A 29-year-old woman, believed to be Jaycee Lee Dugard, has been reunited with her family after police arrested her abductors.  Dugard was kidnapped from her school bus stop on June 10, 1991 when she was 11-years-old.  El Dorado Sheriff’s Lt. Les Lovell said, “We’re 99 percent sure it’s her.  DNA tests are being conducted and the woman is reported to be in good condition.

The blonde, pony-tailed girl implicated her captors, 58-year-old convicted sex offender Phillip Craig Garrido and his 54-year-old wife Nancy Garrido.  Both were arrested on Wednesday after officers searched the couple’s home and grounds in Antioch for evidence.  They are being held at the El Dorado County Jail in Placerville for the abduction of the South Lake Tahoe elementary school girl and will be arraigned on Friday, August 28.

Police stopped Garrido, labeled a “religious fanatic” by neighbors, at the University of California at Berkeley where he was attempting to hand out pamphlets.  He had two young girls in the car with him, age 11 and 15.  Officers did a background check and determined that he was a registered sex offender – see photo below.  After interrogating Garrido, officers were able to determine that the children are Garrido’s and Dugard’s.

The abducted woman, called “Allissa” by Garrido, was reportedly hidden in a backyard shed for eighteen years, where she lived in a series of squat ramshackle outbuildings, tents and tarp structures with her two daughters.  The tiny warren of buildings contained an outhouse and makeshift shower, likened to a crude camping arrangement.  Police indicate that is where Garrido first hid Jaycee in 1991 and she has been there ever since.  None of the three has received medical care or been to school.

The woman’s mother Terry Probyn had spoken to Jaycee by telephone on Wednesday night and was convinced it was her missing child.  Probyn and her 19-year-old daughter flew from their Orange County California home to meet with Jaycee in Northern California.  Jaycee’s sister was just a year old when the girl went missing.  They gathered Thursday in an East Bay motel.

Dugard’s stepfather Carl Probyn had been under suspicion as a possible accomplice to the crime by the FBI for many years because he was at the scene of the abduction.  He reported that a couple had snatched Jaycee from her bus stop and sped away in a car.  He gave chase on his bicycle but quickly lost sight of the vehicle.

Several of the photos of Jaycee were age enhancements provided by Missing & Exploited Children that depict what she would have looked like at age 20 and as an adult.

See video footage of Jaycee’s two daughters below.

 

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Filed under: Across the Nation, Crime