11 Year Old Girl Kidnapped For 18 Years & Found Alive

at the end of the day, it's a really powerful heartwarming story. I think you're going to be really impressed. Those were the words of a 58-year-old man only days after being arrested for the kidnapping of an 11-year-old girl. "I need her home. I need her to come home tonight to see you hear mommy, I love you, and I want you to come home tonight and stay for a sound." He held her captive for 18 long years, and in that time, she gave birth to two of his children. Abducting this little girl wasn't a crime of opportunity, it was planned. He stalked playgrounds and parks for months, places where children should feel safe. His wife would even tag along. Filming what seemed like innocent home videos, but in reality, she was secretly filming unsuspecting children, helping him choose his victim. And then in 2009, this case would make headlines across the entire world. When that 11-year-old girl he kidnapped was found alive 18 years after she went missing. "Yeah, imagine after 18 years your daughter's missing and you get a phone call saying that she's just walked into a police department and conquered. Well, that's what happened here in this case of the missing JC Lee Dugard who went missing in 1991." This is the kidnapping and survival story of JC Lee Dugard. My name is Brianna and I'm hot on the case. Hello, my name is Brianna here hot in the case. We cover a different true crime case every single Friday. If that's something you think you're going to be interested in, please make sure that you are subscribed on YouTube and following wherever you get your podcasts. I've been getting suggestions to cover a kidnapping survivor story for so long, shout out, Lucy Elizabeth. Thank you so much for this case suggestion and this case, the case of JC Lee Dugard is what immediately came to my mind. This case is actually one that is really important to me. It is actually the case that first got me interested in researching true crime when I was 11-years-old. If you've never heard of this case before, buckle up because it is such a wild, wild story and the way that she was found alive 18 years after she was kidnapped is something that just never happens and the way that it did happen was just a miracle. It was absolutely remarkable. JC Lee Dugard was born on May 3, 1980 to her parents Terry and Ken, but her biological father Ken would never be in her life and she never really knew him. So, JC was just raised by her mother Terry. Because of this, the mother and daughter were so close they bond they had was so special. Some would say they were more like sisters or best friends. When JC was seven years old, her mother married her stepfather Carl and when JC was 10 years old she became a big sister when her little sister Shano was born. JC absolutely adored her little sister and she loved being a big sister but the relationship she had with her stepfather Carl was strained. It's not that JC hated her stepfather by any means but the two weren't necessarily close. Carl always referred to JC as his daughter but JC could always tell that he treated her little sister his biological daughter differently than he treated her. Which made her feel bad. I mean, she was 10 years old, 11 years old and kids definitely do pick up on that kind of thing. But overall, JC was a happy girl. She was a pretty shy girl but she loved girl scouts and dance and animals. She had a great group of friends at school and she did really well in school too and she was just a very, very normal little girl. The family lived in an apartment in Orange County but nine months before JC was kidnapped, the family moved to South Lake Tahoe, California where they thought it would be a safer place to raise their daughters. JC was a fifth grade student. June 10th 1991 was a Monday and that Monday actually marked the last week of school before summer vacation. There was a big end of the year field trip coming up and the biggest stressor in JC's life at the time was she was really nervous about asking her mother if she could shave her legs for the first time for this big field trip. Just normal things for an 11-year-old girl to be nervous about completely unaware that her life was about to completely change forever. She was about to lose her family, her freedom, her childhood and her innocence in just five minutes. JC's school bus stop was at the top of a hill that was right outside her house. It took her about seven minutes to walk to the bus stop and her school bus always came at 8-12 in the morning so JC always walked out of her house at 8-5 every single morning. That morning her mother Terry had already left for work. Her stepfather Carl was outside working on his car when JC left to walk to the bus stop. JC said goodbye to her stepfather she was leaving for school and headed up the walk up the hill when she noticed a car drive by her going down the hill and then right in front of her house the car did a quick u-turn and started heading back up the hill towards her and then stopped right next to her. Driving the car was a man and there was a woman in the passenger seat. JC thought that maybe they were lost and they made this quick u-turn after seeing her because they wanted to ask her for directions but before JC could say anything she fell to the ground. The man in the car had tased her and before she knew what was happening she was being pulled into the car and then they drove away. JC Lee Dugard had just been kidnapped. She was gone just like that. Her stepfather Carl had witnessed the entire abduction and sadly he did not have his car keys on him at the time but he tried to jump on a bicycle and chase after this car but of course car, bicycle, it was too late and there was nothing he could do. So Carl immediately runs home and he calls 911 to report that his daughter had just been kidnapped. 