Going West: True Crime - Jaycee Lee Dugard // 49

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

In 1991, an 11-year-old girl was on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California when a car pulled up and snatched her. 18 years later, she would finally be reunited with her family. This is the abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard. ___________ Get 20% off your Microdose order AND free shipping by using promo code "goingwest20" at checkout! The CHD, THC, and CBG benefits will help relieve body pain, anxiety, anger, addiction, and insomnia. Try it today! https://www.lumicbd.com/shop-home#!/Microdose/p/147261371/category=36915054 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host teeth, and I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. We created a promo code for you guys to use for our merch, head over to goingwestpodcast.com and hit the shop button. If you use code Westerner, you'll get 10% off. If you join our Patreon where you get bonus episodes every month, you'll get 20% off. So remember that's code Westerner for 10% off or join our Patreon at patreon.com slash going west podcast for 20% off. The 10% off lasts about a week and the 20% off lasts two weeks so go check those out. Make sure you guys go get your merch just in time for Christmas and New Year's.

Before we get into today's episode we want to give thanks to everyone who left us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Thank you so much to Cassandra from Battle Mountain Nevada and Sandy from Michigan. And a big thanks to M from California and Chuck from Georgetown, Indiana. Thank you Hope from Northern Virginia and Tori from Oregon. And then we have Brooke from Denver, Colorado

and Felicia from Idaho. Big thanks to Sarah from Medford, Oregon and Dina from Kansas City, Missouri. And then we have Ali from Albany, New York and Alexandria from Toli, New York. Thank you Amead from Nevada and Tiffany from Chicago. Thank you to Cindy from Los Angeles and Sarah from Cleveland, Ohio. And last but not least, thank you so much to Rachel from Asheville, North Carolina, Beth from Idaho, Wendy from Ontario, and Ace from Norway. You guys are awesome!

And we also have to give thanks to our newest patrons over on Patreon. So thank you so much to Yasinia, Anna, Rachel, Lauren, Naomi, Halle, Vivian, Jen, Heather, and Katie. Thank you so much, guys! Yeah, thank you. If you guys want to join our Patreon, again, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. We release a bonus episode every month, and like I also said, right now all patrons are getting 20% off of new going west merch. So make sure to check that out. Alright guys, this is episode 49 of going west, so let's get into it. A cuised kidnapper, Spillup Gerardo and his wife Nancy appear in court for the first time, charged with kidnapping and raping 11-year-old JC Dougard, and keeping her captive for 18 years.

This is the place where JC was held prisoner for 18 years, and where police say she was forced to raise the two children she had with the kidnapper. The citizens should be outraged that a predator like him was free to prey upon somebody else only this time, unfortunately, 11-year-old child. I don't feel like I have this rage inside of me that's building. Why not? How can you not? I refuse to let him have that. He can't have me.

I hate that he took her life away. He stole my baby. He stole your childhood, he stole your adolescence, he stole high school problems and I'm a little bit more excited than I am. But he didn't get all of me. J.C. Lee DuGard was born on May 3, 1980 in Orange County, California to parents Terry Dewgard and Ken Slayton. Ken was never involved in J.C.'s life and he didn't even know that he would father to child at all, so she was solely raised by her mom, Terry. In 1988, when JC was about eight years old, Terry married a man named Carl Proben, who was about ten years older than her. They had a daughter named Sheina in 1990, and in September, the family decided to move out of Southern California to Northern California. More specifically, South Lake Tahoe, because they wanted to live somewhere more rural and safe.

