South Lake Tahoe is a small town that stands over 6,000 feet above Seal between the Nevada and California border in the United States. Surrounded by mountains, the picturesque landscape attracts thousands of tourists, both in winter and summer. With a population of around 20,000 people, everyone knows each other. And back in 1991, most would have agreed that it was a safe, quiet neighborhood.
South Lake Tahoe being a safe and quiet neighborhood was the reason that Terry and Carl Proven decided to move there from Orange County in California. They had a vacation there one year earlier and loved the place so much they chose it as their new home. They moved there with their daughter Shana and to Terry's daughter from a previous relationship, Jacey Leedwoodard. Shana was just one year old and Jacey was 11.
On Monday the 10th of June 1991, Jacey was looking forward to her last week of school. It included a trip to a water park. That morning she left home about 8am. She crossed to the other side of the street and started walking up the hill to the bus stop.
As Jacey was walking, a car drove slowly by her and came to a stop. The window from the driver's side rolled down and she saw a man. He started asking her for directions. But only seconds after he'd started talking, he took out a stun gun and hit her with it.
Jacey fell to the ground and tried moving away from the car but she only managed to crawl slowly. She wasn't able to get very far. The man got out of the car, picked her up and shoved her into the back seat, placing her down onto the floor. The man threw a blanket on top of her blocking her view and she fell to wait on her back.
Someone was pinning her down. She heard muffled voices and then passed out as the car took off at great speed. When Jacey woke up, the car was stopped and she heard two voices, one male, one female. The man offered her a drink and told her she didn't need to worry about any germs because he'd gotten an extra straw for her.
Jacey was both thirsty and hot so she took the drink. As she did, the man laughed and said he couldn't believe he had gotten away with it. After the drink, Jacey fell asleep. By the time she woke up, they had stopped again.
The man said they were home. It was still day time. He grabbed to Jacey and told her if she stayed quiet, she wouldn't get hurt. He threw a blanket over her head again and took her inside.
Once inside he removed the blanket and instructed Jacey to sit in a sofa that was in the room. Jacey noticed the man was very tall with light blowers, brown thinning hair, a long nose, and a bronze colored skin. He looked just like an ordinary person. Jacey saw two cats and asked if she had pet them.
He told her if they came to her, she could. Then he showed her the stun gun. He warned her he'd use it again if he tried to run. He then instructed Jacey to follow him to another room.
He took her to a bathroom and ordered her to undress. Jacey didn't, not wanting to be naked in front of a stranger, so he did it for her. The man got completely naked as well and asked Jacey to touch him. The woods the man held her and said he wouldn't do anything more with her that day.
He told her he was going to take her somewhere and she needed to stay quiet. Jacey asked if she could at least put her clothes back on, to which he laughed and said no. Jacey told the man her family didn't have much money but they'd pay her ransom for her. She assumed most kidnappings were for money and that's what the man wanted.
He just smiled at her and put a blanket back over her head. He took her out into the backyard and as though walking she tried to remember exactly what was happening around her using cion and touch. She heard a train in the distance and felt a rough surface under her feet with sticks, branches and rocks. She tried to remember everything she could so she would be able to tell her parents and the police where she'd been.
They entered a room and he took the blanket off her. Jacey saw a makeshift bed made by piling blankets up together on the floor. The man told her he would be putting handcuffs on her and letting her rest for a while. Jacey pleaded with him not putting handcuffs on and said she wouldn't try and run away.
As the man put the handcuffs on her he said he couldn't trust her just yet but the cuffs had fur so they wouldn't hurt as much. When he covered her hands behind her back he held the dance a lay on the blankets. He locked the door and left Jacey alone. She cried herself to sleep.
Jacey wondered who this man was and what he wanted with her. But then the more she thought about it the more she thought that maybe she didn't want to know. Then she shouted at something she had read once. If you know the identity of your captor there's very little chance they will let you go.
Philip Craig Gerrito was born in Pittsburgh, California on the 5th of April 1951. His parents were Pat and Manuel Gerrito. He also had a brother called Ron who he never really got along with. Ron thought Philip was crazy and believed that he could be capable of anything.
At the age of 16 Philip had a motorcycle accident and suffered a head injury. It was then that everything changed. He started smoking marijuana and taking LSD and it wasn't long before he was dealing both those drugs. It was around his time that he also said he could now talk to God.
