.

"I'm a teacher. I know kids," Tina Dugard told the Orange County (Calif.) Register. "And I can tell you that they are a normal 11- and 15-year-old."

As for Dugard, who was just 11 when Garrido and his wife, Nancy, allegedly snatched her from a bus stop near her home in South Lake Tahoe in 1991, "she does seem like a 29-year-old woman," Tina Dugard said.

"She's fabulous, and she's beautiful," she said.

Tina Dugard said they still can't believe the little girl they thought was lost forever has been found and that she's a grown woman now with two kids of her own. She said even watching her sister, Terry, comb Dugard's hair is a surreal experience.

"I remember thinking, 'Wow, she's French-braiding Jaycee's hair for the first time in 18 years," she told the Register.

Dugard and her daughters, Starlet and Angel, were reunited with the kidnap victim's mother, Terry Probyn, last week after cops rescued them from the hovels behind a bungalow in Antioch, Calif., where Garrido is accused of holding them prisoner.

The Garridos have pleaded not guilty to numerous felony counts.

Tina Dugard declined to discuss how her niece and the girls were treated by the Garridos, but revealed they were not as isolated as first reported.

"It's clear they've been on the Internet and know a lot of things," the aunt told the paper. "It's clear that Jaycee did a great job with the limited resources she had and her limited education."

Tina Dugard, 42, said she was making a salad for dinner when she got the call that Dugard had been found.

"I don't know what I felt," she said. "I just said, 'What?' I'm sure I repeated that word several times."

The grateful aunt said Dugard recognized her right away and immediately embraced her when they finally were reunited.

"Auntie Tina!" the lost niece cried out, Tina Dugard said. "I looked at her and I knew right away. After 18 years, you have a sense of, 'Could this possibly be true?'"

Dugard also had an "instant connection" with her sister, Shayna, 19, who was a baby at the time of the kidnapping.

For the following six days, the reunited family did "normal" family things like playing the board game 'Apples to Apples' and watching the movie "Enchanted," Tina Dugard said. She said she noticed that Dugard and her daughters were "very tight."

"There was a lot of sitting next" to each other, she told the paper.

Tina Dugard said she discovered that her niece loves - perhaps fittingly - mysteries and reads a lot. The girls love video games like "Zelda" and "Super Mario Smash Brothers."

"The fact that \[Dugard\] is home sinks in in little pieces," her aunt told the paper.

What they aren't dwelling on is what happened to them in Garrido's backyard.

"I may never know what happened" to Dugard, her aunt said. "But she's home."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/09/03/2009-09-03_jaycee_lee_dugards_.html

[pink angel]

BLOCKED WEBSITE

[pink angel]

I hope Jaycee and her children never do an interview or are photographed. It will be the only way they are going to be able to live a private life from here on out.

I know it's a pipe dream. I just fear once they are shown, they will hunted and tracked by the media everywhere they go. They will always be tabloid fodder. Which would be so wrong.

[pink angel]

HLN showing the news conference live I think. They have a small box in the corner, showing the mic. It's a family conference, suppose to be a brief statement.

[N2WISHN]

I hope Jaycee and her children never do an interview or are photographed. It will be the only way they are going to be able to live a private life from here on out.

I know it's a pipe dream. I just fear once they are shown, they will hunted and tracked by the media everywhere they go. They will always be tabloid fodder. Which would be so wrong.

Elizabeth Smart has made a remarkable recovery from her ordeal and I would hope the same for Jaycee and her children.

snipped

Elizabeth Smart is one of the few people who can relate to Jaycee Dugard, who has been rescued after 18 years living in a secret backyard.

Elizabeth, who was kidnapped in 2002 and held captive for almost a year, says when she was found she felt relief and happiness. She told Anderson Cooper on Thursday, "I was just excited to be home and back to the people that I know love and care for me and I know want the best for me. I think Jaycee is probably feeling something along those lines as well."

http://www.starmagazine.com/news/15996

[no rose colored glasses]

The two girls thought Jaycee was their sister, and the expense of mental health doctors and school, etc, will be very costly. The state of California needs to step up and help with a lot of this expense. I can just imagine what the girls thought when they found out their sister is their mother. 

They need to step up and pay for all expenses.  JMO.

Agreed