I did try to help him with his cause. I typed flyers and sent emails to mind-control victims as well as others he thought would champion his cause. I did all this while maintaining the printing business. When I would question Phillip about why he didn’t go to pastors in the area and tell them his new knowledge that he was gaining from the Bible, it always ended with some excuse as to why things had to be done in a certain order and that it wasn’t time. Phillip’s “mission” continued right up until the day he brought us to his parole office appointment. Then everything changed.
Meeting with Nancy
I wanted to see her for many different reasons, the biggest being closure. Telling her that what she and Phillip did was not okay in any way. Sitting across from her in that little white room for the first time in over a year felt very familiar. I guess the feeling came from knowing her longer than I had known my own mother. But I was nervous and excited and overjoyed and thankful to see my mom for the first time; seeing Nancy did not feel in any way like that. Seeing Nancy felt almost like nothing. I think that I felt like that because there was really nothing solid between us. Our whole time together was a lie—a make-believe world that her husband created to satisfy his needs. Our relationship was built on a house of cards. One good blow and you find the pieces scatter in the wind quite easily. Those are my feelings toward Nancy: there was really nothing solid and there is nothing for me to hold on to now. At first when we were separated at the Concord police station, I was consumed with guilt and my feelings were unsure of themselves. At the meeting she kept calling me Allissa and I would say, “No, my name is Jaycee,” and she looked at me and said she was sorry and said it was hard for her to remember, and then she did it again and I corrected her again. I think in total she called me Allissa three times and in each instance I would correct her. She said she knew in her heart that something was going to happen at the parole office that day. I said that it was time, that we couldn’t have continued like we were for much longer for the girls’ sake. She asked if the girls ever think of or mention her, and at first I didn’t know what to say, I looked down and then back up at her, and she said, “They don’t, do they?” with these really sad eyes. I looked back down in my lap and told her the truth. I didn’t try to sugarcoat it. I said that it’s not really an issue right now, but if when they get older and wish to contact her, then that is their choice, but right now it hasn’t been an issue. I said what she and Phillip did to me confuses them and they really need her to come clean with anything else she knows about Phillip. I told her Phillip is not the man he portrayed himself to be. He never was. He used his con game for his first victim and then again on Katie Calloway, the victim he was in prison for before he kidnapped me. It’s always been about what’s best for him. All those times he would say the angels protected him that day that he took me from the hill never once did he even think that I was the one in need of protection that day. I also asked her what was the thing that Phillip would say … something about how if I knew about something he did, I would never feel the same about him again … She looked at me at first and said, What thing? I repeated my question again and she thought for a minute and then looked up at me and asked if I really wanted to know what that was and I said, Yes I do, I want to know. And she said she had caught him once torturing an animal, and I said was it one of my cats, and she nodded her head a few times in the affirmative and then said, “No, no it was a mouse I caught him torturing,” and I said, “A mouse?” She said, “Yes, it was a mouse.” I didn’t expect that answer. But all I said was, Doesn’t that make you wonder what else he did? How about all the times we didn’t know where he was? If he could hurt a helpless animal, doesn’t that make you wonder what else he was capable of? And she said yes, it did make her wonder. I’d like to believe she felt badly for me all those years, but in a way it was always a selfish act on her part. Yes, she didn’t want me to go through all that, but to turn a blind eye to what she knew he was doing to an eleven-year-old girl. How could she entertain little girls in the van and videotape them doing the splits and other things, all for her husband? I guess she just convinced herself that she was doing it for love. To me that is not love. You do not follow someone blindly as they lead you over a cliff. She said that she was scared when I walked in because she thought that I would hate her. I told her although I do not hate her because I do not want to pollute my body with hate, what she and Phillip did to me and my family was unforgivable. That my mom suffered more than any person should have to suffer and my sister and aunt, too, and the other members of my family. She said she hoped one day that my mom could forgive her, and I said I wouldn’t hold out for that. She told me that call her crazy, but she still loves Phillip. I told her she needed to stop thinking of what’s best for Phillip because he is going to be in jail for the rest of his life and to start thinking about what was best for her, and if she wanted to see her brothers again and have a relationship with her family that Phillip tried to separate her from. I told her to take care of herself. And I told her good-bye for the last time; I told her I would not be back. That although we didn’t get to say good-bye to each other at the parole office, that this is good-bye forever. And then I stood up and walked out.
So much has happened since that meeting. For the most part I’ve been able to focus on my daily life, but in the back of my mind I know that I might eventually have to face Nancy again. Walking away that day confirmed my right to make my own decisions. The fate of Phillip and Nancy was truly out of my hands. I realized in that moment how much I have grown when Nancy’s attorney felt it necessary to challenge me to call him. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office supported me to make my own decisions. I know I owe the Garridos nothing and can’t understand why Nancy’s attorney felt it necessary to ask me to support the very people who abducted me.
Therapeutic Healing with a Twist
The days following our recovery were a time of limbo for all of us. I really didn’t want a therapist. I felt I had come to terms with what happened to me and I just didn’t want to relive it. Boy, was I wrong. Once I sat down and talked to the therapist they brought in, I realized I did want someone to talk to. I responded to her authentic and down-to-earth personality. Neither she nor her colleague treated me like I was special or damaged in some way. I wasn’t the main focus of the group or singled out in an odd way.
Reunification was unique in the fact that it focused on getting my feet on the ground, and during the reunification work we focused on reconnecting me to different facets of my family and dealt with the everyday practical things that I had not been accustomed to such as getting the kids their shots and overall checkups, which we never had the opportunity to do before. The girls had never been to a doctor before. We also went to see a dentist and got our teeth checked out. All of our teeth were in pretty good shape. The only potential problems the girls had were some pits where cavities could possibly develop, but other than that they had good strong teeth. I think one of the main reasons for that is, Phillip instilled the good habit of chewing sugar-free gum from a very early age in them. He was very proud of himself for reading that in a magazine about health and knew that he wasn’t going to be taking them to the dentist, so he thought of a way to make it work for himself. My teeth are in pretty good shape, too. I had a lot of dentist chair time when I was little and I still have my original fillings. They have lasted a really long time, and it really surprised me to find that out because I thought fillings only lasted a few years, but these have lasted me more than eighteen! I have never been very fond of the dentist—I can’t say it’s something I ever missed—but the dentist that they took us to was very nice, and her office was open and not closed in like I remember my old dentist’s office being. The girls had no trouble either. So their first trip to the dentist was a success.
I really wanted stability. Not just for the girls but me, too. It took me a while to figure out that the choice to stay in the area that we had been relocated to or go back down south, where my mom, sister, and aunt currently lived, was mine to make. I had never really had that choice before and the concept was new to me. My aunt went back to where she and my mom lived to make preparations for my return. During the time she was away, I made up my mind that I did not want to return to the Los Angeles area. I had come to love the beautiful place in which I was temporarily living. Even with the generous donations we had been receiving in the mail, we still did not have enough
