After 18 Years, Kidnapping Victim Found Alive

Jaycee Dugard, 29, was snatched into a car near her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991, when she was 11 years old. Authorities say she spent the next 18 years as a prisoner in her captors' secret backyard compound.

"You could walk through the backyard, walk through the house, and never know that there was another set of living circumstances in that backyard," says El Dorado County Undersherrif Fred Kollar.

Registered sex offender Phillip Garrido spent time in federal prison for rape and kidnapping. But no one knew he and his wife Nancy kept Jaycee and two other young girls locked up.

Kollar says the 11-year-old and 15-year-old girls are Jaycee's daughters, and Garrido is their father.

"None of the children had ever gone to school," Kollar says. "They'd never been to a doctor. They were kept in complete isolation."

Garrido took the two youngest girls out on Tuesday. A police officer thought they were acting suspiciously, confronted Garrido, then told his parole agent.

When Garrido visited the agent a day later, he brought the two girls and another woman, who turned out to be Jaycee Dugard.

"She was in good health," Kollar says. "Living in a backyard for 18 years does take its toll."

Dugard has been reunited with her mother.

As for the Garridos, they're both in custody waiting to be arraigned.

From jail, Phillip Garrido told Sacramento's KCRA-TV to wait until the full story comes out, adding, "You are going to be completely impressed."

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