Jaycee Lee Dugard Found After 18 Years

Carl Probyn, 60, stepfather of Jaycee Lee Dugard who went missing in 1991, holds photos of his stepdaughter. (AP Images)"]
A crazy story broke last night - Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was abducted from in front of her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991 as she walked to her school bus stop - was reunited with her mom Thursday night. Jaycee Lee Dugard was just 11-years-old when she was abducted in front of her stepfather, Carl Probyn, who apparently tried to stop it, but was too far away to do anything, and later became a suspect himself.

Probyn, who split from his wife because of the emotional strain of Jaycee's abduction, said his estranged wife called him soon after getting word that Jaycee was alive.

"She said, 'They found Jaycee. She's alive,'" said Probyn. "We cried for about two minutes."

Jaycee's abductor was 58-year-old Phillip Garrido, who is a religious fanatic and convicted rapist. Garrido fathered two children with Jaycee,   who he kept hidden in a "secret backyard." His wife, Nancy, was also arrested. She was with him at the time of the abduction of Jaycee.

The case broke when a campus cop spotted Garrido passing out religious literature at the University California Berkeley. The campus cop, Allison Jacobs, ran a background check on Garrido, she learned he was a registered sex offender on lifetime federal parole for a 1971 kidnapping and rape. Garrido's parole officer was subsequently contacted, and during a meeting, Garrido finally admitted to kidnapping Jaycee in 1991.

Jaycee has two daughters, ages 11 and 15 with Garrido. The three were kept in a shack behind Garrido's house.

In an interview with KCRA3, Garrido on Thursday night said, "What's kept me busy the last several years is I've completely turned my life around," he said.

"And you're going to find the most powerful story coming from the witness, the victim - you wait. If you take this a step at a time, you're going to fall over backwards and in the end, you're going to find the most powerful heartwarming story."