A Stolen Life: A Memoir

A troubling question related to the Jaycee DuGard kidnapping case is why it took nearly nineteen years for the authorities to find and free DuGard and her daughters. In retrospect, there were many missed opportunities to identify suspicious behavior at her captor’s home, but law enforcement failed to follow through and respond appropriately each time.

After being released from decades of imprisonment and sexual abuse by a known sex offender on parole, DuGard sued the State of California for its negligence. Her case hinged on Phillip Garrido’s classification as a low-level sex offender requiring minimal supervision by his parole officer. In 1976, Garrido had already kidnapped and raped another victim, which resulted in his conviction and monitoring by the parole office. DuGard’s subsequent abduction and captivity were the result of a perfect storm of lapses in investigative efforts on the part of the authorities:

• Right after DuGard’s abduction from South Lake Tahoe in 1991, the police failed to notice that Garrido had abducted his earlier victim from this same area.
• A year after DuGard’s abduction, she was spotted by someone in a gas station near the Garrido home looking at a Missing poster of herself. The eyewitness called the police and described the vehicle in which DuGard was traveling but didn’t remain on the scene to wait for the police. Since nobody was around to question, the officers never followed up on the sighting or searched for the vehicle the witness identified. It was later found hidden in Garrido’s backyard.
• In June 2002, the local fire department responded to a call involving a juvenile injured in a swimming pool at the Garrido house. Garrido was a registered sex offender, and the terms of his parole prohibited him from spending time in the company of minors. The fire department never relayed this information to the parole office.
• In 2006, Garrido’s neighbors called 911 to complain about children living in the backyard and that Garrido demonstrated psychotic behavior and sexual addictions. The deputy sheriff who investigated the complaint never entered the home and merely warned Garrido of code violations if people were living in the backyard. Again, the parole violation of Garrido living in close proximity to juveniles was ignored.
• In another incident, a visiting parole officer noticed a 12-year-old girl on the premises but accepted Garrido’s explanation that she was his niece. The officer never followed up with Garrido’s brother to confirm if this was true, nor was the parole violation of associating with a minor reported.
• When Garrido was finally arrested, it was only because members of campus security at UC-Berkeley noticed his odd behavior and that of the two girls who accompanied him on the trip. They contacted Garrido’s parole office and requested a follow-up investigation.
• Garrido’s excursion to Berkely violated the prescribed radius from his home that he was allowed to travel. It wasn’t until a day later, when Garrido reported to his parole office with Jaycee and her daughters, that any action was finally taken to free the captives.

In light of these law enforcement gaffes, the State of California granted DuGard a $20,000,000 settlement for “various lapses by the Corrections Department [that contributed to] Dugard’s continued captivity, ongoing sexual assault, and mental and/or physical abuse.”

In 2011, DuGard sued the federal government for its failure to manage Garrido’s parole appropriately. Garrido had originally been supervised at the federal level, and DuGard argued that his parole should have been revoked for multiple violations that occurred even before her abduction. The federal case was dismissed on the grounds that the government wasn’t liable for crimes that Garrido committed after his parole management was transferred to California.

Phillip Garrido is currently serving a sentence of 431 years to life imprisonment. His wife, Nancy, is serving a sentence of 36 years to life. She will be eligible for parole in 2029. DuGard has since used the funds from the settlement to establish a non-profit foundation to help abuse and trauma survivors.