911, this is anyone on tiny or boulevard. My daughter was just kidnapped. Top of the hill was a great ward. A man and a woman in the car. He gave the police everything he saw how the car drove past her and then made this u-turn to grab her. He gave a description of the car. A two-toned gray forward that there was a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat. He sadly didn't get a good look at the guy that was driving but he got a good enough look at the woman to give a description to a composite artist. Because her stepfather Carl was the last person to see JC alive he was actually under a lot of suspicion at first as a person of interest in her disappearance but eventually he was cleared of any suspicion and he was always there in the fight to find JC. As for JC's mother Terry as you can imagine she was completely devastated and she did so much to try and find her daughter and the entire community rallied behind her and her family to find JC. Hundreds of thousands of missing persons posters were made and hung up around California. Terry was even mailing her daughter's missing person poster across the entire country. The community hung up pink ribbons all across South Lake Tahoe because pink was JC's favorite color and she actually went missing wearing an all pink outfit. JC's disappearance was making headlines across not just California but across the country and her disappearance was even featured on an episode of America's most wanted. The community hosted candlelight visuals every single year on the anniversary of her kidnapping and a song called JC's song was recorded and sent out to radio stations to keep JC's case alive and to bring more and more awareness. They sold copies of the song, they sold jewelry, they did so much campaigning to raise money to find JC due guard. JC lead a guard's family has maintained a high profile sensor disappearance passing out hundreds of thousands of flyers canvassing several states in search of their missing daughter. Victoria Campbell Cadini's team coverage with a look at the family's latest effort a song in JC's honor. And whenever I sing it sometimes it's hard to get through it. It really is because it's a very sad situation. I want JC to hear it and I want the abductors that took JC to hear it and know that she's in everybody's heart. JC JC's mother Terry speaks apart on the song and it still brings tears. I want rest into your home and take your state when any arms of the wounds that love you. So many volunteers helped in the searches dogs were brought in helicopters were circulating over South Lake Tahoe but they didn't find JC or the car that she was last seen being pulled into because JC was no longer in South Lake Tahoe. After being kidnapped and teased JC was falling in and out of consciousness for a very long time laying in the back of her abductors car with the blinket over. her. When she woke up, JC was confused and terrified. She told her kidnappers that her parents couldn't afford a ransom because she was so innocent. At the time that she was kidnapped, she thought that ransom money was the only reason why monsters stole little girls. So who was it exactly that just kidnapped JC? The man in the front seat of the car was 40-year-old Philip Gerrito, a registered sex offender on parole. Reportedly growing up, Philip was a nice, normal kid until he got in a motorcycle accident and started to heavily use drugs. In 1972, Philip Gerrito was arrested for drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl, but those charges would be dropped because this 14-year-old girl was too afraid of Philip to testify against him. The following year, Philip married his first wife, Christine, but the marriage would only last a few years. Christine claimed that during her entire marriage with Philip, he was extremely physically abusive and even once, quote, tried to gouge her eyes out. In 1976, Philip kidnapped a 25-year-old woman named Katie Callaway. He brought her to a storage unit in Reno, Nevada that he had already completely soundproofed with carpet, where Philip raped her repeatedly for over eight hours. Katie only escaped because a police officer was driving by and saw that a lock was broken on the building and went inside to investigate. And if it wasn't for that police officer, Katie Callaway believes that Philip might have killed her. Philip Gerrito was arrested and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison for what he did to Katie. And as for the woman that was sitting in the passenger seat of the car that abducted JC Lee Dugard, that was Nancy. Nancy Gerrito. Nancy and Philip met while he was in prison and Nancy was visiting her uncle that just so happened to also be an inmate in the same prison. And I guess him being in prison serving 50 years for kidnapping and raping a woman wasn't a red flag because Philip and Nancy started a romantic relationship and got married in 1981 while Philip was still behind bars serving a 50 year sentence. And even though Philip was sentenced to 50 years behind bars, he did not serve his entire 50 year sentence because the parole board would release him early after only serving 11 years. Philip was released in 1988, three years before he would kidnap JC Lee Dugard. If Philip was never released early, he would have still been in prison until this year. After being released from prison, Philip and Nancy moved into a home in Antioch, California. I'm not sure when the conversation between Philip and Nancy started, but at some point in those three years after he was released and before they kidnapped JC, Philip starts telling his wife Nancy that he wanted to kidnap a little girl to keep as a sex slave in their home. And Nancy would help her husband find this little girl to be her husband's victim. There are some really creepy