After being given an electric bass guitar Philip learnt a few lines and then formed his first being. He had grand plans to make millions of dollars playing music. At the bottom of his parents garden there was an old shed which he converted into a rehearsal space. He painted it black and see on proof that it mattresses.
Nobody else was allowed inside. Philip would spend hours in there getting higher, playing guitar and masturbating to pornographic magazines. Soon there were rumours that he lured young girls into the shed with promises of free drugs before taking advantage of them. Philip's father said he was obsessed with having sex with virgins.
He considered it to be like a trophy. It was at school that he met his first wife, Christine Marie Pereira who was two years younger than him. A few months after finishing school he was arrested for possession of marijuana and LSD. He was released soon after and he immediately went straight back to the drugs.
It was in this period he started masturbating in public, in restaurants, amusement arcades and bars. He also started appearing through windows of houses of women as they undressed. He would park his car outside of schools and masturbate as he watched young girls. At times he would open his car door and expose himself to them.
At the age of 20 he moved to the chef like Tahoe with Christine and the two of them got married. She started working as a dealer in a casino while Philip played music. With one of her first paychecks Christine bought him an expensive bass guitar as well as expensive equipment. Philip was violent towards Christine and wanted to have multiple sexual partners.
She didn't. Christine was more of a servant than a wife. She later looked for ways to escape but she was worried. Philip said he would track her down if she left.
In 1972 he raped the 14 year old girl in a motel in Antioch. But the charges were dropped after Philip's attorney warned the young girl he'd make her look like a slut if she went to trial. In 1974 Philip was in a somewhat successful bent. But his baremates said he was always high on drugs, very much into the bible and talking to God.
And he also started talking about a black box of thoughts that he had. Philip brought very young girls to watch him play at band rehearsals and started talking about a particular fantasy he had. He wanted to kidnap a young girl and turn her into a sex life. He dreamed of being like a Roman emperor with unlimited sexual powers over his life.
One year later Philip was kicked out of the band and in early 1976 he and Christine moved to Reno, Nevada, 62 miles north of South Lake Tahoe. In Reno Philip rented a mini warehouse saying he was going to turn it into a rehearsal space. But he was actually getting it ready for something else. He stacked the front of the warehouse with boxes.
He hung three heavy rugs from the ceiling, a foot apart one behind the other, to sound proof the warehouse. At the end of each rug was an opening for access, creating a maze-like effect. The final rug opened out into a small room with grey, blue and a gold carpet hanging on each of the three walls. In this room there was a large dirty mattress covered by an old ripped, red satin sheet and a dirty imitation fur blanket.
On a nearby table there were handcuffs, dildos, vaseline, a pair of scissors and several bottles of wine. There were pornographic magazines piled against the wall, a movie projector in the corner, and multi-coloured stage lights hooked up to the ceiling. On Monday the 22nd of November 1976 Philip went to South Lake Tahoe. In the parking lot outside a grocery store he adopted 25-year-old Katie Callaway.
Philip approached Katie's car and asked her for a ride. She agreed since where Philip was going was on her way and he just looked like a normal average guy, someone she could even hang out with. In the car Philip lunged at her, he handcuffed her, placed her in the back seat and covered her face with a coat. Philip drove back to his warehouse in Reno.
Inside the warehouse Philip raped Katie at least a dozen times over the duration of about six hours. It didn't come to an end until the suspicious police officer saw the slightly open warehouse door and decided to check it out to see what was going on inside. Philip said he was just hanging out with his girlfriend having fun, but Katie ran away and told the real story. The case went to trial and initially Philip pleaded not guilty, both he and his lawyer blamed LSD for improving his sexual power and for leading him to have sexual abnormalities.
After thinking it through some more, his lawyer convinced him to plead guilty in the hopes that they would be able to negotiate a sentence of five years. That didn't work, he was given a sentence of 50 years. Philip requested federal prison because he claimed it had a better psychiatric department. The judge agreed.
While in prison Philip divorced his first wife, Christine, after which he still may introduce him to his 25-year-old niece who was visiting. Nancy Bocken-Angra. Nancy was a Shawer and soft-spoken member of the Jehovah's Witness. Philip courted her with romantic letters, telling her how he'd found God and how it was God's will for them to be together.
They got married in Leavenworth Prison on the 14th of October, 1981. Nancy worked as a nurses aide and lived in Denver, 600 miles away. She moved to Benie, her husband, in 1984. Two years later, Philip got transferred to Lampop Medium Security Federal Prison in Santa Barbara, and once again, Nancy moved to Benie.
