On her first trip to New York City, Jaycee Dugard attended a star-studded awards ceremony, took in a Broadway play and was awed by the city's skyscrapers. But for her, the most memorable part of the trip was going for pizza.
"Just walking down the street. With everybody. It was my favorite moment," Dugard told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview.
Jaycee Dugard revels in saying her name, a name she wasn't allowed to utter or even write for 18 years while she was held captive by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. Dugard chose to tell her story in a new memoir and in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer because she wants to live free of Phillip Garrido's secrets.
Jaycee Dugard has powerful memories from the last 20 years, 18 of them spent as a prisoner of kidnappers Phillip and Nancy Garrido. Yet, some of the most overwhelming memories come from her first two years of freedom which she and her children have spent reunited with her mother.
Authorities visited the home of Phillip Garrido at least 60 times and still somehow missed the hidden compound housing Jaycee Dugard and her two daughters. There were even reports that neighbors and residents alerted authorities to sightings of Dugard and the fact that children were living in tents in the convicted sex offender's backyard. Experts say there are several things you can look for to help a missing or exploited child.
Jaycee Dugard has formed the JAYC Foundation to help families of abduction. Dugard, kidnapped at 11 and held captive for 18 years, has spent her first two years of freedom healing with her family. She now wants to help other families do the same.
The Jaycee Dugard case is a story of more than two decades of failures by three separate governmental entities that were supposed to supervise Phillip Garrido, the registered sex offender who would hold Dugard captive for 18 years. Here are some of their most glaring alleged mistakes.
They are words of courtesy and encouragement that have come back to haunt Mark Messner: "I hope that you will continue to do well. If there is anything we can help you with in the future, do not hesitate to contact our office." Messner, a senior U.S. probation office who works for the California's nothern district probation office, included those sentences in a May 17, 1999 letter to Phillip Garrido, the man later convicted of kidnapping, raping and holding Jaycee Dugard captive for 18 years.
Jaycee Dugard describes giving birth and mothering her daughters in Phillip Garrido's backyard prison. In an exclusive interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, Dugard and her mother, Terry Probyn, recount the hope they held of being reunited with one another after Dugard was kidnapped by Phillip and Nancy Garrido in 1991 and held captive for 18 years.
Marcus Wesson indoctrinated his family of 20 into believing that he was God. In his crazed brand of religion, incessant beatings, molestations, incest and even suicide were good because their father said so.
For about 60 high-achieving professionals, gathered from around the country in Sedona, AZ, last fall, it was to be a 5-day retreat, called the "Spiritual Warrior," the culmination of their guru's teachings, to be capped by an intense sweat lodge "re-birthing" on the final day.
Instead, for three of them, their spiritual journey went horribly wrong, ending in their deaths, after the ceremonial sauna became too hot to bear. One man was badly burned and dozens of others were hospitalized that day last October.
Guru James Arthur Ray, then one of the biggest names in the $11 billion industry of self-help, is now awaiting trial in Arizona on three counts of manslaughter.
His was a spectacular rise and fall.
University of Northern Texas student Melanie Goodwin stopped at a convenience store to pick up a snack, where she crossed paths with Ernesto Reyes. The next day police found her body burned, her car abandoned. They hunted down murder suspect Ernesto Reyes.
Washington high school senior Hannah and her on-again, off-again boyfriend Taylor were an all-star couple. Then one moment of carelessness changed their lives forever. She found out she was pregnant -- with triplets.
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