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On June 10, 1991, then eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped as she waited for the arrival of her school bus, this a mere 150 yards from her home. She was rescued this week due, in part, to a sharp-eyed University of California (Berkley) Police Officer who went the extra mile in an otherwise routine interview. Dugard was allegedly abducted by convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy, who pulled Dugard into their car that sunny June day and kept their victim, and the eventual two children fathered by Garrido with young Dugard, in a secret garden prison consisting of tents, sheds and other outbuildings in the rear yard of the Garrido residence.
In this case Garrido and his two offspring by Dugard, girls ages 11 and 15 named Angel and Starlite, were trying get permission to hold a meeting and pass out Garrido's religious pamphlets on the college campus. A university police officer who sat in on a meeting with Garrido attempted to speak to the two children, but they conspicuously avoided eye contact with officer. "They had this weird look in their eyes," said the female officer, "like brainwashed zombies." Her suspicions now aroused, a records check on Garrido quickly revealed he was one of 675,000 registered sex offenders in America, noting there are only 685,000 total local, county and state police officers in the U.S. Garrido is alleged to have drugged and raped a 14-year-old girl in 1972 when he was 21 (he was arrested but the victim refused to testify so he was set free) and he kidnapped and raped a woman in 1976. At that time he boldly indicating to investigators at that time his preference for "violent sex." He had assaulted this woman in a building he said he had set up as his "sex palace," this while blaming his 25-year-old victim for his attack on her because she was "just too attractive." Garrido served 11 years of a 50-year sentence for his crime and was released on lifetime parole. It was less than three years after his release, and while wearing a GPS ankle bracelet he continued to wear until his recent arrest, that he kidnapped Dugard.
A call by the police officer to Garrido's parole officer revealed he had no known children and the next day he and his "extended family" were interviewed by authorities. This is where the true identity of Dugard and her two daughters was finally determined. Almost two decades later Dugard was finally placed in touch with her biological mother and step father, two people who never lost hope in her eventual return. But why, some have begun to ask, didn't Dugard try to escape and thereby rescue herself from her captors? As we will find out, it was the system that failed Dugard and not her inability to shake the heavy emotional chains that held her in this man made hell in which she was the ultimate victim, one so intimidating that she never told her children that she had been a victim of her captors since age eleven.
Elizabeth Smart was held nine months by her captive before being identified and even then she was initially reluctant to admit her true identity. Elisabeth Fritzl was held in an underground bunker by her biological father, giving birth to seven children by him before she was finally rescued, this after 24 years of captivity, and Shawn Hornbeck was just eleven when kidnapped in 2002. Hornbeck was rescued four years later when his abductor was identified after kidnapping yet another young boy. Shawn had lived in relative safety and security with his captor, apparently never trying to escape the emotional bonds that held him to his kidnapper. In fact, there are 115 stranger abduction, stereotypical child kidnappings every year in the U.S. But why, we still hear, didn't Shawn Hornbeck, or Patricia Hearst, or Jaycee Dugard or other similar kidnap victims attempt to escape their captors? This is even more shocking in Dugard's case when we hear that Garrido was inprisoned for a parole violation from April - August 1993, this some two years after kidnapping Dugan. Authorities have yet to reveal if Dugard was even aware that the monster holding her was missing during this time, someone for whom, her stepfather says, "she had developed strong feelings for, almost like a marriage."
The Stockholm Syndrome
In August 1973, a heavily-armed robber by the name of Olafson swaggered into a busy bank in downtown Stockholm, Sweden. Firing shots as he entered, he took three women and a man hostage, strapped dynamite to their bodies, and herded them into a subterranean bank vault where he refused police demands for his surrender and the release of his hostages for the next six days.
After the eventual arrest of the robbers (a friend of the bank robber who was in prison at the time had been brought mid-standoff to the bank at the demand of Olafson) and the rescue of the four victims, the continued friendly and caring attitude on the part of some of the hostages toward their captors was viewed with suspicion. This was especially so when the police considered that the captives were abused, threatened, and had allegedly feared for their lives during the week they had been held against their will. Authorities were even more amazed when they found out that one or more of the female hostages may have had consensual physical intimacy with their captors.