videos that Nancy and Philip made. They would go to playgrounds to film the children so they could pick out a victim that they planned to kidnap, but to not make it obvious that they're going to a playground to film children, Nancy would act like she was filming Philip playing the guitar in the park, but she was really zooming in on the children in the background that were just innocently playing. [Music] Okay. [Music] You got your real good? Yes. I can see you're really good. [Music] Kidnapping JC was not a crime of opportunity. They were driving around her neighbor hood the day before she was kidnapped and they saw her outside of her home. And that's when Philip told his wife Nancy that JC was the one. So the next morning they returned and they just kept circling her street until she came outside to walk to the bus stop. After kidnapping JC, she was driven to their home in Antioch, which was 170 miles or three hours away from where she lived with her family. The first thing that Philip did was he handcuffed JC. He then brought her into the shower with him where he molested her. And within those first few days after JC was kidnapped, Philip would rape JC for the first time. And he bribed her with a milkshake saying that he would only give her the milkshake after he was done. And JC would be assaulted by this man in his 40s multiple times a week. When JC was first kidnapped, Philip kept her handcuffed in a tiny shed in his backyard with nothing but a bucket to use as a toilet. And she was there completely alone for most of the time. It was boring, it was terrifying, and she would cry all of the time. The only time that she ever saw anyone was when Philip came to bring her food or when he came to abuse her. Philip would lie to her and say right outside of this shed, there were these big vicious dobermans that were trained to kill her if she ever tried to escape. Philip wanted to strip JC of everything from her past life and her identity. He planned to keep her forever. And wanted to just completely brainwash her. So Philip stole JC's name from her. He told her that for the rest of her life, she would never be called JC Lee Doogard ever again. And she was never to say that name ever again. And he forced her to pick her new name. And she picked the name Alyssa. And that was the only name that she was called for the entire time that she was in their captivity. Over time, Philip would remove the handcuffs. So at least now, JC had free reign of the shed that she was being kept in. And then after a little bit longer, he would give her a TV. So at least she now had something to do. Philip would bribe JC all of the time to make her feel like she had to be grateful of him. He would bring her fast food, and he would even bring her kittens. And he would tell her that these kittens were so expensive. So she would be so grateful. But then he would wait until she got attached to this little kitten. And then he would take the kittens away from her. A lot of what JC went through was psychological torture. And she was just completely brainwashed and manipulated. But it was the psychological torture that really would mess with her the most. Philip would tell JC this little 11-year-old girl that he just kidnapped, that he had a problem. And he knew he had a problem. He had a sex addiction and he was a sexual predator. But he took her. So it would help him with his problem. And that JC was saving lots of other little girls. Because if he had her, then he wouldn't have to hurt them. He's telling this scared 11-year-old girl that he just kidnapped and stole away from her family and her life. That it was a good thing that he kidnapped her. Because it was better that he had just one victim that he could assault all the time than to assault countless other girls and create countless of other victims. It was sick. The fact that he said this to her was sick. Philip was also heavily using drugs at this point. And he would be heavily using drugs throughout this entire case. And we'll definitely get into that more later. But Philip would have these like religious delusions of grandeur. Philip would tell JC that God and angels and demon angels told him to take her. That God and demon angels told Philip to kidnap little girls and to sexually assault little girls. Philip also had these things that he would call runs. And this meant that he would take JC out of the tiny shed that she was in and would bring her into this larger shed that he had on his property. And the And then he would take a bunch of drugs. He would take meth, he would call it crank to her. And then he would force JC to pull all nighters with him while he did drugs and then would repeatedly rape her until the sun came up. He would force her to wear makeup and dress up in different outfits and act out different scenarios to fulfill all of these depraved sexual fantasies that he had. I don't even want to call him that because this is happening to a child. And he would threaten her throughout the entire thing with a taser if she wouldn't listen to everything he said and do everything that he said. And he would also film this abuse so he could relive it later. JC was also threatened by Philip during these drug-fueled runs that he would let his dogs rape her. Philip was always trying to justify his crimes and what he was doing to JC not just by telling her that God wanted him to do this or her, but by saying that society didn't help people like him. And if I have to try and understand what this disgusting monster means by that, I would think that he means that he is a pedophile and society doesn't help predators that have these sort of feelings towards minors. So he has to do this to her because society doesn't help him and people like him. After assaulting JC, Philip would cry. He would say he was sorry and he would beg her