In June 1991, JC was very shy but sweet and she was a really smart fifth grader. She had an amazing relationship with her mom and her little sister, but she was never a huge fan of her mom's husband Carl. And she didn't really think that he liked her either. On the morning of Monday, June 10, 1991, Terry, Jasey's mom, headed off to work as a type setter at a printing shop in town, knowing that Jasey would walk herself to the bus stop as she usually did. She always made sure to give her daughters a kiss goodbye before she left for work, but she had been late for work a few days recently and didn't want to get in any trouble, so

she hurried out the house that morning, figuring that she would see her daughters later that day when everyone got home. JC was particularly sad about this when she woke up seeing that her mom was gone because she had wanted to ask Terry if she could shave her legs for an upcoming field trip. JC was in the end of her elementary school career and would be entering sixth grade in middle school just a few months later. J.C.'s set off to school that sunny morning wearing her favorite outfit, which was pink stretchy pants, a white t-shirt, and a pink windbreaker jacket. She always walked to the bus stop, which was just up the hill from her house. It was a very woodsy area, and in fact, her house was pretty much encased in beautiful pine trees and they lined the street as well

so it was a super woodsy rural area. As she walked against traffic up the hill, a car pulled over and approached her. She thought that they were going to try to ask her for directions, but when the man rolled down the window, her entire body went numb and she fell in the grass behind her. He had shocked her with a stun gun. The man then got out of the car and threw JC in the back seat and covered her with a blanket. She was fading in and out of consciousness, but her muffled voices coming from the front seat. A man was laughing, saying, I can't believe we got away with it. Crazy enough, JC's stepdad Carl actually witnessed this happening because it was all

inside of their house, maybe around a third of a mile away. Carl had been working in the garage when he looked up to see JC being thrown into a grey, mid-sized car before they made a U-turn and sped away. He could even hear her scream after being shocked. He couldn't tell the maker model and couldn't see the license plate number, but he believed it to possibly be a Mercury monarch. He immediately felt his pockets for his keys so he could go after the car, but he didn't have them on him.

So he jumped on a mountain bike and started peddling as fast as he could after the car. But since the abduction happened on a hill, he couldn't pick up enough speed to follow them, so he went back into the house and called police to explain what just happened. After the police had been informed of JC's abduction, they visited her mom Teria at work and told her that they had reason to believe her daughter was kidnapped. Search efforts began right away and police set up roadblocks with hopes of stopping her captors before they could leave the area. Within just hours, JC's photos were all over local and national news. Kids at school advocated

for her safer turn using signs, dozens of volunteers passed out flyers and mailed them to various businesses in their surrounding areas and even throughout the country, they tied pink ribbons, her favorite color, all around town, the entire town of South Lake Tahoe wanted JC back. But police knew that they would only have a small window to find her, because when it comes to abducted kids, you usually have like a 72-hour window. But they had virtually no evidence at all. All they knew was that she was taken by someone driving a great car, and that could be anybody. Terry of course was completely broken to discover that her daughter had been taken away, and

she was imagining the worst. In a lot of cases that we cover about abductions, the child often just vanishes, but with Terry knowing that JC was pulled into a car, she could only imagine how horrible her daughter's reality was. But she fought hard to keep her name in the news and make sure that police were doing everything they could do to find her. She even blamed Carl initially for not having done more to catch the perpetrators, and the police were looking into him as a suspect since he was the only one to witness her abduction.

But some of JC's classmates came forward and explained that they had seen her being taken to. They saw a man put her in his car while they were on the school bus. Police still questioned why Carl hadn't done more to stop the car. Like we said, Carl had seen the whole thing. But he even saw the car slowly following JC. But he says he thought that it was one of her classmates' mothers or someone who knew her. He thought maybe someone was playing a joke. Police also couldn't help but notice that Carl and JC didn't have a good relationship, and they couldn't figure out why. So they gave him a polygraph test and asked him questions like, did you ever wish JC wasn't here? To which he apparently

responded, there were times I'd wished JC wasn't in our life. But he also mentioned that her abduction was heartbreaking and that he never wished anything like that would happen. He passed the polygraph and even went under hypnosis to prove that he had nothing to do with any of this. Terry eventually realized that there was little Carl could have done to help and that he wasn't to blame for what happened.

Since the story was so public, a lot of tips came in from people claiming to know where J.C. was, but some of them were really unsettling and out there. A lot of people wrote in saying that she was a part of a satanic sacrifice. One woman who claimed to be a psychic told Terry that she felt her daughter was in the trunk of a car at a casino somewhere. But none of these theories actually helped them. The only piece of information that was helpful other than the slight description of the car was that Carl said other than the man, he had also seen a black-haired woman in the car who he believed was Pakistani or Indian.