The relationship between the robbers and their former captives thereafter saw former hostage Kristin break off her engagement to another man in order to become engaged to Olafson; while another former hostage started a defense fund to pay for the robbers' legal defense.
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— including not only hostages, but also battered spouses and partners, abused children, and even POWs.
The bond that exists between the captor/abuser and his or her victim is strong and can compel the victim to stay with (or otherwise support the actions of the abuser) when the need to run is blatantly obvious to everyone but the victim. The investment that one has made in the relationship directly impacts the ability to recognize the negative or threatening aspects of the association. This also affects the ability to either correct or flee.
A kidnap victim is told that if she tries to escape, she'll be killed. Wolfgang Priklopil, the Austrian kidnapper of then 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch, told his victim that he slept with grenades under his pillow and that the house in which she was held was wired with explosives, suggesting she would die if she tried to escape. Eight years later Kampusch finally jumped from a car in which she was traveling with her kidnapper and escaped. He later committed suicide by jumping in front of a train after which Kampusch blamed herself and the police for her captors death. Other victims are told that their family members and even their pets will be killed if they try to escape or that their "former" family had secretly arranged for their kidnapping or had otherwise moved on without a care in the world for the victim. For many kidnap victims, the need to survive may eventually develop into some type of dependency bond with their captor and their learned helplessness may eventually evolve into a type of misplaced love that could somehow be reciprocated by the kidnapper.
The bottom line is that staying alive can allow us to adopt to the worst of situations, something, perhaps, similar to abused children or women who are victims of domestic violence but do not try to leave or "escape" their abuser. The challenge for victims such as Jaycee Lee Dugard is to understand they did what they had to do to survive and that they have nothing to be ashamed of. This will take time and care and while some wounds never heal, time can help. In the case of Jaycee and her two daughters, none of whom attended school or saw a doctor or dentist or had any friends during their captivity, life and their position in the world outside of the backyard tents and sheds they lived in for most or all of their lives, this behind an eight foot wooded privacy fence, will be a lengthy learning experience that will take years for them to process. And for the two monsters that are responsible for this travesty; their day in court will eventually come. The challenge, though, is just like the kidnappers of Elizabeth Smart, the Garrido's may never be trialed for their crimes due to some type of mental illness defense (in the case of Phillip - psychotic, hears voices in his head, delusional) that their legal representatives are sure to put forth.
As for me, this is just one more reason for a one-strike law for sexual predators that would prevent known violent sexual predators like Garrido from reoffending in such terrible ways. In the meantime, investigators continue to look into Garrido's background knowing there is a distinct likelihood that other victims have yet to be identified, to include at least 10 girls and women who were believed to have been victims of a serial killer operating in this area in 1998-1999.
UPDATE: Authorities have indicated that the bone fragment found in a neighborhood yard that Phillip Garrido had access to is human. While he remains a viable suspect in the disappearance and death of a number of local prostitutes and in the disappearance of at least two local girls, the small bone, in and of itself, does not make Garrido a killer. The residential area where Garrido, his wife, Jaycee Dugard and her two children once lived was thought be in proximity to a native American burial ground. DNA tests will be conducted on the bone in an attempt to determine the racial makeup of the deceased and, if possible, an approximate age for the bone.
Meanwhile about 20 songs written and recorded by Phillip Garrido on CDs have surfaced in possession of a man Garrido gave them to about three years ago. Garrido had indicated that the songs were written by him when he was serving time for a 1976 kidnap/rape. Some who have heard the songs have indicated their belief that many refer to children in a provocative, sexual manner.
To obtain a copy of our free DVD, "Protecting Children from Predators, please see www.Live Secure.org for quality proven personal and family safety related items that could help to save a life,
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