When it comes to true crime, survivor stories are often harder to hear. The extreme trauma someone can endure than stand tall after being torn down is nothing short of incredible. Today's story is one of a survivor, one from a little girl who was taken at the age of eleven years old and forced to live in a shed to become someone's personal sex slave. This survivor has gone on to tell their story in great detail and advocates for many who have suffered similar ordeals. She shares her experiences
to tell and ensure others do not feel alone. And today we aim to do her story justice and tell her story in the same manner she would. This is the story of a stolen life. This is the story of J. C. Dugert. My name's Ben, I'm.
Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingram, a true crime podcast.
The following audience listener Right before Nicole hit record, I just took like thirty seconds trying to fish a husky dog hair out of my mouth quite aggressively.
It was something to watch that.
It was like, in there, that's the plight of owning two shedding huskies in a tiny homes.
Yeah, and they seem like they're just shedding extra this year, Like it's not stopping.
It's not Well, there's there's someone out there who does an incredible grooming for us, shout out to Demi. But even after she like fully groomed these dogs, they came home and they're just like still shedding.
Yeah, they're just not stopping.
Not stopping. And the amount of hair she pulled off them was ridiculous. They looked great, felt great, but they just they just kept shedding. No matter what.
It's a husky thing.
It's a husky thing. Yep, give it.
We got some big news here.
We do drop it.
Oh my goodness. So we have our two hundredth epic. I know, I said the kind of the two hundred and we're doing a live recording of that at Trench on Wednesday, and it has sold out.
Its officially sold out, which means no tickets to the door available. Yeah, all the tickets are sold, are sold. And that's that's it.
That's wild, Like, thank you so much. It's kind of blown us away, a been, no kidding.
It's going to be a good time. We're going to have some drinks, do some door prizes. Record the episode live. We will also be live streaming it for patrons, So we've had a lot of patrons sign up recently, I think probably preemptively for.
That they can tune in.
Yeah, and then also so I mean a lot of the live will be catching a lot more than what will go up on the actual episode, because we're gonna be releasing it as a real episode and video format on YouTube as well. But yeah, it'll be the the edited version on YouTube at a later date that comes.
Out basically just the recording, not the rest of the Shenanigansay pretty much.
There might be a couple of odds and nand's put in here, but it'll it'll be mostly just the episode. So yeah, but yeah, it's completely sold out and I think we have a lot of patrons to thank for
that as well. So first off, thank you to everyone who bought tickets who's going to be joining us locally, and thank you to those patrons who signed up this week, which are Kerrie d Lucas, Eslick, Jacob Rodriguez, Chloe Cheeseman, Ronda Sellers, Bailey Nova, Jillian Rodriguez, excuse me, I arted by Crystal Jess, Crystal P and the Doggies shout out to the Doggies specifically and.
Nat nice, So thank you guys. Wow awesome.
Not to mention the day of the live recording, which is tomorrow, they also get an exclusive Patreon episode that drops to right which I haven't researched yet. So I've really got to get my uh my gears in gear. The ball rolling, Yeah, I gotta get my ass in gears, I think.
Yeah, it's it's kind of crunch time. We've got a lot going on right now.
So we do, but it's going to be a good time. We're going to see everyone down at a trans bring in.
Distilling, and you want to know something we're doing that. I decided like, basically in the middle of the night yesterday, what's that at the very end of our podcast, we always say something.
Right, Oh no, I that was already gonna happen.
Okay, no, yeah, people are going We're going to have a live audience saying that, and I'm like stoked.
Yeah, that was just to give up.
Okay, Well, I thought of ordered at two in the morning last night, and I was like, that's a good idea.
Now it's one hundred percent. Also, we could do that in the intro too, It's like, my name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and this is yeah, yeah, we.
Can do like, oh yeah, this is okay.
True crime podcast. Maybe I don't know. Anyways, Yeah, we digress onto the episode. This is the story of J. C. Dugert. It's a heavy one. I'm going to warn everyone about that right now because it does involve a sexual assault and a minor But I did read J. C. Duggerd's book, A Stolen Life, and we are really trying to stick true to how she tells it. She is a survivor and she's going out there on a limb sharing her experiences.
No matter how dark they are, she's sharing them. And I think it's to try and you know, bring light to these sort of situations and be an advocate for those people who are suffering from this sort of thing. So I'm really trying to make sure that while I steer clear of some graphic details in nature, I do tell it as she would want it to be told to, So heads up on that it is a sensitive episode.
But yeah, that sounds good. I'm sure that you're going to.
Do it justice, I hope. So it's a lot like honestly, this could be a freaking twelve part episode if I really wanted to. Because she even has another book as well, and I only dove into.
This she Okay, I didn't realize she had too.
Yeah, so I talk about both books. I mentioned them both later, But one is basically the captive side of it, and one is like the after and like getting back out and like learning to live again.