Originally, this information slightly comforted Terry because she thought maybe this woman had lost her child and took JC with hopes of loving her and raising her as her own. This gave her hopes so that she could still find JC alive and well and that nothing bad would happen to her. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the case. JC wasn't awake for most of the car ride, so she had no idea how long they'd been driving. Eventually, the car stopped, and the man took off J.C.'s blanket to ask if she was thirsty.

J.C. remembers having a very scratchy and dry throat, so she took a big sip. The man laughed and J.C. passed out again. When they finally got out of the car, J.C JC was still covered so she couldn't see or be seen and was led through the side of a house. She listened for any kind of detail so she could figure out where she was to hopefully somehow tell her mom. She remembered hearing train tracks. The man led her to a shed-like space and

removed the blanket from her head. He then forced her to remove her clothes before taking out a pair of fuzzy handcuffs and locking her hands behind her back, stating that he couldn't trust her yet, so she had to wear them. He left the little house and locked the bolt shut. She remembered hearing lawn mowers and other sounds that made her believe she was in a neighborhood somewhere. The man who took JC Lee Dewgarde is named Philip Gerido, a regular looking white six-foot-two man born on April 5th, 1951, in Pittsburgh, California, meaning that in 1991 he was 40 years old. In 1969, Philip graduated high school and began dabbling in drugs.

He developed a serious problem with substance abuse and was arrested at the age of 18 for possession. Just three years later, when he was 21, he was arrested yet again for drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl. But he didn't end up serving any time for it because the girl didn't want to testify. After this, he met a 19-year-old girl named Christine Murphy, who was working at a casino in Reno, Nevada. They got married when Philip was 23. She later explained that he supposedly took LSD every day and would become

extremely violent when she rejected his sexual advances. On one occasion, he saw Christine talking to another guy, so he put a safety pin and her face, which left a lasting scar. In 1976, at the age of 25, he abducted a 25-year-old woman and took her to a warehouse where he repeatedly raped her for eight hours. At this time, he was still married to Christine, and for this, he would be sentenced to 50 years in prison. Unfortunately, he only served 11 of those years and was paroled in 1998 at the age of 37, just three years before JC's abduction. The woman that helped Philip abduct JC Dewgard is named Nancy Bokonegra. She was a Mexican American born on July 18, 1955, so four years after Philip in Texas. She was a Jehovah's Witness when she went to prison to visit her uncle where she was introduced to Philip Gerido, and Philip began writing her love letters and telling her that he had found God.

So obviously this interested her, and he told her that he was no longer interested in sex and drugs, which also impressed her as those were two things that she did not participate in. The two got married in 1981 while Philip was still in prison. He said it was God's plan. At the time Nancy was living in Denver, Colorado, but moved to California years later so she could be with Philip when he was released in 1988, so they were married for about seven years while he was in prison. When he was released, Nancy became a certified nursing assistant which had always been something she was interested in, and she began caring for Philip's mother who had dementia. Her brothers describe her to have been a very normal and happy person growing

up and that she was an all-American girl, but they also said that when she married Philip, she became a different person. So let's get back to JC's captivity. For most of the week, JC was alone. The only time she saw someone was when Philip brought her fast food. She wasn't allowed to go outside and she didn't have access to a bathroom other than a bucket on the floor. And she still hadn't seen Nancy yet. She just knew that there had been a woman based on hearing her voice while in the car during her abduction.

