A Heart Warming Story

[Square Ball]

His words, not mine...

how can he think its heart warming FFS.

US kidnap survivor 'doing great' 
 


Suspect's rambling account
Garrido's 'forensic awareness' 
A woman freed in California 18 years after being kidnapped at the age of 11 is said to have had a happy reunion with her mother.

Jaycee Lee Dugard had been living in her alleged kidnapper's home in a suburb of San Francisco after her abduction 200 miles (322km) away.

She and the two children he allegedly fathered with her are "doing great", stepfather Carl Probyn said.

Mr Probyn said his ex-wife had been struck by how young Jaycee looked.



Jaycee's stepfather gives details to ABC's Good Morning America
He and Jaycee's mother divorced after the abduction and he told US media how he had endured years of "hell", under suspicion of having played a part in his stepdaughter's kidnapping.

Jaycee Dugard was forced into a car on her way to school in front of his eyes. He had tried in vain to give chase on a bicycle.

Ms Dugard's alleged abductor and his wife have both been arrested as police search their home in Antioch.

Phillip Garrido, 58, is being held on suspicion of various kidnapping and sex charges. He is already a convicted rapist and kidnapper.

His wife Nancy, 54, was allegedly with him during the kidnapping in South Lake Tahoe, a town in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains.

'Guilt over bonding'

Ms Dugard has retained custody of her children and is staying at a motel in the San Francisco region, according to the US authorities.


She, her two daughters, her sister, her mother and another relative were at the reunion on Thursday, Mr Probyn said.

"I think they're pretty happy," he added.

In interviews on NBC, ABC and CBS on Friday morning, Mr Probyn said the most surprising thing to his wife had been that Jaycee still looked very young.

"She looks very young, she looks very healthy," Mr Probyn said. "She told me that Jaycee feels really guilty for bonding with this guy. She has a real guilt trip."

He said he was struggling to understand why his stepdaughter had not come forward earlier.

"I don't know if she was brainwashed, I don't know if she was walking around on the street, I don't know if she was locked up under key for 18 years, I have no idea," he said.


OTHER SOLVED ABDUCTIONS
Elisabeth Fritzl (Austria): Held 1984, aged 18; found 2008
Shawn Hornbeck (US): Abducted 2002, aged 11; found 2007
Natascha Kampusch (Austria): Abducted 1998, aged 10; escaped 2006
Elizabeth Smart (US): Abducted 2002, aged 14; found 2003
Steven Staynor (US): Abducted 1972, aged 14; escaped 1980


Timeline: Jaycee Lee Dugard case 
DNA tests are being taken to confirm Ms Dugard's identity as the police investigation progresses.

Police have removed a car from the suspects' home in Antioch.

They said they had found a vehicle which matched a description of the car originally described at the time of the abduction.

'A disgusting thing'

Fred Kollar, undersheriff in El Dorado County where South Lake Tahoe is located, this week described finding a makeshift compound in the backyard consisting of sheds, tents and outbuildings.



Phillip Garrido allegedly fathered two children with Ms Dugard, police say
The true identity of the backyard's inhabitants only emerged after Mr Garrido was called in along with his "family" for a parole office hearing on Wednesday.

Suspicions had been aroused when Mr Garrido, who has a printing business, was seen acting suspiciously towards the children as he tried to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature.

Diane Doty, a neighbour, has said she often heard children playing in the backyard.

"I asked my husband, 'Why is he [Garrido] living in tents?'" she said on Thursday.

"And he said, 'Maybe that is how they like to live.'"

The alleged abductor has himself told a US TV channel that his story was "heart-warming".

"It's a disgusting thing that took place with me at the beginning, but I turned my life completely around," Mr Garrido told KCRA television from El Dorado County jail.

Court records show that Mr Garrido was convicted of kidnapping and raping a 25-year-old woman in South Lake Tahoe in 1976.

[deiseach]

To be honest, this story freaks me out. How many other people are living in cellars the world over? The families of every person who has ever gone missing are going to be getting their hopes up, then feeling bad for 'hoping' that their loved one is in such a situation. Horrific beyond belief

[pintsofguinness]

To be honest, this story freaks me out. How many other people are living in cellars the world over? The families of every person who has ever gone missing are going to be getting their hopes up, then feeling bad for 'hoping' that their loved one is in such a situation. Horrific beyond belief

I think if I had someone belonging to me missing I'd rather think they had passed away than to be living in those conditions.