Oh yeah, my gosh.
Yeah. So you ready for this?
Yeah? I mean, this is one case I actually feel like I know a fair amount about. But I'm sure I'll still like.
Learn quite a bit, probably, And I've been researching this one for a while, probably a good month or two. I would really put my effort into doing this one.
Justice good good.
So here we go. You ready, all right? So?
J C.
Lee Dugard was born on May third, nineteen eighty. She was born in Anaheim, California, to Terry Probin and Ken Stalton's Wow, Slayton, there we go. I'm already butchering at my apologies now. Despite her parents' later separation when she was younger, Jac's early childhood was marked by a strong sense of love and family. Her mother, Terry, would later marry to a carpet contractor named Carl Proben, hence why Terry Probin's name.
Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
With her new stepfather now in the family, they moved from Arcadia, California, in Los Angeles County to Myers, which is a rural town south of South Lake Tahoe. And they moved here specifically because it was a nice, safe community, you know, a good place for a family. Right up bringing, This is where Jace would grow up, surrounded by natural beauty of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, gorgeous area country.
It's beautiful, totally. Yeah.
So Jace had this close knit family life with her mother and stepfather and her younger half sister, Shana, who was born a few years later in nineteen ninety. So this was Carl's biological daughter with Jac's mother. So now the probe and household was a place of warmth and love, but it was not without its challenges. Jace's relationship with
her stepfather, Carl was rather strained at times. Carl was a stern and disciplined man, often had high expectations and some pretty strict rules, which occasionally led to conflicts with more sensitive and gentle natured Jace. Right, so, to make matters worse, he often seemed to treat Jace a little bit different than her younger half sister Shane as well,
who is Carl's, as I mentioned, biological daughter. And I think that's a struggle that many families unfortunately have to juggle with, and I could imagine it's it would be a sensitive thing for many families.
Yeah, no, that's tough for sure.
Yeah. So, while Karl did care for jac and took on a role of a provider, their emotional connection was often strained and occasionally led to these conflicts, contributing to a sense of disparity and insecurity within JC. Now it's not that Karl was a bad man. It was his parenting techniques and rules that grew some difficulties within the relationship. And potentially maybe he did have a little softer spot for his biological daughter and that could have contributed to
it as well. Some of the things that he would do, for example, is Jace would like scarf her food too fast and kind of look like a pig at the table sort of thing. I don't know if it's like elbows on the table or what. She's just kind of making a bit of a mess so at one point he took her plate to the bathroom and made her eat her dinner in front of a mirror so she could see herself as she's eating. Okay, some things like that,
Like it's some strict parroting. It's not like he's being an asshole, but it's like.
Not like a beau, well necessarily abusing.
But yeah, he's being a hard ass sort of thing. Yeah, but he did care for Jace, so benefit to him for that. And when this later all plays out, he was heartbroken over it. So Jac's mother, Terry, worked hard to maintain a balance within the family, providing a nurturing and supportive environment for both of her children. She balanced work and family life with great care, ensuring that Jace
and Shana had everything that they needed. Jace, though having some high expectations put upon her, did lead a good life, and her early years were filled with joy and the simple pleasures of life too. She enjoyed exploring the natural beauty of her surroundings playing outdoors. She was also an animal lover as well, from a very young age, with a particular fondness for cats. She often dreamed becoming a veterinarian. One day when she got older.
Oh, I love that.
At Meyers Elementary School, Jacey was known for her sweet and gentle personality. Though she was somewhat shy and introverted, she was well liked by her peers and teachers. Jacey enjoyed learning and was rather diligent as a student, and took pride in her school work and loved to draw and paint. Now Terry, her mother worked hard to maintain all this balance right, making sure that everything was perfect,
but a parent can only do so much. On the morning of June tenth, nineteen ninety one, eleven year old Jacy was getting ready for school just like any other day. It initially started with her waiting in bed for her mom to come up and give her a good morning kiss, which was a typical morning routine. Didn't happen every day, but you know, whenever it didn't happen, she would be sure to remind her mother that she forgot.
Oh my goodness, that's adorable.
But soon Jace heard the front door close, which meant today her mother had forgotten. She laid in bed for a few more minutes, and her alarm went off and she crawled out of bed began to get ready, and this included placing a ring on her finger. She was looking for a specific one but couldn't quite find it, so instead she placed one on her finger that was
a little bit older. It was a nice, delicate silver butterfly ring that her mother had given her for her seventh birthday, a gift that she still treasured to this day. After scarfing down a bowl of oatmeal and grabbing her backpack, Jacey headed out the front door to school. Now, today wasn't supposed to be a regular school day, though, Today was a school field trip to a local water park and everyone was looking forward to it. The excitement was
building towards this day. Jace was excited just like everyone else, and she even wore her favorite all pink outfit in anticipation for the big day. As she walked up to her bus stop from the hill that went upwards from her house, she got to the point where she was taught by both her mother and Carl to cross the road to continue walking. This was so oncoming traffic could see her better. Right she did, she always did, and crossed, and while thinking of everything that the day was going
to hold, her mind began to wander. She was so lost in thought, in fact, that she didn't even notice the car that pulled right up beside her. She initially thought it was just going to pass like any other vehicle, but instead it stopped. In that instant, a hand shot out from the window and zaps JC with a taser gun. Jace, now not knowing what just hit her, began to stumble backwards into the bush and on the side of the road.
