New York - According to a Thursday press conference by California law enforcement officials, Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped at the age of 11 in 1991, has been kept in a rudimentary shed in the backyard of her captors for the last 18 years and forced to bear two children at the hands of Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender on lifetime federal parole.
Photos: Jaycee Lee Durgard Found Alive
According to El Dorado County Under Sherriff Fred Kollar, Nancy Garrido was with her husband, Philip Garrido, 58, when he kidnapped Dugard while the girl was waiting for a school bus in 1991.
Since then the girl has been forced to live in a "backyard within a backyard" that was accessible only through a series of tarps and sheds, which were erected to make Dugard and her children both unseen and unheard, said Kollar.
None of the structures were visible from neighbors’ houses, which were not more than a few feet away.
"All of the sheds had electricity by cords, rudimentary outhouse and shower, as if you were camping," he Kollar said.
Dugard never attempted to contact police or her own family throughout her nearly two-decade ordeal, said Kollar. She bore two daughters to Garrido, who are now ages 11 and 15. None of the children have ever been to school or a doctor, he added.
Since Dugard is now 29 years old, she apparently had her first child at 14 years of age.
According to Kollar's timeline, Garrido came to the attention of police on August 25 when he and the two girls were handing out flyers on the campus of U.C. Berkeley, advertising a religious speaking event. A campus officer felt Garrido's interaction with the two girls was suspicious. When she found out he was advertising an event, she ran a background check on him, which is common practice on the campus.
The background check turned up Phillip Garrido's past offenses: a rape and kidnapping conviction from 1971. He was on federal parole.
On August 26, Phillip Garrido brought his wife Nancy, as well as Jaycee, who he had been calling Alissa, and the two children to a visit with his Concord parole officer.
After interviewing Phillip and Nancy Garrido and finding that the couple "had information only the kidnappers could have known," they were arrested, Kollar said.
Police are now looking into whether or not Phillip Garrido's two young children have been molested.
Jaycee and her family are in the process of being reunited, Kollar said.
District Attorney Vern Pierson said at the press conference that a criminal complaint will be filed by noon on Friday and Phillip Garrido will be arraigned the same day.
