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da "www.dailymail.co.uk" Last updated at 6:34 AM on 28th August 2009
The nightmare 18-year ordeal of a woman who was kidnapped on her way to school when she was 11 was revealed last night after she was found alive.
Jaycee Lee Dugard mothered two daughters, now aged eleven and fifteen, with monster Phillip Garrido - one of them when she was just fourteen.
And she was forced to spend the last eighteen years living in sheds and tents in a hidden garden behind her captor’s family house in a suburban California street.
Last night’s revelations showed shocking parallels with the case of Austrian Josef Fritzl, who fathered seven children with his daughter and kept them prisoner in an underground warren under his home.
Both of Jaycee’s children were born at the house and had never been to school or even seen a doctor.
Now 29, Jaycee had an emotional reunion last night with her mother, Terry, who was shocked and ‘overjoyed’ to learn that her daughter was still alive.
Terry told ABC News that her daughter had been held against her will all these years and ‘confined in a box’ in the back of the Garrido's house.
Jaycee was dragged screaming and kicking off the street in South Lake Tahoe in northern California as she walked to the school bus stop in 1991.
And her family heard nothing from her until her identity was discovered by police on Wednesday.
But her parent’s joy was tempered last night with the knowledge that Jaycee had been kept in horrifying conditions for nearly two decades as 58-year-old Garrido’s sex slave.
Police revealed that Jaycee and her two children lived in two sheds, both about 10ft by 10ft, one of which was soundproofed and could only be opened from the outside.
They also had two small tents and a ‘rudimentary’ camping-style shower and toilet.
The secret backyard was hidden from neighbours by a six foot fence, tall trees and an old dish washer and other rubbish piled up in the garden.
Garrido got in and out through a tarpaulin covering the entrance.
Fred Koller, under-sherriff for El Dorado County, where Garrido lived with his 55-year-old wife, Nancy, said: ‘There is nothing to indicate this was anything other than a stranger abduction.
'They literally grabbed her off the street and had nothing to do with the family.
‘Jaycee was in good health. But living in a backyard for eighteen years does take its toll.
‘Neither of the children had ever been to school or ever been to a doctor.
‘Jaycee was taken straight from the kidnapping to the house and there is no evidence that she ever left.
'The children were born there and they have all been there ever since.'
The police spokesman said a campus officer at the prestigious University of California at Berkeley, California, became suspicious of Garrido when he tried to give out religious leaflets to students on Tuesday.
With him were the two daughters and when the guard checked Garrido’s background, she discovered he was a listed sex offender and was on parole for a vicious rape and kidnapping in Nevada.
He was ordered to visit his parole officer the next day.
When he arrived at the parole office in Concord, California, he brought with his wife, the two girls – and a woman he referred to as Allyssa.
The parole officer immediately became suspicious because he had never seen Allyssa or the two girls during his visits to Garrido’s home.
He called in police and officers quickly learned that Allyssa was, in fact, Jaycee Lee Dugard, the girl they had been searching for since 1991.
The Garridos were arrested and a police raid on their home uncovered the secret compound where Jaycee and her daughters had lived.
Police said Jaycee was ‘relatively co-operative and forthcoming’ and her remarks convinced them who she was.
DNA tests will be carried out in the next few days to confirm her identity.
Jaycee’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, 60, was outraged to learn that she had been forced to father Garrido’s children.
‘This man is probably in a cult, He is sick.
'I am shocked, outraged and devastated this has happened to Jaycee,’ he said.
‘Jaycee told her mother: "Mum I've got a baby."
'Terry said: "How many?" ‘and Jaycee said: "I've got two, they are 15 and 11 years old".
‘I don't know whether Jaycee is still 11-years-old in her mind.
'I mean, who calls a 15 year-old and an 11 year-old babies?'
Carl found out he was a step-grandfather just hours after learning that Jaycee had been found alive. Estranged wife Terry called him to reveal that she had spoken to Jaycee - who dropped the bombshell that she was a mother.
Carl said he stopped his wife Terry from telling him any more because it was: ‘Too emotional,’ to listen to the conditions she was in at that time.
Carl added: ‘I am very disappointed in the condition she was kept in and the girls.
‘Right now there is so much going on.
I am sure it's like being on an island and not having anyone around.
We can't believe this is happening.’
Police also found the car used in the kidnapping in the secret back garden compound.
He said electricity was provided through basic power cords connected to the main residence. Undersheriff Koller defended parole agents who had never noticed the clandestine camp.
He said it was almost impossible to spot unless you know what you are looking for and had been designed to evade prying eyes.
'You could walk through the house and never know there was another set of living circumstances out there,' he said.
The sheds and tents were all well below the six ft fence, he added.
'There was no attempt by Jaycee to outreach to anybody in all the time she was held captive,' he said.
'For all we know, they never left the location.'
He said Nancy Garrido's involvement was as an accomplice to the kidnapping.
'She matches the description we have,' he said.
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