Dugard formed bond with captor
2009-08-31 20:33
San Francisco - Jaycee Lee Dugard formed a close bond with her kidnapper during her 18-year captivity, helping the rapist run a thriving business while giving no clue to her ordeal, it was reported on Monday.
As police continued to scour the California home of Phillip Garrido, who is accused of abducting Dugard in 1991 and holding her captive for nearly two decades, more details of the prisoner's life began to emerge.
The San Francisco Chronicle quoted customers of Garrido's specialty printing business as saying that they had believed Dugard, known to them as "Allissa," was the 58-year-old sex offender's daughter.
Dugard, now 29, was described as a courteous and professional young woman who dealt with clients in telephone calls and e-mails while helping them place orders for business cards, flyers and posters, the Chronicle reported.
"(Garrido) told us up front he works with his daughter. He said "Allissa" did all of the graphic design and he did all of the printing," said JP Miller, who hired Garrido this month to help advertise his haulage company.
Miller told the paper he saw nothing to suggest that "Allissa" was in fact the 11-year-old schoolgirl who had been snatched from a street near her South Lake Tahoe home and who was later forced to bear two children to Garrido.
Another customer of Garrido who dealt with Dugard said he saw nothing out of the ordinary in the young woman.
"She was very professional, very polite, just like any other secretary or anyone you'd meet at a place of business," said Ben Daughdrill.
"If I was requesting something, he'd say he'd have his daughter send it over. He'd say, 'I'll get Allissa right on that.' "
Daughters
Experts say Dugard was likely to have suffered from Stockholm syndrome, a condition in which hostages become sympathetic to their captors and say it is likely the woman will need years of treatment as she rebuilds her life.
Dugard's stepfather Carl Probyn said on Monday that Jaycee was slowly coming to terms with her ordeal after being reunited with her mother and her half-sister.
"It's a minute by minute thing," Probyn told ABC television. "It's going to take years."
The FBI Special Agent heading the investigation, meanwhile, described an "emotional scene" when Dugard was reunited with her mother last week.
"Both of them were just overjoyed to be with each other again," agent Chris Campion said in an FBI podcast.
"There's going to be a period of adjustment, no doubt, but they're doing very well at this point. And the two daughters are probably as happy as Jaycee is to be part of this family as well."
Garrido and his wife Nancy, 54, were arrested last week and charged with 29 felony counts including rape, kidnapping and false imprisonment of Dugard.
Dugard was confined in a makeshift prison of sheds and tents in what police have described as a "backyard within a backyard" at Garrido's home in Antioch, about 80km east of San Francisco.
Photographs of the secret compound appeared in British newspapers over the weekend showing a squalid network of living quarters strewn with junk.
Meanwhile, scores of police, helped by cadaver-sniffing dogs, combed Garrido's backyard and a neighbour's property on Sunday.