But the rest of the time, she was handcuffed in a little shed. And you can just imagine how uncomfortable it would be to have your hands behind your back for that length of a time, but she didn't even let herself cry because she couldn't wipe away her tears. By the end of her first week in captivity, Philip had raped her while she was still handcuffed. And remember, this is a 40-year-old man doing this while a woman in the main house knows everything. Weeks passed and JC didn't leave that shed. Sometimes Philip would come in and talk to her

and try to make her laugh, which she didn't mind all that much because she was so lonely the rest of the time. He eventually took off the handcuffs for a period of time because they were leaving painful marks on her wrists, and at that point, he trusted her a little bit more. JC was very well behaved in the sense that she didn't try to escape, she didn't scream, she didn't cry, she did everything Philip asked of her in hopes of someday being able

to escape. She knew if she was on Philip's good side, she would earn his trust. She was really smart like that, and she always remained calm, despite being extremely horrified and lonely on the inside. So let's just talk about this for just a second and like you said, I really feel like J.C. is smart because I think that she knows that if she tries to escape or she's causing problems for Philip that there's the potential that he could possibly kill her so she wants to get on his good side and possibly be released. Well yeah there was actually an interview of Carl where he was talking about her and the reason that she didn't die right away probably was because of her personality.

Because she was calm, because she was mellow, she didn't freak out, she didn't try to run away. She knew that she had to be good so that she could get away in the future. You know, and she didn't know when that was gonna be, but she knew that it would work out in her favor if she just was obedient, which is horrible that she had to do that, but the fact that at 11 years old, she's that smart, and she knows that she has to act a certain way to stay alive is insane. Yeah, and especially when she's literally staring fear right in the face and she's probably extremely terrified, this is one brave little girl.

Within the first month, Philip rewarded JC with a TV so she would have something to entertain her. But she wasn't allowed to change the channels or watch the news, and little did she know she was all over the news. Her mom was all over the news, pleading for her immediate and safe return. So each night, JC fell asleep to QVC. And for those of you who don't know, QVC is a shopping channel where they advertise different products. A couple of weeks after she got the TV, Philp decided to move her to a larger room next to the soundproof shed that she was already in.

I want to mention really quick so he had this soundproof shed because he was a musician and he wrote these songs and he actually would have Nancy record videos of him playing guitar and singing in parks where there were children behind him like playing on the playground and while Nancy would be filming she would kind of like veer off and zoom in on the little kids and It kind of to get away with filming little children at a park like these sick fucks would do and so initially He did use that soundproof shed to make music and now he's using it to house an 11 year old girl who he kidnapped So when Jayce got to this new space what she called the studio She was handcuffed to the bed.

Throughout this time, she was still being sexually assaulted and Philip tried to make her believe that she was helping him with his sex problems. And because of her, he wouldn't be doing this to any other little girls, so he kind of guilt tripped her in that way. Saying if she doesn't let him have sex with her, then it's her fault that other girls are going to get raped, which is so completely fucked up. And this is how manipulative he is, you know, and she's a really smart little 11 year old girl, but this is what he does. He just tries to make her feel guilty.

Oh, you're not gonna have sex with me? Well, you're helping me and you're helping other people. So how could you, you know, not want to do that? Right, and that's just so sick. This is a 40-year-old manipulative man who knows exactly what he's doing to twist Jasey's mind. Right. And to make things even worse, it wasn't long before Philip started taking methamphetamine around Jasey. And while he was using, he would visit her for hours and hours and make her play dress up while he did like little paper cutouts from porn magazines So sometimes she cried during these times because he really scared her, you know He was on drugs. He was a totally different more evil person and he said a lot of disturbing things to her

But would even sometimes cry and apologize to JC saying that he was so sorry that he was doing this to her, and that he wished that he didn't have the desires that he had. And he would also hear voices in the walls, and he would make her listen for them. Since Jaycee was handcuffed and always did what he said, he generally trusted her. But since she would sometimes ask if he could take the handcuffs off, he would threaten to sell her to people who would put her in a cage or threaten to release her to wild dogs if she ever tried to escape. So, I mean, you can only imagine again, she wants to leave so bad, but she has no idea what this guy's gonna do, she's nowhere

she is, and so she just has to stay put. Nancy and Philip Gerito lived at 1554 Walnut Avenue, which is a three-bedroom house in a neighborhood in Antioch, California. It's a neighborhood in the Bay Area and it's about three and a half hours southwest of J.C.'s home in South Lake Tahoe. The backyard was trashed and the two appeared to be hoarders as there was junk everywhere in the house and the yard. And for those of you who want to see this house, we will have pictures up on our Instagram at Going West podcast. So it took around seven months for Nancy to enter the picture, even though she had been in the main house the entire time while JC lived out in the backyard in the little studio as we mentioned. Nancy brought JC, chocolate milk, Barbie dolls, and stuffed animals.

