Jaycee Dugard had been eleven years old when she disappeared. She would be thirty before anyone knew she was alive.
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## The Girl in the Pink Outfit
On the morning of June 10, 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard left her home in the South Lake Tahoe area community of Meyers, California, and walked toward the school bus stop at the end of her street. She was eleven years old and wearing an all-pink outfit. She had a backpack. It was an ordinary school morning in a quiet mountain community.
Her stepfather, Carl Probyn, was watching from an upstairs window as Jaycee walked down the street. He later told investigators that he saw a car slow beside her. There appeared to be a brief interaction, and then Jaycee was forced into the vehicle. Probyn ran downstairs and grabbed his bicycle. He pedaled after the car, shouting, but the vehicle accelerated and was gone. A few classmates who were also walking toward the bus stop were too far away to intervene.
Phillip Garrido had used a stun gun to subdue the eleven-year-old. His wife, Nancy Garrido, was in the car. They drove Jaycee approximately three hours south to their property at 1554 Walnut Avenue in Antioch, California—a distance of less than 200 miles from her home. She would not see the outside world, at least not freely, for the next eighteen years.
The disappearance triggered an immediate and extensive search. Television news programs carried the story within hours. Tens of thousands of fliers and posters were printed and distributed. Volunteers joined organized search parties across the Tahoe region and the surrounding area. Law enforcement agencies coordinated tips and leads. The FBI became involved.