Shattered Innocence, Essay Example

Book Analysis on Shattered Innocence: The Abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard-The Untold Story

Introduction

Robert Scott’s Shattered Innocence: The Abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard-The Untold Story essentially tells two stories, and both decidedly non-fiction.  On one level, it is an excruciating account of one girl’s abduction and captivity for 18 years at the hands of a disturbed and violent offender and his wife. Despite widespread searches and national attention following the kidnapping, Jaycee Lee Dugard’s life from the age of 11 was that of a slave and victim of rape, and Scott also examines the peculiar nature of the relationship that developed between her and Philip Garrido, her abductor, as well as the impact of Garrido’s wife, Nancy.  On another level, there is the equally disturbing trajectory of local and state agency failures to respond when response was indicated, and may well have saved Dugard from years of abuse.  This is in fact the foundation of Dugard’s story, and it powerfully reveals how simple carelessness may be responsible for an ongoing nightmare.  While there are some extenuating factors, the reality remains that, as presented by Robert Scott, the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard is an indictment of legal processes hopelessly misdirected or poorly executed.

Events and Police Neglect

It was in August of 2009 that Lisa Campbell, special events manager for the University of California Police Department, and  Allison Jacobs, a UCPD officer, met with Philip Garrido and two young girls at the Berkeley Campus.  Garrido was insisting that he had a vital message to relay to the school regarding God and salvation; this, combined with his erratic behavior and the strangely robot-like presences of the girls he identified as his daughters, prompted the investigation which led to the release of the girls’ mother, Jaycee Lee Dugard, who had been kidnapped by Garrido 18 years earlier while on her way to a school bus.  Within weeks, and mainly due to Campbell’s and Jacobs’s sense that something was wrong with the man girls, follow-ups would reveal the entire story, and Jaycee and her daughters would be free from the Garrido captivity.

There is no dismissing the reality that initial police response was enormous and prompt.  On June 10^th, 1991, Carl Probyn, Jaycee’s stepfather, saw from his garage a gray sedan making a U-turn to where the girl was walking.  A dark-haired woman emerged and dragged Jaycee, screaming, inside, and Probyn jumped on his bicycle to follow.  Unable to match the car’s speed, he returned home and called the South Lake Tahoe police with a detailed description of the car, woman, Jaycee, and the event.  In no time a massive search was underway; increasing numbers of California Highway Patrol officers from South Lake Tahoe and Eldorado County were joined by U.S. Forest Service helicopters.  At the same time, the media was employed as much as possible, as residents and vacation visitors were asked to report anything whatsoever that might relate to the girl’s abduction.  Within days, hundreds of officers were scouring through leads and tips.  As the physical search was providing no answers, in fact, efforts were more directed to examining all leads sent in, no matter how seemingly irrelevant (Scott, 2011,  pp. 16-29).

Moreover, the efforts only escalated as weeks went by with no success.

While these efforts were exemplary, there is cause for concern, and ironically due to the intensity of the focus itself. Essentially, the police had early on decided that the kidnapers were most likely staying within the Lake Tahoe Basin.  As the area encompassed many miles of parks, trailer sites, and lodges, conducting the search there was all-consuming, and it seems that this then precluded investigations beyond the immediate area.  On June 15^th, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reported that this was in fact the police intent, and the paper noted that the offenders may well have escaped the area before the full search had been set in motion (p. 35).  As is of course known, Garrido and his wife brought Jaycee to Antioch, hours away in California.  It is understandable that the police at the time would emphasize a local search, yet it seems negligent that little, if any, effort was not directed to the likely possibility of a non-local offender.  Even as police resources were limited, it appears that more attention should have been given to the very real possibility that a kidnaper of a young girl would deliberately seize a victim from a removed – and highly populated – area.  Certainly, given Probyn’s identification of the vehicle and the woman, roadblocks at state highway access points should have been established.