So once JC was done with the milk, she used the cartons to make houses for her Barbies. Nancy also cried and apologized to JC for what they did. The worst part is that they're both crying and apologizing once in a while to JC, and it's like, okay, how about you just let her go? You know, it's like their selfishness is just taking over because obviously on their part, they don't wanna get caught and go to prison for this because she's already seen their faces.

But I mean, clearly they know that what they're doing is so wrong, so where does it end? Yeah, I kind of feel like this happens probably quite a lot in cases like that where someone does something terrible And then they're like, well, I can't let this person go. You know, like you see in the movies It's like, well, you've already seen my face. I can't let you go kind of thing, you know Right, but that's what I mean like so where does it stop? When is this going to stop? Right. Where does this whole thing end?

So Nancy obviously wasn't a good person because she was still letting this happen, so just because she cried, it doesn't mean really anything. And she would often get upset with JC too and tell her that she was jealous that her husband was giving her all this attention as if it was JC's fault that she was being held captive. JC tried to make Nancy like her too because she was afraid of what might happen if Nancy didn't like her. In 1993, so about two years after J.C. was abducted, she remained in the backyard of that house. Parole officers would come by and do routine checks and make sure Philip wasn't doing anything against his parole. Because remember, he was on parole for raping and abducting

that 25 year old girl. So they would come by and check on him. Meanwhile, they all failed to check the backyard. But when given a drug test in 93, Philip failed it. And he was sent back to prison for four months. During these four months, Nancy had to watch after JC, and she told JC that Philip was on an island with his friend when he was actually serving time. Nancy and Philip gave JC a kitten to keep her company, but after a short time, the kitten

vanished. After they decided to present her with a different cat, it peed in the studio which infuriated Philip, so he got rid of her too. Jace loved having the cats around because they kept her company and they were companions that were actually kind to her, and she was devastated when they were taken. Jace was given a journal where she would write about her kittens and her thoughts, but she never said anything really bad about Philip because he would read them. At one time, she signed her name Jace at the end of her journal entry and Philip ripped it right off the page.

He told her that that wasn't her name anymore and she wasn't allowed to say it or write it. He made her pick a new name and she chose Alissa because she loved the young actress Alissa Milano on the popular sitcom Who's the Boss? The following year in early 1994, JC was 13 years old and given home cooked food for the first time since being abducted. It was around that time that Philip and Nancy told JC that they thought that she may be pregnant. And it was true. JC didn't even know that sex was what got you pregnant and she didn't make that connection until many months into her pregnancy after seeing it on TV. Philip watched videos with her about having a baby since this would be his first baby

too. On August 18th, 1994, so around four months after learning she was pregnant, JC went into labor at the age of 14. She was all by herself, bolt locked in the shed when she started feeling contractions, and she was handcuffed at this time, so she had no idea what to do. So when we left off, JC was having contractions, and after a couple of hours, Philip finally came out to check on her and realized that she was in labor. JC gave birth to a daughter in the backyard with just Philip and Nancy by her side. Philip chose the name Angel for her and JC loved it. Although JC was so incredibly young and had no idea how to even be a mother since she was still a kid herself, she was so happy because

she knew she wouldn't be alone anymore. Angel was a light and her very dark reality. JC raised her with the help of Philip and Nancy and Philip prayed that he would never do anything to his child. A couple years past and JC was now a teenager. Her mother was working to raise money to hire a private investigator and had an age progression image of JC made so she could release it and keep people looking for her daughter. Little to Terry know, she was now a grandmother.