to forgive him because if she forgave him, then it would make him feel better. Doesn't care how this is making JC feel at all. When JC was introduced to Philip's wife Nancy, JC could tell that Nancy did not like her. Philip would tell JC that his wife Nancy was jealous of the time that Philip spent with JC. Just absolutely disgusting like JC wants to be there being assaulted by her husband. She's a sicko. Nancy's also a sicko. Just as much as Philip I would say. JC is so young and so manipulated that she remembers feeling bad that Nancy didn't like her and she wanted Nancy to like her and wanted to be friends with Nancy. JC also said that Nancy would apologize to her all the time and tell her that she felt bad that they kidnapped her and she felt really, really guilty. But at one point when JC was 13 years old, Philip was sent back to jail for about a month for violating his parole. He was found with meth on him, which was not only just a crime, but it was violating his parole. So he was sent back to prison for a month and during this entire month JC was left alone with just Nancy. But at no point during that time did Nancy ever think to release her. So just how guilty do you actually feel that you kidnapped this little girl? As more time went on with JC in Philip and Nancy's captivity, they started to give her more and more freedoms. I think it was a mixture of trusting that JC wouldn't run away, but also a manipulation tactic. They're trying to gain her trust because they're planning on keeping her forever. These are the people that kidnapped her and abused her. But since they're giving her these nice things, letting her do more and more things, it's a way to manipulate this very young girl who's in their captivity and relies on them for everything to trust them and be more thankful for them. So they start letting her out of the shed more and more instead of being locked away in this tiny shed for 24 hours a day. They would start letting her come inside the house like the real house that they shared together. And then they would have dinners together and watch movies together. And then one day when JC was 13 years old, it was actually Easter, 1994, JC, Philip and Nancy all have dinner together for Easter inside of the main house. They even give JC an Easter basket that they put together and they also down and watch movies together. And then Philip and Nancy sit JC down and tell her that they need to talk to her. There's something they have to tell her. They tell 13 year old JC that they believe that she's pregnant. JC was actually already four months pregnant at this point. And at this point, JC didn't even know where babies came from yet. She was so young when this man in his 40s kidnapped her. So Paul and Nancy show JC different TV shows about pregnancy and they also make her watch birthing videos to prepare herself to what was about to happen to her in just a few months. And of course they weren't planning to take her to a doctor or a hospital so JC received no prenatal care and Philip planned to deliver the baby himself at the house. And on August 18th, 1994, JC gave birth to her first daughter when she was 14 years old. When contractions first started, JC was still locked in the tiny shed all by herself and she had no way to communicate to Philip and Nancy. So she was terrified that she was going to be delivering this baby all by herself. But eventually Paul and Nancy do come into the shed in around 430 in the morning. JC's daughter was born, but not without complications. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck when the baby was born. But Philip was able to get the cord off the baby's neck in time and the baby survived. Having her abductors baby would definitely be extremely traumatic. But for JC, it was probably the best thing that happened to her while she was in captivity. Which I know sounds extremely messed up. But not only did having this baby give JC something to do, but for the first time in three years, she was with someone that she was related to. She was with her family and being a mom made her feel closer to her mom. JC would get pregnant again just a few years later and at 17 years old she gave birth to her second daughter on November 13th, 1997. And after giving birth to her second daughter, Philip no longer sexually assaulted JC anymore ever again. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that he is a predator and perhaps JC was getting older. And as far as I can tell and at least Philip claims this, he never touched JC's two daughters, but he did claim that from the moment they were born, they would sleep in his arms every single night, which contradicts what JC says that JC and both girls were always together in the backyard. And I'm about to tell you exactly how this backyard was set up. As after JC's two daughters were born, the living situation for her changed completely. Philip and Nancy's property was a very long rectangle. They had a fence around the entire property. It was a very thick, very tall, like eight foot tall fence, but then they cut the property in half with another fence. So it looked like their property ended before it actually did. And then they have this secret second backyard past that fence, if that makes sense. And it was in this secret back property where JC and her two daughters lived. And in this secret backyard property, there were a lot of sheds and a lot of tents and a lot of tarps. It kind of looked like a tent city sort of situation. And the reason they did this, the reason they made this second secret backyard and made it look like their property ended before it actually did, was because Philip was still a registered sex offender and was still on probation. And he no longer has one little girl he needs to hide. He has three. He's not supposed to have any contact with