BeachGirlFLA
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/08/girl_kidnapped_at_11_is_found.html
It sounds like the plot of a made-for-TV movie. An 11-year old girl is kidnapped on her way to a school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. Her stepfather, who sees the girl pulled into a car, gives chase on a bike but of course can't catch the car. Her family gives her up for lost and likely dead. Then, 18 years later, she walks into a police station in the San Francisco Bay area.
It's downright incredible. Yet this is what California law enforcement officials are saying happened in the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard.
NPR's Ina Jaffe reported the following:
It sounds like the plot of a made-for-TV movie. An 11-year old girl is kidnapped on her way to a school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. Her stepfather, who sees the girl pulled into a car, gives chase on a bike but of course can't catch the car. Her family gives her up for lost and likely dead. Then, 18 years later, she walks into a police station in the San Francisco Bay area.
It's downright incredible. Yet this is what California law enforcement officials are saying happened in the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard.
NPR's Ina Jaffe reported the following:
Jaycee Dugard was on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe On June 10, 1991, when she was pulled into a gray sedan occupied by a man and a woman, according to witnesses at the time. They heard her scream, the car sped away, and she was never found, despite a nationwide search.
Dugard's mother, and a sister she has never met, have flown to Northern California to meet her. The El Dorado County Sheriff's department, says DNA tests are being conducted. Lt. Les Lovell said "We are very confident at this point in time that it is her." He said that two people are in custody in connection with the case but gave no details.
An Associated Press story has more details:
Jimmie Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department, said FBI and El Dorado sheriff's deputies arrested two suspects Wednesday night. They were being held in the Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez.
Lee said the two were being held for investigation of several charges, including kidnapping, but he could not elaborate.
Law enforcement sources said authorities were also searching a home in Antioch.
Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, said the news was like winning the lottery.
"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.
Witnesses reported that a vehicle with two people drove up to Dugard and abducted her while her stepfather was watching on June 10, 1991, the Sheriff's Department said in a news release Thursday.
In media reports at the time, the girl's stepfather said he heard Jaycee scream then jumped on a bicycle and frantically pedaled after the car in a failed effort to follow it up a hill. Hethen turned around and screamed at neighbors to call 911.
The case attracted national attention and was featured on TV's "America's Most Wanted," which broadcast a composite drawing of a suspect seen in the car.
It will be a long, long adjustment period for all of them. I'm glad they are safe now.
You have a registered sex offender with a history of kidnapping, who is reported to have children on his property, and you don't search every inch of it and quiz every neighbor? Someone dropped the ball in the worst way. Yes, he had it somewhat hidden, but if the neighbors saw it, the police could have seen it....perhaps from the reporting neighbor's house. 