Philip continued to go on drug infuse rants and mistreat JC. He also continued to rape her, which got her pregnant a second time in 1997 when she was 16 years old. On November 13, 1997, J.C. Dugard gave birth to her second child, another daughter who they named Starlit. At this time, Philip decided that J.C. and the girls needed more space, so he set up a big tent in the backyard and put a bed, dressers, and other furniture in it. So it was essentially as if they were camping for a living. And, by the way, there was no electricity, like in the tent, obviously, because you're in the backyard. So they had like extension cords running across the yard to go into the tent,

but they didn't really have very much electricity at all. And I'm also sure most of us have camped and know that tents can easily get way too hot or very cold and Philip locked them in there with absolutely no access to the yard. So you can just imagine how awful and uncomfortable the situation would have been. Yeah, you basically aren't really breathing fresh air every day. And JC and her daughters were rarely given the opportunity to go outside, but Phillip eventually built an 8-foot fence around the yard so that JC sometimes could. She used her time outside to plant flowers and create a garden outside of her tent. As the years passed, JC homeschooled her kids, but she herself only had a fifth grade education, but she did her

best to raise her daughters and keep them safe from Philip. But one day, Philip told J.C. that she had to let Nancy become Starlit and Angel's mom because Nancy couldn't have children of her own and she was jealous of her bearing two children. J.C. didn't have a choice. She had to pretend that she was just the girl's sister while Philip and Nancy played mom and dad. Philip started his own printing business where he had J.C. be one of the graphic designers.

He had customers come by the house often and pick up their products. The most frustrating part of this was that people were now seeing J.C. who went by Alissa and she couldn't tell them what was going on. She also had access to the internet and to email. And although she was incredibly tempted to look herself up and try to find her mom, Philip threatened her and said that he could check whatever she searched, so she better not try anything. After being in his control for so many years, she was terrified of what would happen if she did look up something she wasn't supposed to. And even though she had a little bit more freedom, she couldn't use it to help herself.

And I also wanted to mention if any of you are questioning why he was letting his customer see JC is because, you know, at this point, she was like 17 years old and probably didn't look that much like she did when she was 11, at least not enough for a random person to recognize her. So I think he probably felt more comfortable having a teenager in his house than a little girl. I think that looked less weird for him. Right, that totally makes sense.

Philip was becoming more and more of a religious fanatic, but it was all fueled by his drug use. He believed that he could control sound with his mind and started a blog called God's Desire Church. Philip also believed that he was schizophrenic. Pearl officers continued to make visits to the house, and there were actually over 60 visits throughout all of this time, and each time they failed to see what was actually happening. In 2006, Phillips' next door neighbor saw through their fence and noticed that there were

children living in tents. So, with them being concerned about this, they called the police, and it also explained that Philip was a sex offender, which made the situation extra alarming. A deputy went to Philip's House to assess the situation, but after speaking to him out in the front yard, the deputy left. And this is so upsetting because we know that Philip is extremely manipulative, but for a neighbor to make a concern call with those details, saying there are children living in this sex offender's backyard in a tent and for the deputy not even to check it out is so infuriating like do your job. I just don't understand why you wouldn't even go into the backyard and at least check

especially if this call was being made about children. You think the neighbors is lying? Like right and and they, they know that he's a sex offender, as well, because obviously he's on parole, so that just makes this seem really bad. I wonder what he said to the cop, like, to convince him to leave, because they were talking for about 30 minutes outside the house, and somehow within those 30 minutes, the police officer didn't feel the need to enter the house even though he totally could have. So I wonder what kinds of things that Philip was telling him. Well, it's interesting to me because Philip is also a drug addict. So with that being the case, I mean, you would probably be able to tell that he was using drugs during this time. So in that

case for me, if I was that officer, that would probably be enough for me to say, I don't really care what you have to say. I'm going to check this out anyways. Well, right. And a lot of people who came in contact with him agreed that he was really kind of wacky seeming. So that makes it even more shocking that this police officer didn't check it out. But anyway, three years went by and you know, three years went by because of this cop not going into the backyard and Philip was still trying to push his idea for this God's desire program while JC and her daughters were living in the backyard. And he described

