Jaycee Dugard: Long Road Back After Kidnapping

ABC News ^ | 9/1/09 | MARIECAR FRIAS, MAUREEN WHITE and KATIE ESCHERICH

[nickcarraway]

Experts, Families of Past Victims Stress Need for Therapy, Unconditional Love and Support

Jaycee Dugard is back with her family 18 years after being kidnapped by Phillip Garrido at the age of 11. Now Dugard and her two daughters face a long road ahead as they try to adapt to a normal life.

As we begin to learn more about the way Jaycee Dugard and her children lived -- in a series of ramshackle tents and sheds amid squalor -- one can only imagine how Dugard will be able to re-integrate back into society.

"It's been suggested that there's been signs of Stockholm Syndrome, that she may be feeling loyalty, perhaps even guilt and that makes it all the more difficult. It also means it's going to require very serious therapy [and] intervention," said psychologist John Lutzker, Ph.D., director for the Center for Healthy Development at Georgia State University. "In addition to therapy, simply spending a lot of time with her family would be useful to help this process move along."

Ernie Allen, the president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said on "Good Morning America" today that it isn't surprising that Dugard was reportedly working for Garrido and had access to a computer and telephone during her captivity.

"I think if ever there's an example [of Stockholm Syndrome]&this is it," said Allen, whose organization helped find a psychologist to work with Dugard and her family. "This child was abducted when she was 11. She was terrorized, she was abused. The mind can only take so much anger, rage and fear, and small kindnesses cause these victims to identify with their captors."

[freespirited]

It’s beyond me why these kidnapper/rapists should be breathing and existing on the taxpayer’s dime.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

This is an overwhelming situation for the family to cope with. I wonder if anyone taught the little girls to read.

[B-Chan]

Cops Apologize for Muffing Chance to Rescue Jaycee Dugard in 2006

As Jaycee Dugard gets to know her family again after 18 years in depraved captivity, a California sheriff admitted today that his officers booted a chance to rescue Jaycee nearly three years ago.

"We missed an opportunity to bring earlier closure to this situation," Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf said in a news conference today.

"I am first in line .... to offer my apologies to the victims and accept responsibility for missing an opportunity to rescue Jaycee," he said.

Rupf said that a woman called 911 on Nov. 30, 2006 complained that people, including children, appeared to be living in tents in the backyard of Phillip and Nancy Garrido's house in the town of Antioch, Calif. "The caller also said Garrido was psychotic and had a sexual addiction," he said.

By the time of that call, Jaycee had been Garrido's backyard prisoner for more than 15 years and bore two children fathered by him.

The sheriff said an officer sent to check out the 911 complaint met with Garrido in his front yard, determined nothing criminal was going on, and left.

"He did not enter or request to enter the backyard," Rupf said. "This is not an acceptable outcome. Organizationally, we should have been more inquisitive, more curious and turned over a rock or two."

The sheriff also said the officer was not aware that Garrido had previously been convicted of kidnap and rape and was a registered sex offender.

"I cannot change the course of events," a contrite Rupf said. "But we are beating ourselves up over this and will continue to do so. I am first in line to offer organizational criticism, and to offer my apologies to the victims, and accept responsibility for missing an opportunity to rescue Jaycee."

The sheriff's statement came as questions were being raised over how Jaycee's ordeal went undetected so long despite at least two visits to the house of horror by law enforcement authorities in recent years.

News flash to the Sheriff: When one accepts responsibility for a wrongdoing, that means one must pay a personal price for their error. So, is the sheriff going to resign? No? Is the sherriff giving up some money to the victims for, you know, not doing his job? Four or five years' salary should be sufficient. No? Then how about hara-kiri?

"Responsibility' without consequences is just another load of bullshit -- of which, as a Law Enforcement Officer, the sheriff has plenty.

Law Enforcement as it exists today in the U.S. is useless. Why are we paying these losers to tase old ladies and write tickets? The entire "justice system" should be destroyed and rebuilt on a community basis as soon as possible.

PROTIP: If your child is abducted, folks, call a private detective, not the cops.