She lost her footing and is now not laying on the ground, but she's on the ground right, yeah, And she lost control of most of her body functions. She couldn't run, she couldn't stand up, she couldn't do anything, and as this man now stepped out of the vehicle, looming over top of her. The taser, as I mentioned, left her unable to do many things, which even included her losing control of her bladder, and she wet her
favorite pink pants. The man quickly scooped her up and placed her in the back seat of the car onto the floor. He threw a blanket over her head and drove off, with jac now passing out and a prisoner, and him saying, I can't believe we just got away with it.
Oh my gosh, that is just oh, it's terrifying too much. Oh, that's just too much. Yeah.
Well, and this whole situation is, this is supposed to be a safe community. Yeah, this is supposed to be somewhere where families can be and feel safe and kids can go outside and play, and you know, like j.
She's literally just walking to the school bus.
Yeah. And Jac in her book recounts like, you know, like getting a ride to school before, but now like recently, she's like, you know, walking to the school bus and stuff. She's growing up. She's learning. Yeah, she's learning these responsibilities. And this is supposed to be an environment where kids can learn those responsibilities. And unfortunately, all it takes is one bad apple.
Yeah. No one would like ever have imagined something like that to ever happen.
So the man, though, wasn't the only person in the car, and there was a woman as well, and between the two of them they now had just officially taken JC. Now, Jac's stepfather, Carl was in the garage getting ready to leave for work, and he actually witnessed Jac's abduction just up the hill from their house.
Holy shit, Okay, I don't think I knew.
That he immediately grabbed the closest thing to him, which was a bicycle, and attempted to chase down the car, but he quickly realized he couldn't do anything to catch the car that was speeding away, and he turned around, returned home to call Terry to alert her, and immediately after telling her, he contacted authorities to report what had just happened.
Wow, that just made my heart sink.
Within hours of Jac's disappearance, her story was covered by local and national media in South Lake Tahoe. The community quickly mobilized, with dozens of volunteers assisting in a search effort and utilizing nearby available resources however they could. Over the following weeks, tens of thousands of flyers and posters were distributed two businesses across the United States in a
show of support and solidarity. The town was adorned in pink ribbons, Jace's favorite color, to keep her memory alive and to demonstrate the community's support for her family.
Good god, Okay, this episode is going to be real tough. Hey, Like, my heart is just like so heavy already.
Yeah, it's not easy, oh boy. Jace's mother, Terry would go on to found a group called Jacey's Hope to coordinate a volunteer and fundraising efforts. They sold cassette tapes with the song jce Lee, along with T shirts, sweatshirts, and buttons to fundraise for poster material, postage printing, and other related expenses to help bring Jace home. Organizations like Child Quest International and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children were also involved in search efforts. The case garnered national wide attention and was featured on the June fourteenth, nineteen ninety one episode on the Fox television show America's Most Wanted. Unfortunately, no matter the efforts that were put forward to find and rescue Jace, she was now, unfortunately hidden away and under complete control by her captors. The day she went missing, jac was led onto a property with a blanket still over her head. All right, how
are we doing so far? I gotta take a step of coffee.
Because I know this, like I even like I said no a bit about this, right, So I had prepared myself a bit, but this is I didn't quite prepare myself enough. I think, like, this is, this is a brutal one.
I don't know if anyone could prepare themselves for a story like this, if I'm being completely honest.
Yeah, and like just the fact that Carl saw this happen too, like holy shit, yep, that is I just don't even I don't know. If it gets much worse than that.
Well, we'll keep going and we'll talk about it. So, according to her book A Stolen Life, jac was first taken into the house and into the bathroom. Here jac would be subjected to her first encounter of sexual assault. The man told Jace to undress, which she refused. He said, if you don't undress yoursel and I will be the
one to undress you. And she stood there frozen, didn't know what to do, so the man began to undress her everything and took her clothes away except for one thing, the small butterfly ring that she had put on that morning from her mother from her seventh birthday. He didn't seem to notice it. Oh my gosh, ben Ah, this butterfly ring would be the one thing that she was able to keep and remind herself of her mother, her family in the outside world over the years to come.
