(via Bound, Not Gagged)
This story is beyond sickening. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a man named Phillip Garrido and his wife pleaded not guilty to abducting Jaycee Lee Dugard 18 years ago, who they had allegedly kept imprisoned on their property since then. During this time, Dugard had two children, allegedly fathered by Garrido. Apparently authorties were notified recently after Garrido brought these two girls to the UC Berkley campus to discuss “holding an event related to God, the FBI and other topics.” Campus police were sketched out by Garrido and the “robotic” behavior of his daughters. Officer Ally Jacobs did a background check and discovered that he had been convicted of rape and kidnapping in the 1970s. She called his parole officer, who further freaked her out by revealing that Garrido supposedly had no children. A parole officer (presumably the same one Jacobs contacted, though the article is unclear,) visited the Garrido house and interviewed the family, including Dugard, who revealed that she was the 11 year old girl who had disappeared 18 years ago, and presumably was like “get me and my kids the fuck out of here right now.”
Supposedly here reunion with her parents has gone “well.” I can’t even imagine. At least she and her daughters are out of there and Garrido and his wife are in custody and being charged with a lot of things.
Police are now searching his house for evidence that links him to the unsolved murders of 10 prostitutes during the 1990s. Garrido worked in an area where some of the women were found.
The horror here is beyond words, and I hope that Dugard and her daughters will receive the help they need to heal and move forward. I would also like to echo a commenter on the Bound, Not Gagged post who argued that this guy would probably not have been able to get away with all this for so long if prostitution was not criminalized. Criminalization kills sex workers. I am tired of anyone arguing otherwise in the name of paternalistically “helping” the very population their prefered policies endanger and drive underground.