Jaycee Dugard to Receive $20 Million Payout for State's Mistakes

The state Attorney General's Office in California has authorized a payout of $20 million to Jaycee Dugard and her two daughters "in an admission of failure regarding the parole system supervision of convicted kidnapper and rapist Phillip Garrido." Garrido kidnapped Jaycee Dugard and he and his wife held her captive for nearly two decades. Garrido fathered two daughters with Dugard while she was in captivity, and they are named in the settlement, too.

A report conducted by the Inspector General determined that state parole officers made a lot of mistakes with regard to Phillip Garrido. He was on parole for a rape conviction at the time he kidnapped Jaycee Dugard. Mercury News reports that the following mistakes were made in the case: "state parole agents wrongly classified Garrido as a low-risk offender requiring less intensive supervision; failed to review the federal parole file that indicated the hidden backyard area; overlooked visible power cables running behind the backyard fence; ignored hundreds of alerts from Garrido's GPS anklet; failed to probe the identity of a 12-year-old girl seen at the house during a parole visit in 2008; and met "parole supervision specifications" in just four quarters over the 11 years they supervised him — a 90 percent failure rate."

Phillip Garrido and his wife are in jail awaiting a hearing that will take place in October. They have been charged with 29 felony counts including kidnapping and years and years of sexual abuse.

Jaycee Dugard and her two girls are living in seclusion in an attempt to heal from years of abuse. Her daughters are 15 and 12, and in their lives of captivity had never seen a doctor or attended school.

I understand that $20 million is a lot of money, but the state of California is essentially buying Jaycee Dugard's silence. I wonder if that kind of a payout can even begin to heal the years of abuse both Dugard and her daughters endured.

I wish I knew what made people tick. As frightening as it would be, I'd like to understand the makings of a mind like that of Phillip Garrido. Only in understanding the complexities can we learn to treat...if possible...such people, or at the very least warn others about them.

I hope Jaycee Dugard and her daughters are able to start life over, but something tells me that the past will always haunt Jaycee to some degree.

Source: Mercury News