After she was now completely undressed, standing frozen in the bathroom, he then too undressed and made Jac shower with him. There was no sex that occurred, but there was some physical touch that he forced her to do, and the man made Jac also shave her armpits and pubic region. After the shower, he doesn't allow Jac to dress again. He gives her a towel and takes her to the backyard and places her inside a tiny shed that has been well prepared to hold someone and it was even soundproofed.
She was then handcuffed with a fur lined pair of handcuffs and left in the shed, which was bolted shut behind him as he left. He also warned her that there was an aggressive dog in the yard and that it would attack if she tried to escape. Jace, terrified, told the man she would not try and escape. As the days passed, he would come into the shed where she was being held and bring her food and visit Jace. A big part of this case is understanding the psychological
aspect of what Jac went through. I know I could never fully relate to her trauma no matter what I ever go through my life, but in her book A Stolen Life, she describes it in many times in many different ways, and I took an excerpt for it from it to try and paint a bit of a picture from this exact moment in her life. After only a few days of being held captive. This is what she had to say about it. Quote. He would try to make me smile with all these silly voices he would make.
He had an English accent, a Texan accent, and an Australian accent. I feel this was part of his plan to manipulate me into being compliant with him. He used his powers of persuasion to gain my trust. He became my entire world. I depended on him for food, water, my toilet. He was my only source of amusement. I craved human contact so much by then I actually looked forward to him coming to see me. It felt like he was bestowing me a gift his presence.
Wow.
I can not begin to imagine what that would feel like.
No. Yeah, like just to think that this person that has put you in this situation is your everything, right.
Gosh, depending on them for literally everything?
Yeah huh.
And this is only a few days in and she's already starting to feel like she's looking forward to him coming to the shed, looking forward to his visits for human connection, for entertainment. What will he bring me next? What can he do next? Other than that, I'm just sitting here alone, my own thoughts, thinking about.
Her family or family, her life.
Before, and he's a distraction breaks that depression in her.
Mind that is like so heavy.
Hey, it's about as heavy as it gets.
And I'm assuming like at this point, other than the wife being there or the lady or whatever being there when they captured her, she doesn't have any involvement.
Right now, not currently, but she does later integrate into the situation. Okay, So a week after being kidnapped, jac would be raped for the first time while still handcuffed in the shed. This was only the beginning of the horrors that she would endure, as she was continued to be raped frequently, at least once a week for the
first three years of her captivity. Throughout that time, Jace endured intense isolation, severe abuse, including times when the men would do intense hard drugs and would sexually assault JC for hours upon hours at a time. These were referred to as runs, as he called them.
Oh my gosh, wow, I don't think I knew that. Oh man, this guy's just like a nasty piece of shit.
Oh yeah. Now, initially she was kept in a small soundproof shed in the backyard, and the shed was equipped with minimal facilities. For example, a bucket for a toilet had very minimal ventilations, so even the toilets, you know, building up in her breathing, or the unfortunate sexual assaults that occurred hot days, it got stifling in there.
Yeah.
As time passed, Jace was granted more and more freedom within the confines of the shed. She was given a TV, video games, even some pets over time, cats and everything, but they never really lasted long in the tiny space, as it wasn't meant for animals and they were always eventually taken away from her. She was also introduced to the woman who was in the car the day that
she was captured. Now, this was the man's wife, and she didn't seem to really like jac too much, but Jace always did her best to make her like her. That's all she wanted was to be liked by the two people that she only ever saw. Now, I do you want to clarify this. This woman was never mean per se. I mean she's helding her captives, so I mean the outside.
Of that, like she knew the situation that was going on.
Yeah, the interactions and everything. She was she played nice, you know, she brought gifts and stuff like that for JC, you know, a teddy bear at one point and everything. But I mean, this is this man's wife and now this man has this fucking, for lack of better term, sex slave in the backyard. So there was that bit of tension between the wife and JC.
Yeah, well teddy bear. No, she's still a complete piece of shit.
Oh yeah, No, don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to paint how it is for Jason's experiences. Right, she has this woman who's just a little bit cold shoulder to her, not beating her anything, a little bit cold shoulder to her. And Jace really wants this woman to like her because, like I said, it's the only two fucking people she sees for years at a time.
Yeah.
So yeah, this woman's still a piece of shit. Absolutely. But yeah, now between the two, the woman and the man, the married couple, the psychological games on JAC were intense. For instance, Jace wasn't allowed to use her name anymore. So Jace was keeping a journal to pass the time, writing about her days and anything that she had done. For example, when she did have a cat, she would write about what the cat did today, and the personality the cat, and funny things that had happened, and what
they were doing and everything right. When it was found out that she was signing her name in this journal, she was forced to tear the name out and was told never to say it again.
Oh my gosh, wow Okay.