minors. And his probation officer would come and do home checks at his property frequently, like all of the time. Probation officers were constantly coming to Philip and Nancy's home and they would go inside the home and they would check out the home and they would say that these checks were thorough, but they never found three young girls being held captive there, just a few feet away. They went to this home at least 30 times in the years that JC and her daughters were being held captive there. And they actually released that in the last 10 years of her captivity, they were there 28 times. And she was there double that length. So it's actually very likely that they went to that home at least 60 different times and they never found her. Okay, they're taking it around this room here. We've been sleeping in there. Okay, why is this door a lot? Because this is a shower thing. That can you move that out and open the door. She's conglusting. And so we use this bathroom and. All right. And then this door right here. That's where we sleep. You want to turn the light on? Sure. What does the parole agent do for his parolee, Mr. Bill? Man, you can come in office and we'll discuss that. The other day. The other day. The other day. I'm going to search and I was really up if you stay in his front row and I don't have to place you in restraint because right now I'm searching the house. So you can sit up here in the front room until we're finished. So right now it's you, your wife and your mother in here, okay. I don't believe it either. I know what you're on parole, but I don't know what you're doing everything I'm supposed to do. You sure you don't let me in this time last time you refused for me to be a witness in there. Some of Philip and Nancy's neighbors, even called the police, saying looked like there were little girls living in the backyard of Philip Greedo's home. And if they would have looked into this for a second, they would have seen that Philip Greedo didn't have any children and was a registered sex offender, not just that. He was a high risk sex offender. And no one ever did anything, so it was a complete failure of the system. But these weren't the only times that JC could have had a chance to escape. Eventually, Philip starts his own printing company out of his home and JC would do some work for this company. She had access to the company's email address and she would even speak to some of the customers not just through email, but on the phone and at least once, even in person. And she never once asked any of them for help. JC went out of the house with Nancy and Philip as well. Nancy would take JC and the two girls to get their nails done and sometimes all of them would go to the beach together and JC never told anyone who she really was. And a lot of people have tried it to victim blame JC for this, but I really need you to try and think about this from her perspective. She was kidnapped by these people when she was a child and they did a really good job of stripping her from her identity and brainwashing her and manipulating her. She was scared and she thought if she ever tried to reach out for help and it didn't work and they found out that she would be punished. But I think something that so many people forget when they try to criticize JC's actions is that it's no longer just JC in the situation and in captivity. She now has two very young daughters that she needs to protect and they need to come first. JC did what she had to do to survive. So before anyone ignorantly comments anything negative about JC, I just want you to have some compassion and some empathy for the situation that she grew up in. JC would do her best to protect her daughters trying to do everything she could to limit Philip's time around them and to give her children some form of a childhood. She would also do her best to teach them and give them an education even though she only had a fifth grade education herself. And then after stealing everything from JC, her life, her freedom, her name, Philip and Nancy wanted to steal her children. Nancy Gerido was insecure and jealous from the moment that they kidnapped JC. Now Nancy was more jealous of JC than ever again like JC wants to be there. So one day Philip sits JC down and tells her that her two daughters will now grow up believing that Nancy is their mother and JC is just their older sister. Can you even begin to imagine how devastating that was for JC? For the entirety that JC was kidnapped Philip increasingly became more and more deranged and mentally unstable. When he first kidnapped her, he told her that God and demon angels wanted him to kidnap and abuse children, but as time went on and he increasingly used LSD and meth, his delusions, his religious delusions became even worse and worse. Philip Gerido believed that he was a self-proclaimed prophet, that he was the chosen one by God. And he was completely in full on religious psychosis, I really do believe that. He believed that he was no longer sexually abusing JC because he cured himself of being a sexual predator. And he believed that it was his mission to cure other sexual predators and that he would be able to do that telepathically. And it was actually this belief that Philip had that would lead to JC finally going home. And this chain of events began on August 24th, 2009. Philip arrived at the University of Berkeley College campus with JC's two daughters to try and host an event to spread his mission and his messages from God. Two female employees immediately take note of Philip and they just get this terrible feeling that something was very, very wrong. This can only be described as women's intuition. These two women were Lisa Campbell. She worked for the campus police and was the manager of special events at the campus, as well as another campus police officer named