She moved into Patios, Philip's mother, and both of them drove 300 miles to visit regularly. On the 20th of January 1988, Philip was granted parole after serving just 10 years and 11 months of his 50-year prison sentence. His parole came with a few restrictions. He had the result in California with his mother Pat and maintained steady employment.
He was required to submit to searches and regular drug testing, as well as attend-out patient substance abuse sessions and mental health counseling. There were no restrictions on his contact with children. Upon his initial release, Philip moved into a halfway house in Oakland to California. He entered into a community treatment program for sex offenders.
Katie Callaway was working nearby as a dealer in a casino. She had no idea Philip had been released so early from his sentence. No one contacted her. She found out when Philip approached her casino table one day.
He looked at her and said, In a caddy, this is my first drink in 11 years. As he walked off, he said, I'll see you again, Katie. Katie contacted Philip's parole officer to ask how the situation was even possible. The parole officer described Philip as a sick puppy, who was certain to re-offend.
But he didn't believe he'd try anything with her again. Certain to re-offend, yet they let him out 39 years early. On the 16th of December 1988, Philip moved into 15554 Walnut Street in Antioch, with Nancy and his mother Pat. The house was on a dirt road.
There were other houses nearby, but it was a pretty quiet spot. As soon as he moved in, Philip started working on an 8 foot high fence, as well as building a 10 foot by 10 foot soundproof shed. He ran green electricity cables along the ground from the house to the shed for power. He also separated the backyard into two sections.
He did this by planning a line of shrubbery and other foliage and using a top to conceal that second section of the backyard. He also installed security bars to stop anyone from breaking in or out. On the 10th of June, 1991, Philip and Nancy Gerrito drove to South Lake Tahoe and kidnapped JC Lee Dugard. After which, Philip laughed and said, I can't believe I got away with it.
JC's Stepfather, Carl Provin, had actually seen the entire abduction. When JC left the school that morning, Carl was out in the garage. He saw JC leave, and to not long after that he saw a two-toned Ford, with two passengers that passed by the house. He saw her make a U-turn and drive up the hill.
He heard a sharp scream from JC, and instant later the car was speeding off, and JC was gone. As this happened, Carl painted his pockets to check if he had the keys for the car. He didn't. So Carl grabbed his mountain bike and went after the car.
He didn't get very far before realizing that he wouldn't be able to catch them, and instead he went to the nearest Nader's house to call 911. The abduction was also witnessed by some of J.C. school classmates, who were further at the road waiting at the bus stop as it happened. They got on the bus screaming that someone had taken home.
Within minutes of the 911 call, a message was broadcast to all police to look out for a two-tone silver Ford with a male driver, a female passenger with jet black hair, olive complexion aged between 30 to 35, travelling with a girl aged 11, dressed in pink. The description came from Carl, who also stated the car was an early 80s or late 70s, Ford Granada. Although he didn't see the man driving, he got a good look at the female passenger. Later, a police artist drew up a sketch based on his description.
El Dorado's sheriff's department focused the search within C.F. Lake Taiko. They were unsuccessful and were later criticized for not setting up immediate roadblocks. While 10 a.m.
California and Nevada highway patrols, along with other law enforcement officers from neighboring counties, had joined the search. Police helicopters were also involved. Officers started knocking door to door looking for any leads. All radio stations broadcast the descriptions of J.C., the suspected female abductor, and the car.
J.C. school went into total lockdown. Parents started arriving, concerned that the abducted child was their own. Television crews came out at school and cancel as were called in to talk to the children and help them cope with the situation.
As the hours passed and there was still no trace of J.C., no calls from the kidnappers, and to no ransom note, investigators became concerned for her safety. The FBI was called in to help. An FBI agent commented that basically everyone with a badge within 50 miles was somehow involved in the case. During the evening, an FBI spokesman held a press conference.
He didn't reveal J.C.'s identity, but he did mention the suspect car, the couple, and the lack of any ransom demand. He appealed for anyone with information to come forward and provided a hotline phone number. At 9 p.m. that night, Terry and Karl Proven invited a local television crew into their home and made a direct plea to the kidnappers and to their daughter.
J.C., if you can hear Mummy, I love you, and I want you to come home tonight, safe and sound. It's been 13 hours and that's too long. She's got to be scared. This plea would be the first of many from the couple.
The next day, hundreds of FBI and law enforcement agents from California and Nevada, as well as volunteers from the public, searched the whole South Lake Tahoe area. They used dog and horse units to search through the woods, but still they found no trace of J.C. 24 hours after the abduction, they feared they were running out of time. Later that morning, Terry and Karl held a press conference.