In nineteen ninety three, two years after being abducted, the man that was seeing Jace on a daily basis stop coming by by. Now she knew the man by the name of Philip, and the woman that he was with was Nancy. Instead, Nancy began coming to see her. She told Jace that he wouldn't be back for a while, made up excuses saying that he was just kind of
away or whatever. Now the reality of the situation, though, was that he had been briefly returned to jail for about thirty days after failing a drug test and having drugs being reportedly found on the property, which was a violation of his parole conditions. See Philip, whose full name is Philip Garrido, had a history of criminal convictions prior to abducting JC in nineteen seventy two, he was arrested
for the repeated rape of a fourteen year old girl. However, he was never convicted in this case because a victim declined to testify in court. In nineteen seventy six, he also kidnapped and raped a twenty five year old woman by the name of Catherine Callaway in South Lake Tahoe, California, taking her to a warehouse in Reno, Nevada. He was arrested when police officers discovered her inside the warehouse asking
for help. From this, he was convicted in nineteen seventy seven and began serving a fifty year federal sentence in Kansas, where he was diagnosed as a quote sexual deviant and chronic drug abuser with considerable emotional conflict, anxiety, depression, and a personality disorder. As it turns out, with the drugs being found on the property as part of his breaking parole, this meant officers had searched the house but never found JC locked up in the backyard.
Wow, they like hit it so fucking well, Hey.
They did, but they didn't. There's like they I don't know. It's really hard to say because over time this it goes from this shed to like different tents and stuff, which I talk about a little bit later. And like this like backyard living facility, and I mean you can't really see it from the front of the house, but like neighbors kind of like knew about it, and like Google image shows it and everything. It's not like if you look, it's not really hidden. It's hidden from passerbys.
But if you look, it's right fucking there.
But no one in there, like wildest thought would think what the what was actually going on there? Like there's just no way, I know think, Well, I mean maybe we would. I would suspect some serious shit because I suspect suspect everyone's doing weird.
That's true, it's trueness. But yeah, it was. It was overlooked for lack of better terms. Now, whether it was an in depth search was actually done, whether it was just oh we found something, this is good enough to get them and they booked them right, who knows, but one way or another, she was overlooked well.
In this by the sounds of it too, like this guy should shouldn't be roaming free like at all. He's already fucked up.
Yes, times he's out on parole, which is unfortunately, something that happens too far, too many individuals who do some terrifying shit. But that's exactly what it is.
He's out on parole, allowed to do it again, yep.
And he would be jailed up or thirty days until he was released once more, and then he resumed control and Jac's ordeal persisted unnoticed.
Jeez, like that, that's a moment right there where it was just so close, like it could have been. It could have that could.
Have been it stopped. Yeah, could have been over after two years instead, that's only a fraction of what she went through.
HM.
So now we're going to fast forward a bit. After being held captive in the shed for three years, on August eighteenth, nineteen ninety four, when Jace was only fourteen years old, she would give birth to her first daughter. The delivery took place where she was being held with no access to medical professionals or proper health care. Despite the traumatic circumstances, the birth of her first daughter brought Jace a new sense of purpose and hope in her life.
The arrival of her daughter, who she named Angel, became a pivotal moment in Jac's life, now motivating her to survive and providing her with a reason to endure this captivity and abuse.
It's incredible though that she even like you know, like you said, there was no health care down there, right, so it's like and she's giving birth like it's amazing, yeap, that nothing went wrong or anything right because she I'm sure she couldn't have been like the healthiest of people.
No, definitely not. And I do want to preface Nancy had some medical knowledge, though I don't think she really took place in the birthing, if I can recall correctly, she worked at like a medical facility, like a hospital or something. She wasn't an RN or anything like that, but she had some like minor medical knowledge which may have helped a bit, but not really at all. It's like, hey, don't you gotta get hot towels and shit and keep it clean. That's probably extent of it sort of thing.
Well, yeah, and me. But she might have also potentially like access to some supplies that were needed to potentially.
Potentially Jace didn't really go into too much depth in that regard in the book, if I can recall correctly, but even still, it was it was quite primitive. It was like she gave birth in the shed, so wow. Now following the birth of her daughter, the frequency of the rapes began to lessen, and jac and her newborn daughter continued to live in this backyard shed, which would slowly be expanded and now include some other structures, including
tents and a second building. Another three years would go by, and jac would give birth to her second daughter, Starlet, on November thirteenth, nineteen ninety seven, still while being held captive, still in the backyard, still with no medical treatment. The birth was the same, but as a result, Jace now had a second daughter, a second reason to keep going. The last time Philip ever raped Jace was on the
day that Starlet was conceived. Though the end of the sexual abuse was over, Jace was still living a nightmare, raising two children in captive care for years to come. As time passed and Jac's daughters were growing up, they were granted more and more access to the outside world. Jace began taking part in activities like gardening and planting flowers,
as well as homeschooling her daughters. Along the way. At one point, Philip instructed Jace to teach her daughters to call his wife Nancy mom instead.