Ali Jacobs. They know something is wrong and they want to get more information out of him so they collect Philip's information and they want to continue to investigate what's going on. So they ask if Philip can return to the campus following day they can set up an actual appointment to talk over this event that he wants to host. So like planned the next day, Philip arrives back at campus with JC's two daughters again. The two female officers run a background check on Philip because they just have this overwhelming sense as something was very, very wrong and they see that he is a registered sex offender. He's supposed to have no contact with minors and was actually a high risk sexual offender. They could also see that there was something wrong with these two young girls that he had with them. They were clearly very, very young. They called him daddy. They had the same piercing blue eyes as Philip, Philip referred to them as his daughters. He's trying to put it on this like role of being like this family man when he goes to this campus to try and host this event. So for every reason they believe that these are his daughters, but they seem different than other really young girls. They are really shy and withdrawn. They almost seem to be like a catatonic state and they did not look well cared for. What was it about those girls that told you something was not right? They just weren't acting like normal young girls would act. They were very pale. They were very, the youngest one was very intensely staring at me. Their answers to our questions seemed very clipped and rehearsed. They just seemed really lifeless. Did you ever get the impression that part of that especially from the younger one who said we were staring at you? Did you feel she was reaching out for help in any way? No. I kept trying to search her eyes for any sign of some sort of signal that she needed help and I couldn't read her eyes at all. And it's pretty much like Ali said, there was one girl who wouldn't engage the older one at all. We could not make eye contact and when she would find herself drifting away from the gaze that she had, she'd be corrected. Whereas the younger one was a little more engaging, not to confuse that with friendly, but she was just a little more engaging and just looking in her eyes, it just drew a scene. So after this meeting with Philip, the two female officers contact Philip's probation officer. They let the officer know that Philip came to this college campus. He wants a hostess event. He has these two underage girls with him, but they are his daughters and they just want to make sure that everything is okay at home. And that's when Philip's probation officer tells Lisa Campbell and Ali Jacobs that Philip Gerrito doesn't have any daughters. So it was that exact same day his probation officers arrive at Philip's home and they don't find JC and they don't find JC's daughters because they're in that hidden secret backyard. And they bring Philip back to the probation office. Philip tells them that this is all just a misunderstanding and the officers at the Berkeley campus didn't understand what his relationship to these two young girls actually was. These weren't his daughters, he doesn't have daughters, but they are actually the daughters of one of his close family friends. friends and he had permission from their mother to take them to the Berkeley campus. The probation officers let Philip leave and they ask him to return again the next day and they want everyone that's living in his home to be present during this meeting. They also want these two underage girls that he brought with him to the Berkeley campus and they also want their mother there so they can just figure out what's going on. So on August 26, 2009, Philip Gerito, Nancy Gerito, J.C. and her two daughters all arrive at the probation office for this meeting. J.C. introduces herself as Alyssa, like she had been doing for the last 18 years. She said that she was these two girls' mother and she was a family friend of Philip and Nancy and her daughters had just escaped a domestic violence situation and were living with Philip and Nancy just temporarily and they were really good people helping her and her two daughters out during a really terrible situation when she's trying to escape domestic violence. When they all arrived for this meeting, Philip was immediately separated from all of the women. So he's in a separate room being interrogated and then in a completely different room, they have J.C.'s two daughters, J.C. and Nancy. And at this point, mainly because Nancy is still there and these two girls have no idea that they are being held captive, they've only ever lived in the situation. They don't know that J.C. is their mother, they don't know that J.C. was kidnapped. Everyone's sticking to the exact same story, but they do try to run a background check on Alyssa and her two daughters and they're getting nothing back. So that's when they made the amazing decision to separate J.C. from everyone else and they bring her into a separate room and they have just her and a female officer there to question her. The officer is letting Alyssa know that they know her name's not actually Alyssa and they need to know who she is and who these two children are. J.C. said in that moment, she was actually extremely defensive and was actually really upset that they didn't believe her and that they were treating her like she was doing something wrong. She was really worried that they were going to try and take her children away because they were actually threatening to call CPS. J.C. said that there was actually a part of her that just wanted this all to be over and for all of them to just go back home with Philip and Nancy. At this point, this is all J.C. really knew. She had been abducted when she was 11 years old by