Jaycee Dugard diary entries

I’m a little late — like ten days late — but I just found a People magazine article about Jaycee Dugard’s diary that she kept in captivity. From the little that has been released, it shows (unsurprisingly) that she remained under extreme strain even more than a decade after she was taken. The prosecution hopes to get a restraining order prohibiting the Garridos or their lawyers from contacting Jaycee and her daughters. Jaycee is receiving therapy, and the latter article link says she’s trying to distance herself from Garrido by, for instance, choosing new names for her children to replace the ones Garrido picked. This would have the added benefit of making the children less easy to identify. There can’t be that many kids out there named Starlit Dugard or Starlit Garrido.

It’s really the children I feel the most sorry for. They knew no other life before the sham was exposed, and Garrido, monster that he is, is their father and they must have a lot of conflicting feelings about him. It sounds like Jaycee has a good, supportive, sensible family and support network. I only hope all three young women are able to rise above this and somehow lead normal lives.

The NY Times has the court filing linked here.

At last I have something to report

Last fall I gave my rapist a name. I felt like I had to call him something, and “the guy who raped me” and “the beast” and so on was getting a bit old. In the movie L. A. Confidential, one character’s father was a cop who was killed in the line of duty, and the killer was never caught. His son referred to the killer as “Rollo Tomasi” just to give him some personality. This actually turned out to be an important plot element in the movie. I named my rapist Rollo also. (He had given me a name when I met him, but it’s no more likely to be his real name than “Rollo” is.)

Anyway:

I called the cops in Virginia the other day. I hadn’t spoken to Det. Austin since August, but he recognized my voice right away. He had extremely glad tidings: namely, that they have a suspect and his DNA is in the lab awaiting comparison with what they took from me. I didn’t even know they’d gotten any DNA off of me, in fact I kind of doubted it. But they did, and in a few months (lab results tend to take forever) we’ll know whether they have Rollo or not.

And even if they don’t have Rollo quite yet, they will get him. The cops have by no means forgotten me — in fact, Austin said my file was sitting on his desk right in front of him when I called. That DNA has got to match up with somebody sometime, and DNA evidence is well nigh irrefutable. I probably wouldn’t even have to testify — though I’m determined to do so regardless. I am looking forward to the day I can see Rollo sitting in the defendant’s dock looking all pitiful while the judge tells him he’s got five years to life times five and will never see the light of day again.

Until then…nothing to do but wait. And anticipation makes revenge all the sweeter, yes?