Of her, Oh gosh no, and to.
Instead refer to her as their older sister.
Wow. Wow, I mean yeah, just so that he can maybe look and not feel like such a piece of shit. Holy crap. Yeah, I didn't know that. That is quite disturbing.
Well, Philip told Jace it was easier for Nancy with the little bit of jealousy things that were going on. But this was more a facade to maintain the secrecy. It's like, oh, yeah, these are our children. Oh, that explains it, right, anyone asks. So they took this story out into the public eye. Now it had been nearly twenty years later, Jace and her daughters were fully integrated into Philip and Nancy's life, being their daughters. Philip even ran a print shop where Jace would work as a
graphic artist. Here, she worked with customers and spoke to people regarding their projects. During this period, Jace had access to the business phone and an email account. Yet despite these opportunities, she never revealed her true identity or even hinted at the abduction that she went through or tried to make an escape. Witnesses even recall seeing Jace at the house occasionally answering the front door, yet she never indicated that anything was ever wrong or attempted to make
a run for it. This goes back to when Jace mentioned at the very beginning that she fully relied on her captors. Except now it's almost twenty years of evolving through that.
Holy shit. But then also too, like she has these two other like her girls to think about, right, and like she just runs off. She can't because she's not going to leave her kids. Her two kids there.
Well, they had freedom, they could she could have grabbed her kids and gone okay.
Wow man. But yeah, there's like, like you have already mentioned, there's so much more.
To this psychological trauma within this because she fully relied on them. She's like, if I leave, what will I do?
Yeah?
Like where will I go? This is all I have?
Oh my goodness.
So she began to almost want to protect Philip and Nancy and what happened. She's thinking, they're good people for keeping me, for helping me, helping me raise my daughters. Yeah, he's not raping me anymore. He's a good man. Now he's changed. That sort of stuff is what's going through her mind. And that's the sort of thing that they implanted in her. It's terrifying.
I didn't realize that he had like stopped raping her. I had no idea.
He began to look at them as his daughters. Oh okay, I mean two of them were his daughters.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Brutal.
Yeah. So Jac was fully reliant on these two individuals. They gave her everything, and I mean this all it all started because he was basically like a major sexual deviance and like quite aggressive with it and stuff, and he's like, Okay, you're the reason. You're what I'm going to take this out on. I can't take it out of my wife, so it's going to be you. And then over time, like he's now got these daughters and it's like things are changing and it.
Well, yeah developed, it's just like family now, right, so yeah, yeah.
And for better or for worse, JAC looked to them as family now too. It would be a grand total of eighteen years that Jac would be helped captive, and on August twenty fourth, in two thousand and nine, Philip would finally make the mistake. In recent years, he had begun to see himself as somewhat of a prophet, a
religious man, singing religious songs and preaching. On this day, in particular, he visited the FBI office in San Francisco and left behind a four page essay outlining his thoughts on religion and sexuality, claiming he had discovered a method to control deviant behavior. Yeah, he's kind of he's getting out there. Later that same day, he visited the University of California, Berkeley, with Jac's two daughters in tow to request permission for an event related to his God's Desires program.
Now this kind of highlights a big problem with this case because his house was searched, right for example, and they were never found. They were overlooked. He had just walked into the FBI office and again he was overlooked. But now he's on a university campus, and Lisa Campbell, a campus police officer, is the one who found his behavior odd and erratic and the girl's demeanor that was
with him rather unusual. I mean, their upbringing was quite unusual, so it would make sense, right, super sheltered, right, Yeah, So he asked him to return next day for an appointment. While he was gone. With the time that she had, Lisa did a background check on Philip found that he was a registered sex offender and given his history with the strange two girls. Sorry, given his history and that he had these strange two girls with him, it was
a massive red flag for Lisa. The following day, he and the girls returned for their appointment as requested, and Lisa immediately contacted the office to his express her concerns. Officers visited the home that evening searched the house but didn't find the girls.
Oh my gosh, okay, what the shit? But also Lisa like, thank you for people like Lisa. Hey, yep.
Now. These officers ordered Philip to report to the office the next day for an interview. On August twenty sixth, and Philip obliged. He returned with his wife Nancy, and the two girls and j C, who identified herself now as Alissa. The officers were stunned and very confused, so they separated everyone and began questioning and interviewing. Even when separated, Jace initially maintained her false identity and claimed the girls were his daughters. She defended Philip and said that he
was a changed man and good with children. However, as the interview progressed, jac became defensive and agitated When asked for more details, eventually claiming she was a battered wife from Minnesota hiding from an abusive husband, a false story. It wasn't until the arrival of Concord police sergeant that Philip finally confessed to kidnapping and racing raping Jce, leading to the reveal of her true identity to officers.
