Jaycee Dugard, her two daughters and her mom had joyous reunion
Jaycee Dugard, her mom Terry and two daughters Jaycee bore with her captor had an emotional and joyous reunion, says an FBI agent who watched the moment a family came together after 18 years.
“So Terry, right now, is understandably just ecstatic,” said FBI agent Chris Campion of the Sacramento field office. Campion has been the officer on the file from the start of the investigation.
“When I called her she was beside herself with joy and I was present when she was reunited with Jaycee yesterday morning,” he told an interviewer for an FBI podcast. “ It was a very emotional scene—both of them were just overjoyed to be with each other again.”
“ 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,” said Campion in a podcast made availalbe on Friday.
He also said the FBI did not even remotely connect the two suspects in custody with the abduction. “These people did not come up on the radar screen at all.”
Campion also talked about the case and how it unfolded over the years and the moments when mom and daughter – and two new grandchildren were finally brought together.
Mr. Schiff: Hello I’m Neal Schiff and welcome to Inside the FBI, a weekly podcast about news, cases, and operations. The long ordeal is finally over and not only Jaycee Dugard and her family are relieved, but law enforcement personnel around the country as well. In 1991 Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped from her neighborhood in South Lake Tahoe, California. She was 11. She was not seen again until this week, 18 years later. FBI Special Agent Chris Campion of the Sacramento Field Office has been the case agent on the case from the beginning.
Mr. Campion: “From the very first call of the very first day, our agents were out there covering leads shoulder-to-shoulder with the sheriff’s department (El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department), from our (FBI) South Lake Tahoe RA (Resident Agency) first of all, and then also from our Sacramento Division and Reno offices pulling people in. So that within a couple of days, we had approximately 50 FBI folks working hand-in-hand with at least as many state and local partners during the initial response.”
Mr. Schiff: With the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office heading the search, no stones were left unturned and Campion was there.
Mr. Campion: “The lead agency is the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department and they did a fantastic job of responding to this. We also pulled in our local partners. In a small resident agency, we have very good local partner cooperation, so the South Lake Tahoe Police Department worked quite closely with us; the California Highway Patrol; the California Department of Parole and Probation. Basically everybody with a badge within 50 miles was somehow involved in this case in the first few weeks.”
Mr. Schiff: We asked Campion about the many people who worked on this case over 18 years.
Mr. Campion: “I would even not want to guess the number of man hours, man years, really, of effort that was put into this case. Everyone was so concerned because it was such a tragic and shocking case for this community and for the region, that we got tons of calls, and we really diligently followed every lead that we possibly could to its logical conclusion, including some leads that were very promising at the beginning, and led us into all sorts of different investigative techniques using Title III court-ordered wiretaps, using confidential informants who were making recordings in various situations. We had basically every single technique that the FBI uses was employed in this case.”
Mr. Schiff: We wondered if any leads over nearly two decades may have taken investigators close to Jaycee and her kidnappers.
Mr. Campion: “I wish I could say that there was, and we’ve gone through and checked our records and my memory is no, we didn’t have any thing that remotely was close to these people. We had the vehicle description and we have the vehicle that was used in this abduction—we’re very confident we have the actual vehicle. It looked like a lot of the vehicles that were stopped in the ensuing days, weeks, and years that we checked out countless leads of look-alike vehicles, look-alike subjects to the composite drawing of the female suspect based on our witness statement. We checked, literally thousands of those leads and these people just did not come up on the radar screen at all for whatever reason.”
Mr. Schiff: And now we come to this week. How did this come to a conclusion?
Mr. Campion: “Well, the bottom line is very good police work by a couple of key people. It’s my understanding at this point that an officer at the University of California Police Department for UC Berkeley had contact with Mr. Garrido and he raised her attention level, and he was with two younger girls. She determined that he was a sex offender, and that, gets that sixth sense that law enforcement people sometime have that something wasn’t right here, and she did the right thing. She called his parole officer, the parole officer did what he was supposed to do, got to the bottom of it, and the whole thing came out at that point. Since then, we’ve been working with El Dorado County , the FBI, a lot of different agencies; the Concord Police Department did a fantastic job when they got the initial information to try to make sure that this case is rock solid, getting all of the evidence collected, properly documented, and doing our investigation the last day and a half.”
Mr. Schiff: Campion has been in contact with Jaycee’s mother and Jaycee herself.
Mr. Campion: “I have been in contact with Jaycee’s mother, Terry. Over the years, on a regular basis, we call and check in—hopefully on an annual basis—I usually try to call on Jacyee’s birthday. So Terry, right now, is understandably just ecstatic. When I called her she was beside herself with joy and I was present when she was reunited with Jaycee yesterday morning. It was a very emotional scene—both of them were just overjoyed to be with each other again. 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.”
