As the grisly details of the Dugard kidnapping story emerge, one element has gone largely unnoticed: the heroic acts of two members of the University of California Berkeley police force, which led directly to the arrest of Dugard's captor.
By now, you’ve probably heard the shocking story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped 18 years ago at age 11, and was recently discovered and freed, along with her two daughters. While Dugard and her children’s experience with their captors must have been horrifying, all three are now safe, and will finally have the chance to rebuild their lives.
As the grisly details of the story emerge, one element has gone largely unnoticed: the heroic acts of two members of the University of California Berkeley police force, which led directly to the arrest of Dugard’s captor, Phillip Garrido.
Last Wednesday, Garrido came into the UCPD special-events unit office to talk to manager Lisa Campbell about his wish to hold a large campus event for a group called “God’s Desire.” As Campbell began speaking to him, she knew something seemed suspicious.
“He had two little girls with him and they didn’t look right,” she said in a statement.
Campbell was careful not to become alarmed in Garrido’s presence, and scheduled an appointment with him for the following afternoon. But after he left her office, a fellow Officer, Ally Jacobs, ran a background check on Garrido. As it turned out, Campbell’s instincts had been dead-on: the man was a registered sex offender on parole, who’d previously been convicted of kidnapping and rape. The women didn’t have any evidence that he’d done anything that they could arrest him for, so they both met with him for his meeting, careful to take note of anything unusual.
Garrido brought the two girls with him again, and Jacobs also got the distinct impression that something was wrong with them. As a mother of two, Jacobs’ on-the-job detective skills combined with “mother’s intuition,” she said. “I started thinking like a concerned mom.”
The two officers attempted to talk with the girls, and asked one of them about a bruise near her eye. She told them it was a birth defect. “It sounded rehearsed,” Jacob said.
Although their encounters with Garrido were full of red flags, Officers Campbell and Jacobs still had no basis for arrest. But just to be safe, they decided to get in touch with his parole officer to recommend that he check up with Garrido and his daughters. The parole officer had a surprising response: Garrido didn’t have any daughters.
“My heart dropped. ‘These are kidnapped kids!’” Campbell thought. Garrido was quickly brought into custody, and the sordid truth came out: the two girls were, in fact, his daughters. Their mother was Jaycee Lynn Dugard, who he had held captive for nearly two decades. Thanks to the two police officers’ instinctive work, Dugard and her children would finally go free.
Despite the enormity of the situation, the two police officers remain humble about their role in Garrido’s capture. “I couldn’t believe I was part of something so big,” said Campbell. “People are saying I was a hero. I don’t accept that. I was just doing my job.”