Philip was the one that Philip, Oh, okay, wow, this is how deep he got into Jac's head. Wow that is just that's just like unfathomable. Wow.
The authorities were stunned. They had just found j C. Duggard after all these years, and thanks to Lisa, that security officer police officer at the campus, thanks to the one person.
That went above and beyond doing their job, not.
Even above and beyond, just did their fucking job.
Yeah that's true.
So don't get me wrong. J C is one hundred percent the badass of the day here for surviving this. But I'm going to give out a second one. We have two badasses of the day. Lisa here one hundred percent is also a badass in her own right.
Yep.
So Philip and Nancy were of course swiftly arrested, and Jace was reunited with her mother, Terry, on August twenty seventh, two thousand and nine.
Oh my goodness, Terry, I'm like pretty certain thought that she would never see her daughter again, right, like that she died or most likely yeah yeah.
After all this occurred, jac and her two daughters, of course, faced numerous challenges as they adjusted to life outside of captivity, which was a long psychological and emotional recovery navigating the years of abuse, which included dealing with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Jace also exhibited a lot of signs of Stockholm syndrome, making it difficult to reconcile her feelings and experiences during
captivity with her newfound freedom. Having lived in isolation for eighteen years, their social skills and understanding the outside world were severely impacted. Adapting to normal society, social interactions, and social norms required a lot of time, patience, and support. Additionally, transitioning the girls into formal education system was a challenge since they had been homeschooled and under extreme limited conditions, and they needed to catch up academically. The intense media
attention added another layer to it all. Maintaining privacy while dealing with the public curiosity and media interest was a struggle to say the least, and among all of these hurdles she now had to overcome her probably the final worst one. She had to relive and recount these experiences
over the past eighteen years in a courtroom. Thankfully, as a result of the hearings, in April of twenty eleven, Philip Garrito made a deal a plea deal, and pled guilty to a total of fourteen charges, including kidnap and rape. Nancy also pleaded guilty to her charges of kidnapping and rape. And while I'm usually not a fan of plea dale's, in this case, it's significantly cut down the amount of time JC and her daughters spent in the courtroom. Oh okay, because this didn't even go to trial.
Okay, that's good. That yeah, that is good because I'm assuming they're still going to be in there for life.
So well, that's debatable. Oh my, and one of them, well here I'll tell you right now, don't jump to conclusions just yet. In June of twenty eleven, sixty year old Philip Garrito was sentenced to a total of four hundred and thirty one years to life in prison and fifty five year old Nancy Grito received a sentence of thirty six years to life in prison. So there is a possibility of Nancy getting out, but if she does, she will be old at sin.
Yeah, but still there should be no probable I mean, okay, but grant you without fill up she made, she probably wouldn't like wouldn't have done this, yes, right, and like I'm doubting that she would ever do something like this again. But still like she was very much so involved in she was in jail forever she was.
She knew about it all, but Philip did most of it, though she was involved in some of it, you know what I mean.
So like she wouldn't have had I guess, like the rape and stuff.
No, as far as I'm aware, Nancy did not involve herself in any of.
The abuse and stuff.
Well, she was involved with abuse for sure, just like that, not of sexual nature. Yeah.
Yeah.
Today, Jace lives a relatively pate life with her two daughters, striving to maintain a sense of normalcy after the trauma that they all endured after the rescue. In two thousand and nine. Jac worked diligently to provide her daughters with a stable and supportive environment, allowing them to catch up on their education as we already mentioned, and integrate themselves back into society. Both daughters have since graduated high school and attended college oh Man.
All those awesome.
Specific details of their lives are kept private for obvious reasons.
Which is good.
Yes, jc has become an advocate for survivors of trauma and abduction. She founded the JYC or j C Foundation, which aims to assist family and individuals who have experienced severe crisis or life disruptions. The foundation provides educational and therapeutic programs, including animal assist therapy to promote healing and resilience.
Nothing says healing like a fucking animal therapy, Honestly, Like I can just it's not going to fix everything, but you get yourself a good dog that just just sits with you.
Yeah, I mean like animals, I feel like are just little angels in disguise.
Yeah, a person can listen, but a person will ask questions or form thoughts and opinions. A dog just listen.
Yeah, no judgment, No, they literally have like no judgment whatsoever.
So Jace also shared her story through her memoirs A one book A Stolen Life, which was published in twenty eleven, which was a massive resource to me writing this episode today, and her second book, Freedom, My Book of First which was published in twenty sixteen one I have yet to read, but I certainly will be reading now. Despite her advocacy, JC and her daughters largely stay out of the public's eye, focusing on their personal healing and their family life that
they now have together. That is the story of J. C. Dugert.
