Show Notes
CRIMINAL MISCHIEF
Jaycee Dugard: 18 Years Stolen
Special Guest: Paul Holes
On June 10, 1991, eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was walking toward her school bus stop near her home in Meyers, California, when a car approached. A man emerged, incapacitated her with a stun gun and pulled her into the vehicle. Jaycee's stepfather witnessed the abduction and gave chase, but within moments she was gone.
For the next 18 years, Jaycee remained a captive of Phillip and Nancy Garrido, hidden largely in a concealed compound of sheds, tents and makeshift structures behind their Antioch, California, home. She endured years of abuse and gave birth to two daughters while still being held captive. All the while, the outside world continued searching for the little girl who seemed to have vanished without a trace.
Then, in 2009, the case broke open in an almost unbelievable way.
Garrido's increasingly bizarre behavior brought him to the attention of authorities, eventually leading investigators to question the identities of the young women and girls accompanying him. On August 26, 2009, Jaycee finally revealed who she was.
Eighteen years after her kidnapping, Jaycee Dugard had been found alive.
This week on Criminal Mischief, Carolyn Ossorio revisits the extraordinary investigation into Jaycee's disappearance and recovery with special guest Paul Holes, the legendary cold-case investigator and forensic criminologist whose career has included work on some of California's most notorious crimes.
Carolyn and Paul examine the case through an investigator's eyes: the initial abduction, the enormous search for Jaycee, the behavior of Phillip Garrido, and the disturbing opportunities authorities had to discover what was happening years before Jaycee was finally rescued. They explore how a registered sex offender under supervision managed to conceal a kidnapped child on his own property, what investigators can learn from the failures surrounding the case, and how seemingly insignificant observations can ultimately crack an investigation wide open.
But this is also a story about something far more important than the people who abducted Jaycee.
It is about survival.
Jaycee Dugard emerged from eighteen years of captivity, reunited with her family and began the difficult process of reclaiming a life that had been interrupted when she was eleven years old. Her story remains one of the most extraordinary survival stories in modern American criminal history—and an enduring reminder that a missing-person case is never simply a file waiting to be closed.
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