this program as a cure for sexual predators, which was a way for people with uncontrollable sexual impulses to get better and stop offending. Because apparently this is how he was saved after being a rapist, which is just BS. He wrote a four-page essay explaining the idea of this new religion, and he took it to the FBI office in San Francisco for whatever reason. And then he went over to the University of California Police Office, which is in Berkeley, in hopes of holding an event on campus to officially begin this program. He brought Angel and Starlit with him, hoping that that would make him seem more

innocent and that this would make them want to help him. But the Special Events Manager, who is amazing, named Lisa Campbell, she thought it was super weird and she was really concerned about the girls because the whole time they were looking down and they appeared to be really sad and just so lean looking and they were also incredibly pale and they seemed as though they hadn't seen the sunlight in a long time. So the whole thing just really struck her as odd, especially because they were with this wacky guy. Could you even imagine if this program of Phillips went through all while he has a girl captive in his backyard? Right, like he's acting all like, oh, I'm saved, I'm saved, but he's literally still offending in the worst way.

So since she was a bit suspicious of the whole situation, Lisa asked Philip to make an appointment for the following day. She had no intention of setting up a religious event for him, she just wanted to buy herself a little time so she could look him up. She had Ali Jacobs, who was an officer at the school, do a background check on him, and that's when they discovered that he had several parole violations and was a sex offender who was guilty of child rape. Lisa and Ali immediately became worried about the girl's safety. The next day on August 26, 2009, Philip arrived for his appointment and brought along Nancy,

Starlit, Angel, and even JC, who remember was going by Lissa. And he wasn't concerned about bringing her in public because at this point she had been in his captivity for 18 years and he didn't think that anyone would recognize her to be JC Lee Dewguard anyway since she was now 29. So remember he was doing this when she was a teenager too when she was doing the graphic design stuff for his printing company. So now she's 29 years old. Just first before you continue, I just want to say, oh my God, 18 years in captivity, people.

Let's just take that in and think about that for a second. I mean, think about how long 18 years is. Like that's not just, you know, I've read different cases about people being taking captive for a year or nine months or whatever, but 18 years, like she was 11, that's like one and a half of her original lifetime. That's crazy. It's just so mind blowing.

So the parole officer there separated everyone for interviews after being tipped off by officer Ali Jacobs and Lisa Campbell. Because now when they all arrived, they were all under the impression that, okay, there's something wrong with this guy and these people coming in like we need to check it out. So when JC was interviewed, she stated that her name was Alyssa and that the girls were her daughters. Originally the day before when Lisa Campbell had asked Philip who the girls were, he stated that they were his brother's daughters. So she didn't really know why he was watching them or whatever, but when he brought them again and now JC is saying that they're her daughters, it's just now everyone's confused

and now the whole thing looks way more suspicious. Yeah, a lot of suspicion going on right now. But since JC had been under Philips control for so long, she didn't tell the officers who she really was. She maintained that she was a Lissa and even got upset with them for asking her so many questions. She demanded to know why she was being interrogated. She even went so far as to explain her fake story, that she had been married to an abusive

man in Minnesota and Philip took her into hiding. Philip helped her, but while Philip was being interviewed, he broke down. He told police that 18 years prior, he abducted, kidnapped, and raped her. I still can't believe that he was the one to confess that, but when police told J.C. that Philip had just confessed, she that, but when police told J.C. that Philip had just confessed, she finally felt like she could say it. They asked her for her real name, and she told them that she hadn't said it in nearly 18 years, but that she could write it down.

That's when she wrote the words, J.C. Lee Doogard on a piece of paper. The first thing J.C. asked is if she could see her mom. Both Phillip and Nancy Gerido were immediately placed under arrest and JC had to tell her daughters that she was their mother, not Nancy, which must have been super confusing considering Angel was 15 and Starlet was almost 12. The police finally called Terry, JC's mom, and told her that they had found her daughter, and she was still alive. Terry thought that they were joking, but then JC came on the phone and told her that she had daughters.

