This is the kind of story that you watch, and frankly, the only thing you can say is WTF?
HOW DOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN? That’s the question I had while reading the story of now 29 year old Jaycee Dugard who was kidnapped at age 11 and held captive for 18 years and gave birth to two daughters from her captive Phillip Garrido. How does something like this happen in a world where sex predators are the constant focus of the media, and the internet? This man was on lifetime parole. You mean to tell me in 18 years, no one thought to go through his home, including his backyard? Neighbors reported children playing in the backyard. So no one knew this man was a convicted sex offender?
The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s department had a press release apologizing for not checking closely on leads received in 2006. The problem is deeper than that. WHY DIDN’T THE NEIGHBORS KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON? When looking at the photos of the home on CNN, the fence dividing the neighbors home in the backyard was not tall. There were tents and sheds covered with trees and shrubs. Didn’t the neighbors find that suspicious?
Phillip Garrido drew suspicion to himself when he went to UC Berkeley to hand out religious material with his two daughters in tow. Why would a convicted sex offender be out in the streets distributing religious material with two young girls, age 11 and 15?
What we can learn from this story
The federal parole system needs to be held accountable……bottomline! The bigger lesson is that we (human beings) are so desensitized that we don’t get involved. It’s not our problem! The neighbors are now talking amongst eachother in shock and horror, but no one bothered to do anything. Interviews held with various neighbors revealed that most people in the neighborhood felt Phillip Garrido was strange, weird, unapproachable, and downright crazy. How was he allowed to keep this young woman hostage for 18 years, birth two children (that I’m certain he raped as well) and no one suspected anything?
The children, both girls are eleven and 15, meaning Dugard would have given birth to the first when she was just 14 years old.
Garrido was on lifetime parole and his arrest raises questions about how closely parolees are monitored. A parole officer who had visited Garrido’s house previously had not noticed anything amiss — the compound was well concealed by shrubs, garbage cans and a tarp.
“None of the children have ever been to school, they’ve never been to a doctor.” “They were kept in complete isolation in this compound.”
The Garridos were arrested Wednesday after Phillip Garrido raised suspisions of campus police at the University of California, Berkeley. Garrido was spotted there with two young girls trying to gain access to the campus library.
Campus police then notified Garrido’s parole officer who arranged an interview. Garrido, who was on parole from a 1971 conviction for rape and kidnapping, arrived for the meeting accompanied by the two girls, as well as wife and another woman, named Allissa.
Allissa later was identified as Jaycee Dugard, the blond, pony-tailed 11-year-old who was taken from the school bus stop minutes after she left her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991.
We’re so wrapped up in our own stressful lives that we don’t venture beyond our own backyard. We don’t know who our neighbors are other than the fact that they’re our neighbors. We see them coming and going and most times we say hello and keep on moving. Sometimes, we don’t even speak. This is how Jaycee Dugard remained captive for 18 years. We all need a reality check and this one is staring us straight in the face.
How many more Jaycee Dugard’s are out there? Would you know?
2 Comments
September 13, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I agree with you 110% Phyllis. How did this go on for 18 years and not one neighbor suspected anything?
September 17, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I have no idea how I stumbled upon your blog but Im enjoying my visit and i will return often. I’m putting you in my favorites.
This story bothered me and still does. I’m waiting for Oprah Winfrey to get this exclusive so we can know what really went on for 18 years.
Great Blog.