Mr. Schiff: One thing can be said: law enforcement everywhere doesn’t give up.
Mr. Campion:“Absolutely. We can tell you several thousands of people that didn’t kidnap Jaycee Lee Dugard. We were, I think, as diligent as we possibly could…a whole litany of investigators, from the original case agent Chick McDevitt—I worked closely with him, he was my partner in the RA—through the Sheriff’s Department Investigator Jim Watson who started out, and everybody who inherited the case afterward, right down the line, both with the FBI and the Sheriff’s Department, never lost faith and kept on working it.”
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This is such good news. I hope and pray that all that has emerged here will provide something that will act as a block remover in someone’s mind somewhere who has concerns about a situation but keeps thinking “Nah…he’s just a bit weird but harmless” Or ‘perhaps he’s writing a novel or inventing something in that den he has’ or some such rational explanation of a niggling suspicion. And that will lead to other victims being found – and I really think there are some.
Only thing that made me really sad in this article was where Mr Schiff said
” One thing can be said: law enforcement everywhere doesn’t give up’
Not everywhere unfortunately. They have in Portugal.
I do hope, however, that next time a call comes in that “a man is keeping a woman and children in tents in his backyard” that the responding officer actually investigates the backyard. That miss three years ago was shameful and heartbreaking.
First Austria, now here.
I’m sure I can’t imagine the ecstacy of Jaycee and her family and friends but as presumably unattached as the reader reading me here, as someone who has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, it does my heart good to see this kind of “successful” resolution. I say “successful” because I can only imagine the cost Jaycee and her family and friends have paid for 18 years and will continue to pay. And I say “successful” because it really is a miracle!
But the words I’ve read of,”tip our caps to the many hundreds and hundreds of police officers who worked overly hard in trying to find Jaycee Dugard and the kidnappers” concerns me.
Haven’t I read of authorities dropping the ball and having the wool pulled over their eyes? Haven’t I read of neighbours who had suspicions but couldn’t be bothered to bring them to anyones attention?
I’m not clear on whether the intutitive authority at the university campus was police or security but from the few minutes of CNN that I’ve watched today, I think she was female. First off, power to the chicks! Secondly, power to this particular chick whose name I’ll Google as soon as I’m finished here. Single-handedly or with a partner, one or two people did what “hundreds and hundreds of police officers who worked overly hard” couldn’t do. KUDOS TO THE OFFICER(S) – POLICE OR SECURITY. IT’S PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT HELP KEEP THE WORLD GOING ROUND.
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I think other investigating is still needed they may find bodies of male infants that this man had no use for, you can’t tell me she only had girls. Strange she only had what he wanted to abuse!
We don’t know if the children were abused but I am sure that someone will check the children out. Despite the kudos it is apparent the ball was dropped too many times by all concerned. They are now looking at surrounding properties and I am sure Jaycee will recollect better once she is in therapy.
I would have to agree with Christine’s comment .. I imagine that over the 18 years he fathered more than just these two female children. My question is how the heck someone on parole, who has a parole officer, can get away with this? That parole officer ..should he not have been checking up on his parolee’s residence???
Why has she never tried to run away from Garrido? As far as I understood she was not held in captivity with her limbs tied. What did he do to her that she never escaped?
The parole officer needs to be investigated. It is almost impossible to miss children living in the backyard,house or the kids stuff etc. The parole officer should be fired and he needs to buy a dictionary and go home and study the meaning of “backyard”, it does not mean front porch. Jaycee, great name choice for your daughter, someday you will see that your little angel looked straight into the security officers soul and gave the message that saved you all without saying a word. Terry and Carl, may God bless you and Jaycee,Angel and starlet. As he reunited you all he will also heal you and bless you abundance that you all will pass on to others in this situation. Readers, please know that there are more jaycee’s out there we all need to do our part, go extra mile and bring them to their loved ones.
Gerda, Unless you have been abused, held against your will, isolated and alienated from others, subjected to mind and physical control, threats, fear, or aware of Stockholm Syndrome and perhaps post traumatic stress disorder, perhaps you will never understand why she or they didn’t try to escape. It isn’t that simple. She was so young when traumatized and one thing, one year led to another and she just blurred on through from day to day.
I am assuming Jaycee gave birth in a hospital (twice) Why didn’t anyone notice anythng then. Who paid the bills??
Yes, Andy, I saw you point, but I think what he told her? how it was sound?That freack, how did he do it. To understand means to help abused people to recover or to escape earlier than the damage would be done. Stockholm Syndrome- I love this, the words that say a lot and mean nothing.
-You know? -people told me, – it was a Stockholm Syndrome. Yes, I know more than someone could imagine. But how it goes, I have not still been able to get. And I wonder about his wife, if she was the same moral freack as him. A lot of freacks were there!! Poor girles!