Police noticed that both Angel and Starlet seemed very normal. They didn't wear strange clothes or act weird, and they were very clever and smart, despite the fact that they had been living in captivity their entire lives. One of the first things JC asked was if her mom Terry was still married to Carl. She was worried about going back to her mom if he was there, because remember the last she knew he wasn't her biggest fan, but Carl and Terry had split up not too long after JC disappeared. After breaking free from captivity, JC Lee Dewguard was featured on the cover of People magazine,

but she kept her daughters out of the public eye. JC became an advocate for victims all over the world with her lighthearted attitude and great sense of humor. She is the most positive attitude despite spending 18 years under a monster's thumb. JC reunited with her younger sister, Sheina, who was just one years old when she disappeared, and her mom Terry became her best friend once again. The community showed an immense amount of support, but the police department and the parole officers fell under great scrutiny for their lack of efforts in this investigation.

Many have pointed out that countless times that JC and her daughters could have been rescued from their horrible reality but weren't. Two days after their arrest, both Nancy and Philip pleaded not guilty to their charges for kidnapping and rape. Nancy tried to convince a court that she was using substances and under the control of a manipulator and that's why she helped kidnap JC and let her be raped and held captive for 18 years. In court a year and a half later in 2011, they once again pled not guilty. But three weeks after this, they changed their verdict to guilty of kidnapping and rape. Philip was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison,

whereas Nancy received 36 years to life. They will both be eligible for parole in August, 2034. JC chose not to appear in court when they were being sentenced, but she did have some last words, so she had her mom Terry read them for her. She said, I chose not to be her today because I refused to waste another second of my life in your presence. I've chosen to have my mom read this for me. Philip Gerido, you are wrong.

I could never say that to you before, but I have the freedom now, and I'm saying that you are a liar and all of your so-called theories are wrong. Everything you have ever done to me has been wrong, and someday I hope you see that. What you and Nancy did was reprehensible. You always justified everything to suit yourself, but the reality is and always has been that to make someone else suffer for your inability to control yourself and for you Nancy to facilitate his behavior and trick young girls for his pleasure is evil. There is no God in this universe that would condone your actions. To you Philip, I say that I have always been a thing for your own amusement.

I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you and the sexual perversion you forced on me. To you Nancy, I have nothing to say. Both of you can save your apologies and empty words. For all the crimes you have both committed, I hope you have as many sleepless nights as I did. Yes, as I think of all those years, I am angry because you stole my life and that of my family. Thankfully, I am doing well now and no longer live in a nightmare. I have wonderful friends and family around me. Something you can never take from me again. You do not matter anymore.

The year earlier, in 2010, JC was given a $20 million settlement from the state of California because of their mistakes and lapses regarding saving and finding J.C. since their lack of efforts and proper searches of the Geritos property continued her captivity as well as sexual and mental abuse. She wrote a book in 2011 called A Stolen Life and then another called Freedom in 2016. I just got these books and I recommend that everyone check them out. If you watch interviews with her, you'll see just how positive she is. She's so happy and hopeful, and she just looks at the bright side of everything that happened to her.

So definitely go buy her books to learn more about her incredible story and journey to find herself again. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everyone, and next week, like I always say, we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. To check out photos from this case, head on over to Instagram and check us out at Going West Podcast. And also, you can head over to Twitter at Going West Podcast. And also, you can head over to Twitter at Going West Pod. And make sure to get discounted merch while you still can.

Use code Westerner for 10% off by going to goingwestpodcast.com and hitting the shop button. If you want more than just 10% off, you want 20% off. Join our Patreon. Patreon.com slash Going West Podcast. We have an exclusive promo code there for our merch and that lasts for two weeks So go now and remember guys this is a limited offer So don't waste any time also go over to Facebook and check us out at going west to crime and again Please make sure to check out jacy lee dugaard's books a stolen life and freedom

They're seriously amazing and I think we all should support her on this journey. And I forgot to mention, but you guys probably already know if you want to shout out in the show, make sure you go over to Apple Podcast, leave a five star of you, but make sure you leave your name and your location. So for everybody out there in the world, Cheerio and Don't Be a Stranger. Thank you. you