Jaycee Lee Dugard Missing for 18 Years -- Who is to Blame?

The revelation that Jaycee Lee Dugard was actually alive after being missing for 18 years has opened up several lines of inquiry into the methodology of local law enforcement in the area. How could Jaycee Dugard have been held prisoner on the same property for 18 years without being noticed? And if a neighbor did call the police and report people living in Phillip Garrido's back yard, why wasn't Phillip Garrido's back yard searched? How is it that a case that could have been closed a couple years ago went on for as long as it did?

To be fair to the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office, Phillip Garrido, after he and his wife, Nancy, kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard off the streets of South Lake Tahoe, California, brought her back to a prepared soundproofed building. Once she was locked inside, nobody could or would be able to hear her, no matter how loud she yelled, pleaded, or screamed. That the building was also hidden behind another fence, making it a fenced off part of Phillip Garrido's back yard (giving the illusion that the back yard ended sooner than it actually did), and that it also was obscured by a privacy fence from neighbors, it is somewhat understandable that, even if Phillip Garrido had let Jaycee Dugard out for small periods of time, she would not have been seen.

But that excuse can only get the Sheriff's Office to 2006...

According to the Associated Press, it is known that parole officers visited the house regularly, for Phillip Garrido was a known and registered sex offender and, as part of his probation, had to submit to surprise visitations from his parole officer. Garrido had to visit his parole officer several times each month. He wore a mandatory ankle bracelet tracking device equipped with GPS-locator so he could be found at all times. Emergency personnel and paramedics were at the house five times in 1999. It is believed that they were called for Phillip Garrido's ailing 88-yrar-old mother, who also suffered from dementia.

So how is it that no one noticed anything awry? The two children that Jaycee Dugard bore Phillip Dugard would have been 5 and 1 years of age. But nothing seemed amiss to the parole officer and/or any of the medical professionals? Being locked away in a soundproofed building behind a fence nobody can see around or over may have had something to do with the no one noticing.

But in 2006, one neighbor, Damon Robinson, took it upon himself to call the police and complain that his psychotic sex addicted neighbor was keeping at least one family in a tent in his back yard. His girlfriend had seen two little girls in the back yard, so he told her to call the police. He knew that "Creepy Phil," as Phillip Garrido was known to the neighborhood children, was not supposed to be around children.

A Contra Costa County Sheriff's deputy showed up, spoke with Garrido in his front yard, explained to him about the local laws against housing people in tents on residential property, then left.

Other neighbors knew that Garrido had children living with him, had seen the little girls. They also knew he was a sex offender. Most thought that the police knew, were keeping a close watch on him.

Meanwhile, Jaycee Lee Dugard grew older. As did her children. She never again went to school. The two little blonde-haired girls did not attend school, either. And even though the neighbors knew they were there, no one thought to call social services or to wonder why the little girls weren't in school. Perhaps they were told the girls were home schooled...

But the years would pass, eighteen in all. The girls would grow, one into a teenager, the other nearly so.

And then earlier this week, Phillip Garrido would take the two children to the campus of the University of California -- Berkeley. A campus security officer would run a routine background check on the man with the two young girls passing out religious literature (who told the officer they had a 29-year-old sister at home and that they were home schooled). She would discover that Phillip Garrido was a registered sex offender, then notify Garrido's parole officer. Garrido was ordered to present himself at his parole office. Garrido showed up with his wife, two blonde-haired girls, and a woman he introduced as "Alissa."

But when Alissa started talking, she told the authorities there that she was Jaycee Lee Dugard and that Phillip Garrido and his wife had kidnapped her in 1991 at her bus stop.

Jaycee Lee Dugard's story is a horror story of missed opportunities. There is a large amount of time where nobody even knew there was a building or a woman or a child or two children were even on Phillip Garrido's property. But there were times when they did -- or at least they knew there were children on the property. And in those instances, either nothing was done or what was done proved inadequate to end the ordeal of Jaycee Lee Dugard and her two children.

"There was never any indication to my knowledge that there was any sign of children living there," Gordon Hinkle, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman stated.

But there were. There was plenty of "sign," especially as the young girls grew older and were seen with Phillip Garrido, sometimes in town of Antioch, where the Garridos lived.

Carl Probyn, who told ABC News that he had given up hope of ever seeing his stepdaughter again when he got the phone call that she had been found, said, "He had every break in the world."

Probyn's exasperation can be understood. They had found a car matching the description of the vehicle he had described in the Garridos driveway. He was further annoyed with the fact that Nancy Garrido was a match for the woman he had seen help in the abduction of his little girl.

Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf told reporters at a press conference: "We missed an opportunity to bring earlier closure to this situation. I cannot change the course of events but we are beating ourselves up over this and continue to do so.

"We should have been more inquisitive, more curious and turned over a rock or two."

A rock? Perhaps looked behind a fence or opened a door or two...

******

Sources:

Associated Press
ABC News