Far more damning is the reality that Philip Garrido was under parole supervision during the entire period of his holding Jaycee prisoner, and that the California Parole officers assigned to monitor him were at best negligent.  It seems in fact that California was willing to end Garrido’s parole but Nevada, the state wherein his 1976 kidnapping and rape conviction had occurred, insisted on its maintenance.  This may partly explain the consistently lax supervision of Garrido; there was clearly a conflict of interest and, unfortunately, Garrido resided in the less concerned California district.  Nonetheless, this difference in emphasis cannot account for what appears to be outright negligence.  For example, a succession of parole agents assigned to Garrido kept oddly ambiguous notes, and clearly dealt only with superficial realities as presented by Garrido and/or Nancy.  When neither was home, the agent would leave a note requesting a call, and be satisfied by a verbal report from Garrido that all was well.  No investigation was made of the fenced-in area in the home’s backyard, and there were many occasions when visiting agents were informed by Nancy that her husband had, “stepped out.” If Garrido was going beyond a 25-mile distance from his home, it would have been a violation, but there is no record of the parole officers’ checking on this possibility.

Most striking of all is the episode of November 30^th, 2006; a neighbor alerted the police because there were tents in the Garrido backyard, with people and children apparently living in them. The neighbor was aware of Garrido’s history as an offender, but the parole report regarding this complaint asserts that no action was taken by the Contra Costa County Police (p. 179).  After Dugard and her daughters were freed, a full-scale investigation by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation unequivocally condemned years of blatant negligence.  In essence, a review of all the Antioch parole reports revealed an astonishing lack of inquiry, and that many opportunities to have discovered the victims were missed (p. 308).  The report also concluded that those agents assigned to Garrido were inadequately trained and unfit to properly perform their jobs.

Victimology Issues

As disturbing as the reality is that, for so many years, Phil and Nancy Garrido were enabled to perpetuate so extreme a crime, it is nonetheless worth noting how Jaycee’s abduction itself generated unprecedented – and important – relationships between the police, the media, and the public. National and international interest was fixed on the case, and public response was overwhelmingly involved in assisting in finding the girl. Thousands of volunteers distributed posters, as rewards for Jaycee’s return were offered by people unrelated to the Probyn family.  The crime, certainly in large measure due to the age and vulnerability of the young girl, seems to have created in the public an urgent need to help, as her victimhood likely resonated with parents of young children everywhere.

Another aspect of victimology critical to the entire Dugard case is the relationships clearly developed between Garrido, Nancy, Jaycee, and the two girls over the years.  When, on August 26^th, all were summoned to the Concord Parole Office to look more deeply into this mysterious “family” scenario, the victims consistently presented themselves as objecting to the inquiry. Jaycee, using the name Alyssa, admitted that she knew of his prior kidnapping and rape conviction, and asserted that he was a changed man, and a “great” one.  Her daughters, Angel and Starlit, eagerly agreed, and all three praised Garrido excessively (p. 19).  The circumstance is then unique and disturbing; in a government agency and surrounded by agents and officers clearly able to protect them, not one of the girls made any attempt to signal for help.  Rather, they exhibited strong solidarity with their captors, expressing indignation at the questioning.  This strongly indicates the connections created over time between abusers and their victims, as identification and even sympathy may develop between them.

Conclusion

Robert Scott’s account of Jaycee Lee Dugard’s ordeal is a carefully researched and compelling book.  Certainly, it is a gripping and real story of a child’s immersion into a nightmare scenario, and one in which she herself would be changed, even as she entered into the Garrido “family.”  Beyond this, however, is the even more chilling realty of how agency failures actually enabled an ongoing crime for 18 years.  Even the massive and initial police effort at the time of the abduction is marked by the careless disregard for the likelihood of the offender’s not being local to the Tahoe area, and worse are the long years of Contra Costa County parole supervision that was grossly negligent at best.  Some extenuating factors notwithstanding, the reality remains that, as put forth by Robert Scott, the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard’s captivity is an indictment of legal processes hopelessly misdirected or poorly executed.

References

Scott, R.  (2011).  Shattered Innocence: The Abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard-The          Untold Story.  Hanover: Pinnacle Publishing.