Jaycee Lee Dugard, the girl who was kidnapped on her way to catch a school bus in 1991 only to reveal herself to police this week, had spent most of her life in captivity. According to reports, Dugard was "kept hidden from the world behind a series of fences, sheds and tents for nearly two decades, even giving birth to her suspected abductor's children." (Take an aerial look of the yard via this Google Maps view.) CBS 5 / AP reports that her kidnapper, 58-year-old Phillip Garrido, "raped her and fathered two children with her, the first when Jaycee was about 14." The children, girls ages 11 and 15, "also were kept hidden away in the backyard compound behind the Antioch home."
One neighbor, it seems, could hear children playing in Garrido's yard, but never followed through with their gut instincts.
Neighbor Diane Doty said she could see the tents and often heard children playing in the backyard, the corner of which abuts her own backyard. She said she even suspected the children lived in the tents, but her husband said she should leave the family alone."I asked my husband, 'Why is he living in tents?"' she said. "And he said, 'Maybe that is how they like to live."'
Neither Dugard nor her children ever went to school or to see a doctor.
According to CoCo Times, a UC Berkeley police officer was key in setting Degard and her kids free.