that this point. She has been a victim and she's been kidnapped by Philip and Nancy for nearly double the amount of time that she lived not being kidnapped by them. And she was extremely scared that if she did tell them who she really was, they wouldn't believe her and she would just end up going back with Philip and Nancy anyway and they would find out that she told the truth and something would happen to her and more importantly that something would happen to her daughters. So even in this room with this female officer without Philip and Nancy present even though they're like screaming at her or not screaming but they're asking her over and over again "Who are you? You can tell us you're safe." J.C. just keeps saying my name's Alyssa and I don't know what you're talking about. She keeps up this story for a very, very long time but what J.C. didn't know was while Philip was in that separate interrogation room without any of the girls present. Philip confessed. He told the officers that Alyssa was not actually named Alyssa and he kidnapped her 18 years earlier. So the female officer lets J.C. know that it's okay. Philip confessed. He told us that he kidnapped you and J.C. starts to open up. The officer asks her, "How old were you when you were kidnapped?" And J.C. tells her that she was only 11 years old. That she was kidnapped 18 years ago and she was now 29 years old. They asked her for her real name but J.C. was too afraid to say it. She kept asking her and she was just too afraid but J.C. did say that she'd be more comfortable writing her name down. They hand her a piece of paper and for the first time since she was an innocent fifth grade girl, just afraid to ask her mom if she could shave her legs, J.C. wrote down her name. J.C. Lee Doogard. J.C. said in that moment, "It felt like an evil curse had been broken and she felt free." But the first time in a really long time. And that's when they told J.C. that she would see her mom soon and she couldn't believe it. She kept asking them like, "Wait, I'm actually going to see my mom." They tried for a while to get a hold of Terry. Terry was actually at work when she got the call. Could you even believe it? After 18 years, you definitely lose hope at some point. And she gets the call. Her daughter is alive. Her daughter's been found alive 18 years after she was kidnapped. Something I find really sweet is that there's a very old videotape of Terry. I believe it was during one of the first kind of late vigils for J.C. after J.C. was kidnapped. And Terry said she knows J.C. will be coming home one day and she's being fed these dreams. That J.C. will be coming home alive one day and she's someone's feeding her these dreams that they have to be true. 18 years later, J.C. was finally coming home. She is coming home. That gives me a lot of hope, a lot of optimism, somebody's feeding me dreams for a reason. Terry was on that phone call, school reaming. They found my daughter. They found my daughter and J.C. was on the phone too and she kept telling her come quick, come quick. And her mom said, "I'll be there so soon." And she immediately rushes to go get her baby girl. Terry arrives with her sister. It was J.C.'s aunt and also J.C.'s baby sister who was only one years old when J.C. was kidnapped and now her baby sister is an adult. J.C. first just wanted to see her mom before she saw her aunt and her sister and I could only imagine what a beautiful reunion it was. And then Terry got to meet her grandchildren, J.C.'s two daughters. J.C.'s daughters at this point were 15 and 11 years old, 11 years old, the same age that J.C. was when she was kidnapped. And after Philip and Nancy were arrested, J.C.'s and her two daughters were put up in a hotel room and that night she sat them down and she told her daughters the truth about everything, who they were, who she was and the life that they had been living for the past 18, 15 and 11 years. And while I'm sure that that was absolutely life-shattering, J.C. did say that they took it surprisingly well and did not seem surprised by it actually. And ahead of J.C. and her two daughters would be a lot of healing. J.C. talked a lot about therapy at first. She did not want to go to therapy, but she met a great therapist, I helped her out a lot. And she also did some animal-assisted therapy. J.C. absolutely loves animals. And J.C. also went on to start her own foundation and she wrote two books, her memoir, A Stolen Life, and a book she called Freedom, My Book of Firsts. Where she writes about all the things that she got to do for the first time after being kidnapped for 18 years. I mean, she was 11 years old when she was kidnapped and now she's 29 years old. And she has the freedom for the first time since she was 11 to do anything she ever wanted. J.C. really struggled a lot after she was found with all the media and public attention, but I think she handled it beautifully. And I really have a lot of respect for this woman, not just for everything she had been through and how strong and gracious she is, but also I really respect J.C. because she protected her daughters so well, especially with all the media attention. She protected them from the media just so so well and I have so much respect for her. There aren't really any pictures of them out there except for maybe like one that some really crappy paparazzi person took. Please don't go out there looking for any photos of these girls by the way. I'm not including any of them in this video for a reason. Let these girls have their privacy if they want to be in the public one day. That is their choice. And there's really no information about them at all out there. They did officially receive their birth certificates in 2010. But other than that, there's no information about them out there and I really think that we should just let