nervous. He said everything would be fine and we’d get some breakfast on the way home. I couldn’t say anything; I just shrugged my shoulders. On the inside I was wondering what he thought he was doing; did he really think we could just walk into his parole office and nothing would happen? But after years of being conditioned to listen to him on everything, it was easy to not say anything. Nancy didn’t say anything the whole way up. The girls said everything would be okay. I was nervous that I would say the wrong thing and mess up whatever he had planned. All he kept telling me was to not be afraid and if I was harassed to ask for a lawyer right away. Phillip always planned everything before he did it, so I assumed that he had thought this one out, too.
When we arrived at the Concord parole office we all got out of the car. Phillip marched us in the door of the parole office. I recognized Phillip’s parole officer coming toward us. Confusion registered on his face when he saw that Phillip had brought minors into the office with him. He asked me, the girls, and Nancy to please come with him to the back. He said children were not permitted in the waiting room. As we were being led away from Phillip, I remember looking back at him and asking with my eyes what to do. He winked at me. That was all. The parole agent led us into a private room and asked what we were doing here. I told him all the things that Phillip told me to say. I gave him the name Allissa because that was the name I had been using since G was born. It was the name that our clients knew me by. After he questioned mostly me for about twenty minutes, asking questions like who I was and what was my purpose for staying with the Garridos, he decided to let us go and gave me his card and told us we could leave.
We went out the back way and sat in the car willing Phillip to walk out of the building so we could return home. I still could not fathom what the outcome of that day would turn out to be. Nancy was strangely quiet, and I asked her if I did okay with talking with the agent. She said I did really good and she couldn’t think of anything I could have added. She didn’t understand why Phillip had brought us all in the first place. Phillip never walked down those steps.
Instead, two parole agents came out. One was the one that questioned me, and he had a partner with him. When we saw them coming, I asked Nancy what she thought I should say or do. She said I could pretend to be a distant relative of Phillip’s mother from Missouri. When the two agents arrived at the car, they asked us to get out of the car. I looked at Nancy and asked her what we should do. She said she didn’t know. While the new agent asked the girls and Nancy to sit on the curb, Phillip’s parole officer asked me to step away with him because he had a few questions for me. I felt like I was in big trouble. He said that I had been lying to him. He said that I was not the mother of these kids. I looked him in the eye and stated, “I gave birth to both of those girls and that makes me their mother!” He said Phillip said that all three of us were actually his brother’s kids. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think of a reason why Phillip would say such a thing after he had told me to tell everyone that I was the mother of the girls. I felt like he abandoned me.
I started to think that I was in real danger of getting separated from my girls because this man did not believe me. He thought me a liar. I thought this man would take the kids from me if he thought I wasn’t their mother, so I started to fight. And that’s what I tried to do even though I hated to tell this man lies, I did my best to convince him. I am not proud of that today, but I did what I had always done … tried to survive an impossible situation. I told him that Phillip was lying for me, that I was running from an abusive husband, and I didn’t want anyone to know where I was. I went on and on. By this time, the kids were really scared. My youngest daughter had to go to the bathroom. The officer said to walk with him to the bathroom. We started walking, and I tried again to convince the officer to let us go. He said he had to call CPS [Child Protective Services]. Phillip spent years trying to convince me he was the one with all the power and answers. I was so scared, and even though I was so close to having my life back, I still could not crash through the wall that he built inside of me.
A new female officer came, and the kids and Nancy were separated from me. In some strange way, it felt like I had become the suspect. I was alone in a room all by myself. I thought I would never see my kids again. The officer thought I had taken the kids and run away from somewhere. The officers said that if I didn’t tell them my name and the truth, I would be taken down to the police station and fingerprinted and then they would find out who I was. I didn’t know what to do. I asked to see Phillip. They brought him in handcuffs into the room I was in. I looked at him. I asked him in front of the officers what I should do. I told him they might take the girls away from me and I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t know what to do. He had always been the one with all the answers. Now all he did was look at me with dead eyes and said I needed to get a lawyer. They took him away. After what seemed like another hour of me sitting in a room by myself, apparently giving me time to think about my situation, they sent a woman officer to come talk to me.
During that time alone I was beginning to realize that Phillip was gone and that I was on my own and needed to take care of my girls. But I had been so conditioned to protect Phillip and Nancy that telling a stranger my story was not easy for me and I could not do it at first. I had asked for a lawyer several times, but the answer I kept getting was, Why did I think I needed a lawyer if I said I didn’t do anything wrong?
The woman officer was sympathetic and reassured me that my kids were okay and that I would see them again. I told her I didn’t know what to do. She asked again for my name and I told her I couldn’t tell her. She told me everything happens for a reason and that everything was going to be okay. She left. I was alone again. She came back a while later. It felt like an eternity. I must have gone to the bathroom a million times. When she returns she tells me Phillip has confessed. She said, “He confessed to kidnapping you several years ago.” She asked me again for my name and asked how old I was when I was kidnapped. I felt like I had just been waiting for the right question, and I said I was eleven and that I was twenty-nine now. She was shocked. She asked for my name again. I said I couldn’t say it. I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I told her I haven’t said it in eighteen years. I told her I would write it down. And that’s what I did. Writing shakily on that small paper, the letters of my name:
JAYCEELEEDUGARD
It was like breaking an evil spell. In that moment, I felt free but also exhausted and completely alive all at the same time. Talk about an emotional roller coaster. I wrote down my name for the first time in eighteen years. She also had me write down my date of birth and mother’s name. I looked at her and said, I can see my mom? She said, Yes!
After they had my name and realized who I was, they quickly reunited me with my girls. I was so relieved. Plans were made to take me and the girls over to the Concord police station where everyone thought we’d be more comfortable.
At the police station, I was given a room to wait in while the girls were entertained in the front office. I guess they felt like I needed some time by myself. During this time, I was visited by many people including the female officer that I had given my name to. I didn’t know why I was waiting in that room. I was asked for my story a few times, and I recounted as much as I could in all instances. During one of these visits I met Officers Todd and Beth. They came to introduce themselves and asked if there was anything I needed. At first I said no but then I reconsidered because I could hear G in the other room talking to anyone that would listen about how worried she was about her hermit crabs back at the house. I asked Officer Todd if it was possible to get the hermit crabs from the house and let her have them, and he said he would see what he could do. I was also very concerned about our cats and the two dogs I had been taking care of for J, the neighbor. The two officers said they would try to get some answers for me. Alone again the tears I had been holding back finally came pouring out, no longer waiting for permission to fall.
Next step involved me, a phone, and two officers from the El Dorado County Sheriff’s office. It was the much-anticipated phone call to my mom. I was really running on adrenaline by then; I couldn’t eat the food that was offered, I think I had taken a sip of a Dr Pepper. My stomach was tied up in knots. The officers first asked if I had any questions about anything and the question that popped into my mind and I asked was, “Is my mom still with my stepfather, Carl?” I was informed that my mom and Carl had been separated for years and no longer lived together. I was relieved because I had been anxious about going back to a house with Carl there. I had come to resent him for always trying to separate me and my mom when I still had time with her.
