Missing US girl found 18 years on
A US woman found after being abducted as a girl in 1991 gave birth to two children fathered by her alleged kidnapper, police say.
Jaycee Lee Dugard and the children, aged 11 and 15, were kept in a "hidden backyard within a backyard".
Alleged kidnapper Phillip Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy Garrido, 54, are being held in custody in California.
DNA tests are being done to establish Ms Dugard's identity, but meanwhile she has been reunited with her mother.
Ms Dugard disappeared in 1991, aged 11, from outside her Lake Tahoe home, apparently taken by two people.
El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar she had lived with the couple, isolated from view at a property in Antioch near San Francisco since the kidnapping.
"The tents and outbuildings in the backyard were placed in a strategic arrangement to inhibit outside viewing and to isolate the victims from outside contact."
The three spent "most of their lives" there, he said, adding that they had never been to school or seen a doctor.
Their identities were revealed after Mr Garrido was spotted by police at the University of California Berkeley campus with the two young children.
He raised suspicions because as a registered sex offender he was not allowed to be with young children.
Phillip Garrido has a conviction for rape and was paroled in 1999, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
He was called in by his parole officer for questioning, and brought the two children and a young woman he called Allissa with him.
During questioning he revealed that Allissa was actually Ms Dugard. She also confirmed her identity to police.
At the Antioch property, there was also a vehicle hidden in the backyard which matched the vehicle originally described at the time of the abduction, Mr Kollar said.
"It's a pretty spectacular story just to find someone like that. Someone we assumed was dead," said Bill Clark, a senior prosecutor in El Dorado County.
Jimmie Lee, a local police spokesman, said Mr Garrido was also being held for investigation of rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and sexual penetration.
Under suspicion
As news spread of Ms Dugard's apparent re-appearance, her stepfather Carl Probyn told ABC News in the US that her family was now convinced she was coming back to them.
"I had personally given up hope," he said, saying that he just wanted to find the people responsible.
Mr Probyn was watching on 10 June 1991, as the young girl was apparently taken away by two unidentified people.
The incident occurred as she was walking from her home to a school bus stop in the southern Lake Tahoe town of Meyers.
“ She sounds like she's okay. I hope she's been well treated this entire 18 years ”
Carl Probyn Stepfather
Her stepfather - who initially came under suspicion in her disappearance and is now estranged from Ms Dugard's mother - has described how a stranger drove up and grabbed Ms Dugard, bundling her into a grey car even as she tried to resist by kicking and screaming.
Mr Probyn believed a man and woman were in the vehicle. Despite several false reports of sightings in the intervening years, Ms Dugard was never seen again.
"She sounds like she's okay," he said.
"She had a conversation with my wife and she remembers things. I hope she's been well treated this entire 18 years."
"To have this happen where we get her back alive, and where she remembers things from the past, and to have people in custody is a triple win," he told the Sacramento Bee newspaper.
I am...I am just...I'm not sure I have any words for this. The emotional side of me rages for some sort of harsh punishment towards the kidnappers, but the rational side of me forces me to ask, what sort of punishment can we justify for this without treating the crime with an emotional bias?