them wait until one day they want to speak publicly. And I truly hope that all three of these women are living their best lives possible whatever that looks like. As for Philippa Nancy, two days after they were arrested on August 28th, they both pled guilty to charges of kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment. Nancy's bail was set at $30 million dollars which she obviously could not meet and I have to say in all the years and all the cases I've ever covered, I've never seen a bail set that high. Philippe received no chance for bail. So both of them would sit behind bars pending their trials. And right after Philippe was arrested, I believe it was the next day after he was arrested. He did an interview where he actually had the nerve to say that in the end, this is a very powerful and heartwarming story and he thinks everyone will be really impressed and that the world is going to know about it. On February 28th, 2011, after sitting in prison for two years, Philippe and Nancy tried to make a plea deal with the prosecution, but they were not interested in making plea deals with these monsters. So once again in April of 2011 it was April 17, 2011. They would put in pleas of not guilty again, but then after speaking with their lawyers two weeks later on April 28, 2011, they officially pled guilty to all charges. And their sentencing hearing would take place in June of 2011. At the sentencing hearing, JC chose not to attend. And she did this because she didn't want to waste another second of her life in the presence of these two monsters that stole 18 years from her. They stole her childhood from her, her teenage years from her, a majority of her twenties from her, and they also stole her being able to be a mother to her daughters for the entirety of her daughters' childhoods. But JC did write a letter and gave it to her mother Terry who did attend the sentencing hearing for her mother to read as JC's victim impact statement. And I do have that letter. I'm going to read it to you now. She wrote, "I chose not to be here today because I refused to waste another second of my life in your presence. I've chosen have my mom read this for me. Philip Gerito, you are wrong. I can never say that to you before, but I have the freedom now and I'm saying you are a liar and all of your so-called theories are wrong. Everything you've ever done to me has been wrong. Someday I hope you can see that. What you and Nancy did was reprehensible. Nancy, to facilitate his behavior and trick young girls for his pleasure is evil. There is no god in the universe that would condone your actions. You called yourself an honest man, but those are just words to you. They were your tools of choice and you wielded them with brute force. To you Philip, I say that I've always been a thing for your amusement. I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you and the sexual perversions you've forced on me. To you Nancy, I have nothing to say. Both of you can save your apologies and your empty words. For all the crimes you've both committed, I hope you have many sleepless nights as I did. Yes, as I think of all those years I am angry because you stole my life and that of my family. Thankfully, I am doing well now and no longer live in a nightmare. I have wonderful friends and family around me, something that you can never take from me. You do not matter anymore. Nancy was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in August of 2029, which is coming up and I don't like it, but I really don't think that she'll ever see the light of day again or at least I really hope not. As for Philip Gerido, he was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison. And that is the case of JC Lee Dewgard, a woman who truly inspires me. For a lot of my childhood and teenage years, whenever anyone asked me who my hero was, I would actually always say JC. This case really means a lot to me. Like I said, at the beginning of this episode, not only was this the case that got me interested in true crime, but I really do kind of think it changed my life. Not only am I now doing true crime research and putting together these videos for other people to learn about different true crime cases, but it all comes back to the moment I ever heard about JC's case. I was in the grocery store with my mom. It was right after JC was found alive after 18 years and when does that ever happen. So obviously every magazine at the grocery store had JC's face on it. And I was reading these headlines, I'm asking my mom about it and I'm just so interested in this case and this woman's survival story. And then for the next few years, there was always this documentary on her case that would always play on this channel on TV and I probably watched it like at least ten times. And I would use my family's computer to research JC's case. I watched the interview she did. I got her book out of my school library in like the seventh grade or something. I've been researching true crime since I was 11 years old and it was all because of this case and this really amazing woman's fight and her survival. I would really like to keep telling these cases that at the end actually do have a happy ending. So if there's any other kidnapping survival stories that you would like me to cover, please let me know in the comments on Spotify and on YouTube. I truly look at every single comment that comes in on all of my platforms. I got this case suggestion right from the comments on Spotify. So please let me know what kidnapping survival story you might want to see me cover next or any true crime case you'd want to see me cover next. I'm always directly grabbing your case suggestions for my future episodes and that's all I have for this week's investigation. I will see you guys all next time when we are hot in the case once again.