Jaycee Dugard Condemns Kidnappers, Recalls Twisted Life with Captors
Jaycee Dugard chose not to be present on Thursday when her kidnappers, including the man who raped and fathered two children with her when she was just a teenager, were sentenced.
However Dugard, now 30, called on her mother to read a statement, expressing anger at years of abuse, calling out Philip Garrido and his wife Nancy Garrido for lies and ultimately stating she is doing well and that neither of them matter anymore.
Phillip Garrido, 60, was sentenced in a California federal court to 431 years in prison to life in prison and Nancy Garrido, 55, was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison.
I chose not to be here today because I refuse to waste another second of my life in your presence, she wrote in what is known as a victim impact statement.
Calling Philip Garrido a liar, she told him all his so-called theories were wrong.
Phillip Garrido claimed in a blog he had special powers given to him by God, such as the ability to control sound with his mind and that he had created a device that allowed others to see what he was capable of.
Dugard also said Nancy Garrido, who was in the passenger seat and snatched Dugard as she was approaching a bus stop in 1991 always justified everything to suit yourself. Dugard was 11 years old when she was kidnapped.
Both Philip and Nancy Garrido worked to keep the truth of the kidnapping from being known to the children Dugard had with Philip. Dugard had complied with their request to tell the two girls, conceived when she was 13 and 16, that Dugard was their sister.
When she was finally reunited with her family after 18 years, her stepfather said in an interview that Dugard revealed she felt really guilty for bonding with Garrido.
In her statement on Thursday, Dugard said Nancy had aided Phillip in that.
[T]he reality is and always has been that to make someone else suffer for your inability to control yourself and for you, Nancy, to facilitate his behavior and trick young girls for his pleasure is evil, Dugard said.
Nancy met Phillip while he was serving time in a federal penitentiary in 1976, according to Nevada officials. She communicated with Philip through letters and married in a ceremony behind prison walls, Phillip Garrido's brother claimed at the time when Dugard was released.
Nancy was like a robot, he told the San Francisco Chronicle at the time.
One local said they saw Garrido and Dugard shopping together at a supermarket the year the kidnapping was eventually uncovered. In 1993, Phillip Garrido violated his parole and was sent back to prison for several months.
When Philip returned from prison, Dugard was still under his watch.
The judge in the case on Thursday released Dugard's grand jury testimony which led to indictments and the trial. Thirty-four pages were were redacted because they included Dugard's specific descriptions detailing repeated sexual assaults in the first years of her captivity, ultimately ending after she had her second child.
There is no God in the universe that would condone your actions, Dugard told Nancy in the statement.
Nancy Garrido pleaded guilty to kidnapping and forcible rape.
A lawyer for Nancy Garrido read a statement in court from his client stating that she believed being sorry is not enough and that she loved Dugard and her children.
I deserve every moment of the sentence, she said. Nancy Garrido was sentenced to 36 years to life. Her husband Phillip was sentenced for 431 years to life.
Dugard had harsh words for Phillip.
To you, I say that I have always been a thing for your own amusement. I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you and the sexual perversion you forced on me, Dugard said.
Both of you can save your apologies and empty words. For all the crimes you have both committed I hope you have as many sleepless nights as I did.
Dugard did not initially admit that she had been kidnapped. She told parole officers for Phillip Garrido that her name was Alyssa and that the two girls accompanying him were her sisters. The girls also knew Dugard as her older sister.
In her statement on Teusday, however Dugard was unequivocal in the condemnation of both Phillip.
To you, Phillip, I sawy that I have always been a thing for your own amusement. I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you and the sexual perversion you forced on me, she wrote. To you, Nancy, I have nothing to day.
Dugard concluded her statement by expressing a mix of anger with Phillip and Nancy Garrido for the past as well as comfort in the family which she now has again.
Dugard is currently living at an undisclosed location and plans to publish a memoir about her life in July. She reached a settlement with the State of California that authorities failed to properly monitor Garrido.
Yes, as I think of all of those years, I am angry because you stole my life and that of my family. Thankfully I am doing well now and no longer live in a nightmare. I have wonderful friends and family around me. Something you can never take from me again. You do not matter anymore.
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