Holding J.C.'s favorite stuff bunny to her chest, Terry said the family was posting a $5,000 reward for any information leading to her daughter's return. And pleaded. Please don't hurt her. She's a good girl.
Just drop her off. No questions. Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.
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After Terry's plea, two families came forward and offered $10,000 each, bringing the total reward to $25,000. El Dorado County Sheriff's Department received an average of one lead every five minutes from all over the country. The artist sketch based on Carl's description was circulated to the media and all law enforcement agencies in California and Nevada on Wednesday. On Thursday, a crew from America's Most Wanted went to the Prove It's Home and made what would be their first segment on the case.
The producer later revealed he already thought JC could be dead. Quote, the FBI says the first 72 hours are crucial in a missing child case. After that, the chances of recovery are next to zero. On Friday, police told reporters the investigation had scaled down due to a lack of promising leads.
Kink Riven started appearing all over South Lake Tahoe, on trees, poles, posts, fences. One was also put on JC's chair in class. During that first week, JC got to take a look at the place she was being helped. It was the 10 foot by 10 foot shed Philip had built in his hidden second backyard.
JC called the shed the studio. It had one window with a line bars, a lock on the door and absolutely no ventilation. All through that first week, Philip Garrito had acted friendly towards JC. He made silly voices to make her laugh.
He imitated an English accent, a Texan accent and an Australian accent. After that first week, it got by. That was the first time he raped her. After Woods, Philip told JC it would be easier next time if she didn't resist or struggle.
Two weeks after JC's abduction, her poster was on almost every tree and fence in Tahoe and in neighboring towns. Her family were joined by hundreds of volunteers handing out flyers. People all over the area wore have you seen JC buttons with a photo. The investigators were now checking if any vehicles in the area that fitted Carl's description were registered to sex offenders.
Back in the shed, Philip removed the handcuffs from JC and said as long as she promised to be good, he would leave them off. He brought in a small black and white TV, which mostly just played infomercials. He brought her a cat, which he called Tigger, after the Winnie the Pooh character. The weeks in isolation and seeing Angie Philip, she enjoyed the company of Tigger.
But after just a few days, Philip told her that it peed everywhere and he couldn't stand it, so we got rid of it. Philip told JC that she was helping him with this sex problem and that by having her there, he didn't have to hurt other people. One night when JC was sleeping, he came to look for her. She was surprised that he had a lock on the door open that light because it wasn't something usual up to that point.
He entered the room with a flashlight and shook her shoulder. He said it's time to wake up, but going next door. He covered her with a blanket and they moved. Up until then, JC had been inside that 10 foot by 10 foot shed and hadn't left.
So when they went next door, she paid attention to how far it was. She walked 10 steps from the previous room and they got into the new room. This new room had three windows with the line bars, and when they got in, Philip covered the windows with towels. In the very middle of the room, there was a blue couch in front of a TV.
Philip explained to her that they had to go on a run. A run was his turn for the period of time that he'd be up after taking Crank. Crank is a cheaper form of methampheromy. It has a lower purity and it comes in the form of power.
Philip told JC that while he was up on what he called, he'd run. She would be up with him as well. They'd be doing these runs together, during which JC was expected to fulfil all of Philip's fantasies. These runs would last between one and three days and would happen at least once a week for a period of about three years.
But over that three year period, they became less and less frequent. During those times, he would tell JC things like he'd turn her into the best sex slave ever, or that he wanted to make his dog have sex with her, or that he'd still hurt a people who would keep her in a cage because she wouldn't stop crying and that ruined his mood and made him feel guilty. At the time, they would be the one crying, saying he was sorry for what he was doing, but he couldn't help it. It wasn't his fault, it was society's fault.
Terry and Carl continued to participate in all the interviews and media coverage they could get. They wanted to keep JC's story alive. Terry took leave from work and joined a group of volunteers who prepared mailers containing JC's photograph and information that was sent out to truck stops convenience stores in Camp Reance throughout the country. They averaged about 5,000 mailings per week.
Children from South Lake Tahoe stopped going out on their own, a place that used to be full of happy kids out playing and riding their bikes. They were now not able to move without their parents or someone else trustworthy. There was a fear that one of them could be next. Investigators turned to Carl as a suspect.