Yeah, that is just like, like I mean, I like I said, I kind of knew a bit about it, but and then it just like it's just mind blowing that something like that could happen. That's all. There are people in this world that are just that fucked up that can justify like that doing something like this to fulfill their ridiculously disturbing meats.
Oh, I know, it's it's wild and like in all honesty, like I said at the very beginning, I think I said it maybe it was just a thought. Anyways, this could easily be like a twelve parter episode, so I had to cut back like a lot. Like this book is I don't know how thick, but it's got hundreds of pages whereas my story was like twenty pages. So the information that's out there that JC has shared on her story is a lot in what she endured is unfathomable. I highly recommend you read her books.
Well what an incredible woman, like no shit, you know, to just like how she's going about with her healing and like you can just tell that she is strong as hell.
Yeah, And there are instances out there where people have reported like hey, seeing like kids in the backyard and stuff like that over his place over the years, and nothing was ever really done.
Oh gosh, and considering his background, like yeah it should have been.
I know, Like one thing was like they reported like people living in the backyard.
And these like times, Oh my god.
And someone was like, yeah, no one better be living back there because like that's a zoning issue. You can't do that. So okay, yeah, no one looks back there. Okay, good, because we find anyone's living back there, then it's gonna be taken down. Yeah, that's about all it was done. Like there's a lot of shit like that, Like there was another one where a neighbor had like seen jac
in the backyard when she was young. But this is also a point where she's like fully fucking like integrated and like not really saying who she is too much. She might have told her name at this point, but a neighbor, another young person, like they talked through the fence.
Oh my gosh, and then as a result, like Philip then like took her away and like would later build a bigger fence where like right, like this sort of shit happened.
Like there's so many like close calls where it's like why didn't something come Yeah, and I'm not not blaming like the kid, yeah, but why didn't authorities.
Like like he really.
Yeah, Like it's nobody questioned this sex offender. Yeah, with this backyard maze of shit and the sightings of these girls and like like.
Because he really didn't do like that good of a job to fight it.
He didn't. He did, like I said, he pulled the veil over for like passerbys. But if you looked into it, you would find it no problem. Yeah, because anytime his property was searched, his property wasn't searched, his house was searched. They didn't even step foot in his backyard because if you did, you would see this shit and you'd be like, what the fuck's going on back here?
Could you imagine too, if you were like one of those people part of that search and like later found out what was going on in the backyard, the feeling that you would have, Hey, like I I.
Would have to make a fucking personal apology to JC.
Yeah, Like I mean, oh, because you know, you regret things in life, and that would I just think that would be one that you would just never be able to really get over. No, this case, like I could almost just like solve if I like the automoeto art, I could just like start solving it. So many times it's just it's unreal.
Well, we are going to be doing a Wicked Box giveaway that we've been alluding to for a few months now, and in the Wicked Box, one of them, we will be putting this this book by jac in there, so someone who gets that box will have a chance to give this a good read. Yeah, and I recommend it. It's a bit like like, don't get me wrong, it's I have nothing against JC, Like some of her writing is a bit not quite my style, but her story like holy shit. So it's yeah, it's a good book.
Yeah, I mean it's like amazing to her to put that on paper, like I just it's absolutely incredible.
It is. And there's a lot of sections here too, like with each chapter she'll talk about like, Okay, so this one chapter here that starts on page thirteen, it's called Stolen, and then at the end of it, there's a page that she's titled Reflection, and she looks back and like, so not only is she telling her story through it, but then she like reflects back on it in her like now grown up self.
Yeah, incredible. Wow.
Like here, I'm going to read this a couple of sentences here just to kind of give you a perspective. So this is page fifteen, reflection on being stolen. Looking back on that day, feelings of dread come to mind. I was eleven years old, still very much a kid. I was very scared and alone. I didn't know going to happen. And if someone had told me what I would be enduring for the next eighteen years, I would never have believed them. I had no idea what was
going to happen to me. What this man had in mind for me was like a foreign language.
Yeah, isn't that the truth?
Hey?
Yeah? Scary?
Huh.
Okay, Well, hopefully you guys got through all that and you're doing all right.
Oh yeah, I'm heading to yoga now.
Distress a bit. Don't forget to check out our links down below. You can have us find us on Patreon, Instagram, all that sort of stuff. We're going to have our live stream for our two hundredth episode happening over at Trench, a local brewery. It's gonna be a good time. You can sign up on Patreon and join us on that live stream. Yeah, all that stuff's down below. We're looking forward to seeing you guys there.
Yeah. Yeah, and good work. I definitely would say that you did this story justice, So thank you.
I appreciate that it was a difficult one and doing it justice was my primary focus. Yeah, so thank you.
Okay, So until next time.
Until next time, same time.
Yeah, together, we're going to practice this.
We'll try to get ready, okay.
So three two one say Wicked.