I know why Jaycee Dugard couldn't tell.
She couldn't tell because she was just a little girl.
Snatched from in front of her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991 and repeatedly raped in a garden compound in Northern California, she was imprisoned for 18 years. She was unable to tell until last week, even when opportunity had presented itself, because we can't.
My own father held me captive for a decade. He hunted me at night. Before darkness fell, you could've found me locked in the bathroom eating a sandwich on the linoleum floor. The bathroom was a place of safety.
In the evening the clocks were turned ahead to make bedtime come faster, he would later tell investigators before he was finally sentenced to 30 years in a maximum security prison. He was only discovered 20 years after my own victimization due to the bravery of a little girl who was able to break the silence.
Jaycee Dugard couldn't tell, just like most of us cannot tell, because she was too afraid her escape might get botched. Over time it became safer to live with the horror than to make an attempt to tell someone.
I stayed quiet for a decade because I was told no one would believe me. I feared that even if I was believed, my family would be dismantled. Just like Jaycee was isolated, so was I. This is the craft of a child molester. To separate the victim and make them dependent. When I was younger, all we did is move. There was never time to bond with anyone. There was never time for people to know us for long enough to see that something was very wrong.
Jaycee, 29, was raped and impregnated by her captor resulting in the births of two daughters - now ages 11 and 15. She became a mother at 14 in a secret garden. The longer she was imprisoned, the harder it was for her to fathom a run for freedom.
I am a 9-1-1 dispatcher today and for the last 16 years so that I can take calls from the few who are able to call for help in a way that I could not.
I had no chance but for those who call for help now, there is a chance. In the 1970's and even the 1980's, there was no 9-1-1 education. People were not encouraged with any consistency to call for help until the mid-1990's. I want the chance and the honor to be there on the other side when they step through.
All day yesterday it chased me which is what prompted this blog. The "it" was the question, "Why didn't Jaycee tell?"
I stopped at McDonald's to pick up a salad for a friend. Two women were in the food line discussing Jaycee Dugard. They could not understand why she wouldn't yell; why she wouldn't tell.
I know one of your names is "Donna" from listening to you in line. Donna, Jaycee was a little girl and with time she was silenced.
Donna, do you know what it is like to go to bed on the eve of Easter when you're in the seventh grade and wake up the next morning devastated while everyone else is joyful?
I do. My Easter Bunny was naked. He was not planting eggs in my room. And ladies from McDonalds and the countless other people I heard yesterday discussing the case and questioning Jaycee's 18 years of captivity ----- kidnapper and rapist Phillip Garrido, age 58, was not tending a garden in that California backyard.
I attended a special training earlier this year in Virginia at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). I was invited because of my work as a police dispatcher and because I'm an instructor with APCO International. We will be doing dispatcher training in conjunction with NCMEC across the country on how to handle missing person cases and sexual abuse situations.
I had the honor of meeting and getting to listen to Colleen Nick. Colleen's 6-yr-old daughter, Morgan Nick, was stolen in 1995 from a parking lot outside a Little League game in Alma, Arkansas.
Did you know that 58,000 non-family abductions of children are reported every year in the United States? Colleen Nick had many messages for us in preparation for receiving such a phone call but what grabbed me the most was her belief that Morgan was still out there somewhere. She said we needed to find Morgan and other children like her, because they cannot get to us on their own.
I get that.
I had this rule that I couldn't tell anyone what was happening to me at home unless someone asked. So, I would make an excuse to visit my school guidance counselor and I would just sit in front of him waiting for him to ask. He never did.
Colleen Nick, I believe you. I believe Morgan is out there and I believe she is alive. Just last week I was dispatching and an alert came over our teletype system. It was an alert that told us a probable kidnapping had occurred in the last 10 minutes just an hour south of where I live.
Witnesses saw two men drag a screaming young girl into a vehicle. They witnessed one of the men hit her on the back of the head and then bound her with a blue rope and shove her in the car.
An AMBER alert was sent out but eventually cancelled because no victim could be established. You see, the little girl who no doubt was kidnapped, was never reported missing.
I learned from my training at the NCMEC that children like her are called "throwaways". No one cares that they are gone. They are invisible to our tracking but they are prey for people like Phillip Garrido. It will be interesting, and heart-breaking, to see what else authorities eventually find on the property grounds he currently and previously occupied.
To my 9-1-1 dispatch comrades, do not judge callers who have the courage to call you to report crimes that happened long ago.
I cringe even now at times when assault and battery cases are called in with a delay. Most of my coworkers are aware of my background because I speak and I write. However, on occasion, someone will make a comment about the integrity of the complaint because they waited to call. I work with an amazing group of people but this is our society.
I waited 24 years to tell. I'm smart. I'm honest. And I'm telling the truth. I just couldn't tell before that time.
Jaycee Dugard and her daughters are lucky in this moment because they've made it to the other side but the true crossing has just begun.
To Morgan Nick --- your momma is still looking for you. She will be until the day she passes, whichever comes first.
And if you should have the courage to step through my 9-1-1 line some day, I'll be waiting for you and I will not question why it took so long.
-------When the Easter Bunny is Naked, TitleTown Publishing, April 2010
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