Some of his in-laws even hired a private investigator to check on him. He was subjected to four FBI-administered lie detector tests and Terry lashed out at him several times, thinking he could have done more to save JC. Law enforcement had received 6,000 tips generating about 600 what they called good leads, but many investigators believed JC was dead and the search nearly grounded to a halt. But her family didn't give up.
JC's picture appeared on Mill Cartons, grocery bags, and a public service announcement ran on California and Nevada TV stations. Terry and Carl even played themselves in a TV series re-enactment. In a story run by People Magazine, Terry stated that she found comfort in the fact that a woman was involved. She thought the female might have lost her own child and was simply caring for her daughter.
It was around his time that JC met Philip's wife, Nancy. He had already spoken to JC about her, even leaving JC tied up during one of his runs while he went to fetching Nancy at work. Philip introduced them and said that he wanted them to become friends because Nancy was jealous of JC for receiving all of her husband's attention. It was explained that Nancy didn't like sex, so JC was helping her too.
From that moment on, Nancy took JC her meals as well as little gifts like a teddy bear, magazines, an old Nintendo, and a Barbie for JC's 12th birthday. JC made furniture for her Barbie out of Mill Cartons that lay around the shed. Philip tried to convince Nancy to join them during his runs, but she didn't. After one year, Philip and Nancy started spending more time with JC and behaving more like what they'd call a family.
Most of the time, JC enjoyed Nancy's company. On the 18th of March 1993, a federal arrest warrant was issued for Philip for breaking his parole conditions. He failed to report to a federal probation officer. He had tested positive for marijuana, and he was not going to after care-cancelling sessions.
He was taking into custody on the 1st of April, and ordered to stay in federal prison for one month. At times, Nancy would mention she felt guilty for taking JC away and even said to her one day she wished Philip could migrate in the morning they took her, so he wouldn't have been able to go through with it. Despite that, during the month Philip was in prison when Nancy was the sole capital of JC, not once did she think about letting her go. During this time, Nancy said Philip was staying with a rich friend on an island.
On the 29th of April, Philip was released to home confinement supervision and ordered to report to a halfway house in Oakland a day later. The US Parole Commission gave him 120 days of supervision and electronic monitoring. When Philip abducted K.D. Callaway in 1976, he crossed the state line of California and Nevada, so he was actually under two separate parrots, one in Nevada and a federal parole.
Nevada were never informed about Philip's parole violation, and if they had been informed, they could have revoked his parole completely and returned him to a state prison at the finish sentence. But that didn't happen, and Philip was allowed to return home with a monitoring device and 120 days of supervision. On Easter Sunday, 3 April 1994, JC learned that she was pregnant. She was worried that Philip would ask her to give her child away, but he didn't.
Some reports state one way in which Philip convinced Nancy to participate in the abduction was by telling her that since she couldn't have children, they'd get a young girl to be a one for them. That was never proven though, and Nancy did whatever Philip told her to do anyway, so some doubt that story. In August 1994, JC gave birth to her first daughter. Going to a hospital wasn't an option, so Philip, JC, and Nancy watched birthing videos and TV shows that dealt with the issue.
Philip was the one who delivered the baby. Her name was Angel, and even though Philip chose her name, JC said that she still loved it, because the name symbolises everything that's good in the universe. Taking care of Angel wasn't easy in the conditions, and keeping in mind that JC was only 14 years old herself, but she managed to make the best of it. She rocked her in a chair while singing, You Are My Sunshine, which her mum Terry used to sing to her.
In the winter of 1995, Terry and Carl took part in a six-minute video on missing children. The short-fiore news actors to recreate the abduction as part of a special project to track the unmissing children. Later that year though, they had separated. The abduction had caused the strain on their marriage, and they were unable to cope.
Carl Proven said, This broke our marriage up. We had a great marriage. My wife and I never sat down and talked about it. It's too painful.
Terry said, A piece of me is missing. A piece of my heart feels like it's been ripped. And I don't feel like a complete person. In 1997, at the age of 17, JC feel pregnant again.
Angel was now three, and JC was teaching her the ABC while watching Sesame Street and Barney. When he found out she was pregnant for a second time, Philip built her a new room and put a bunk bed in for her and Angel. And for the first time since her abduction, JC was a layout into the backyard. Up until then, she had been tossed between the two sheds and a layout side only once.
It was the first time she saw the sun in five years. Before being a layout into the backyard, Philip secured and enhanced the eight-foot wooden fence so nobody could see what was happening on his property. Philip still went on the occasional run. Every time he raped JC, he promised that it would be the last time.
