Jaycee Lee Dugard's prison: First pictures of filthy backyard jail where religious fanatic held kidnapped girl

The Mail, UK/August 30, 2009

These extraordinary pictures are the first glimpse inside the squalid back garden compound where Jaycee Lee Dugard was kept captive for 18 years.

A hand-painted 'Welcome' sign leads the way to a rundown world of tattered tents and outbuildings amid overgrown trees and bushes.

Police are now investigating evidence that Jaycee was 'brainwashed' by the religious fanatic who snatched her when she was 11.

The first words Jaycee said to her mother when the pair were tearfully reunited were: 'Hi Mom, I have babies,' it has emerged.

The 29-year-old's stepfather also claims that she had developed a powerful emotional bond with her abductor, Phillip Garrido. Carl Probyn said: 'Jaycee has strong feelings with this guy. She feels it's almost like a marriage.'

Experts have pointed out that although the makeshift compound where Jaycee and the two daughters allegedly fathered by Garrido lived included an 8ft by 4ft steel cage, it appeared unused. And Jaycee and the girls, aged 15 and 11, were allowed to play in the garden, in view of neighbours.

Her captor claimed to be a minister of a 'church' he called God's Desire and indoctrinated her with self-published religious tracts.

Jaycee never appealed for help, despite his repeated assaults. She is still undergoing extensive medical and psychological tests at a secret location in Northern California, where she is staying with her mother, Terry, and a half-sister under FBI protection.

One of America's leading hostage experts, retired FBI agent Clint Van Zandt, said: 'The relationship that can develop between hostages and kidnap victims and their captors is now known as "the Stockholm Syndrome", a type of emotional bonding that is in reality a survival strategy for victims of emotional and physical abuse.'

A source close to the case said: 'The initial findings are that physically she is remarkably healthy but that some type of brainwashing clearly occurred.

'There were moments in the 18 years when she could have called attention to who she was.

'She hadn't forgotten her real identity. In fact, she remembers a remarkable amount about her old life. But from what we know so far about Mr Garrido, it seems he played mind games with her.

'It sounds simplistic, but the real prison was her brain.'

Jaycee may also have been forced to take part in orgies in the backyard where she was held, the News of the World reports.

A neighbour said he saw men lining up in Garrido's garden, before entering the tents 'one by one'.

Mike Rogers, 49, told the newspaper that he once peered through the garden fence during an 'excessively loud' party next door.

'What I saw was not normal,' he said. 'Eight to 10 men, mostly Mexican, would gather in a line in his garden drinking beer, yelling and screaming and swearing.

'They normally had a bonfire and I saw them entering the tent one by one. On a number of occasions I saw them bobbing up and down through the window and I thought, 'My God, there is something sexual going on in there'.

'I thought they had a prostitute or something in there. I thought it might have been some kind of sex party or something.

'I just hope that sicko wasn't pimping out Jaycee or those children. The thought makes me sick.'

But, despite being disturbed by what he had seen, Mr Rogers said he didn't think he had enough evidence to call police.

'I'd told my brother about the parties and he agreed that unless they got really out of control I should keep out of it,' he said.

Jaycee's stepfather Mr Probyn, who is being briefed regularly on the case, has disclosed that she is racked by 'guilt' because she 'bonded' with Garrido.

Her formal education ceased when Garrido allegedly snatched her in 1991 and Mr Probyn said he has been informed that her 'emotional age' is still that of an 11-year-old.

'She didn't try to get away,' he told The Mail on Sunday. 'It probably kept her alive. If she had been really spunky and fought and tried to escape, maybe she would have been killed.'

Meanwhile Garrido's first victim, Katherine Callaway of Las Vegas, Nevada, who was kidnapped, raped repeatedly and held as a sex slave by Garrido in 1976, said: 'He's a monster.'

Callaway was a 25-year-old casino worker when Garrido hitched a ride in her car. He made her drive to a warehouse in Reno that had been prepared as a 'sex palace.'

Police now believe Katherine's abduction was, essentially, a 'trial run' for the kidnapping of Jaycee in South Lake Tahoe, California, years later.

Just as he built a labyrinthine backyard prison for Jaycee, Garrido created a makeshift cell for Katherine in the warehouse. It contained a movie projector, sex toys, a spotlight, wine and pornographic magazines.

At his trial, there was testimony that he used handcuffs to restrain her and that he used LSD, cocaine and cannabis.

Retired Reno police detective Dan DeMaranville, who worked on the case, said: 'I asked him after he confessed why he did it and he said it was the only way he could get sexual satisfaction.'

However, investigators have found no evidence that Jaycee - who was less than half Callway's age - was physically restrained.

A few years after Jaycee was kidnapped, her desperate grandmother visited a psychic. 'I wanted to find out if she was still alive,' said Wilma Probyn, 83.

'I didn't want to give up hope, but it was agonising to keep holding on. We had pretty much given up hope. The psychic said that Jaycee was alive, in Northern California with a couple, living happily and being looked after and going to school.

'It turns out she was alive but not happy. She didn't go to school and wasn't allowed to see a doctor.

'She was kept caged in an old shed for 18 years without contact with anybody, raped, and she's got two children by that creep, a sexual predator.

'We've always been hoping for the day when she'd be found but when I found out how she'd lived for the last 18 years, I wasn't happy. It's a shock.

'I'm delighted to have Jaycee back, but I'm saddened by how she was treated, living in squalor like that.

'Jaycee's 29 now but she's been cut off from the world since she was 11. We don't know if she'll ever be able to recover from this.'

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