But then he also tried to convince her that with time, she would start to enjoy it. When he heard that she was pregnant, he said he was very happy and that he knew it would be another girl because God knew that's what he needed. At one time, he held Angel and while looking up, he said, God, please don't ever let me hurt this little girl. During summertime, Nancy and Philip went to Parks and made film children.
Philip told her I wait to film them without being noticed. He would play his guitar and Nancy would pretend to be filming him. In fact, she would be zooming in on the little girls playing on the swings behind him. They had over 300 videos.
And JC was also filmed on some of these videos. Philip started his own company called Printing for Less. It was a printing business that Philip began after renting a computer and buying a printer. He wanted to make more money for the arrival of the second baby.
He'd wake up early in the morning and find clients in Antioch and later in neighboring towns. Because of the very cheap prices that he offered and the good quality of his designs, he managed to build up a good client base. His clients stated that he seemed very professional and exceptionally fast with his delivery. On one occasion, a client who ordered some business cards saw an error in the print and told Philip he had a new set of cards the next day.
The client made a joke with him saying, you have slaves working for you. And literally that client know JC was the designer of the cards. Several longtime clients later said that during the first years, Philip would avoid the subject of where exactly his business took place. With the passing of time he allowed some of them to enter his house and a couple of claim they even met JC.
They said she seemed very nice, very professional and not for a second did they think she could have been abducted. JC's second daughter was born in November 1997. Again the one to deliver the baby was Philip and again he chose her name. Stalin.
Philip was continually trying to convince JC to change her thinking process. Instead of thinking things like how much she missed her mum. He tried to get her to be thankful for what she had and what he had given her. Nancy quit her job to stay at home and help JC with her daughters.
Philip told JC that Nancy felt a little bit like an outsider in the family and in order to include her it would help if she became the mum. Philip would be the dad and JC would become their third daughter. Philip explained to JC that since the girls were so young they wouldn't remember this change and they could grow up thinking that he and Nancy were their parents. JC agreed and she was also asked to choose a new name for herself.
She chose Elisa because she liked Elisa Milano from the TV show Who's the Boss. JC didn't want to call Nancy mum though. She already had a mum and won that she missed very much. On the 4th of July 1998 they went to the roof of a barn that was on the property to watch fireworks.
JC stared at the moon and remembered her mum and a song they had about it. In 1998 Terry moved from South Lake Tahoe to Southern California to live with her sister Tina. She donated money and helped launch the Fighting Chance program, a program that teaches children how to fight back if they had ever adopted. They began being implemented in South Lake Tahoe schools for children in 4th grade to 6th grade.
The lessons include fighting out of a trunk from specially designed training cars, kicking out the tail lights or ripping out the cars electrical wires. 3500 children have gone through the program and it is believed that it has prevented the abduction of at least three. In the seven years that she lived in South Lake Tahoe without JC, Terry never stopped waiting for her. She left JC's room untouched ready for when JC got back and she didn't celebrate Christmas.
She would take a week off work, send Shainer away with Karl and she'd say that he was crying. 1998 was the year JC would have graduated high school. A photo of her was included in the class e-book with the following caption. Even though you may not be walking with us down the graduation aisle, you will always be walking with us in our hearts.
On the 9th of March 1999, Philip was officially discharged from his federal brawl, receiving a certificate of early termination from the US Department of Justice. The certificate congratulated him on his good behaviour. But he was still on that second parole in Nevada. So when he was discharged from the federal parole, what Nevada did was transfer their parole to California because that's where he was living.
Philip complained saying that he should be completely discharged from the Nevada parole, as the federal authorities had already discharged him. Philip did sign the transfer forms to California from Nevada, but said he only did so because he was being put under pressure and that he'd be seeking the legal counsel of an attorney. He then wrote a letter saying these events were having psychological effects on him. In the next five months, he had no supervision.
From then on, he took the girls out more freely. He made sure J.C. died her hair and cut it short. J.C.
looked very different to her 11 year old photo anyway, so he and Nancy didn't think they'd be taking any risks. They went to the beach, J.C. went with Nancy to get their nails done, they went to Walmart, to a Halloween party, and other places. That year, Philip also connected the internet.
This provided J.C. a chance to search for information and she used it to educate her daughters. She made them worksheets and tried to apply a schedule that resembled regular school. From 10 a.m.
until 2 p.m. they studied math, spelling, reading, social studies, and science. In December, 1999, seven-year-old Zoyana Fairchild was kidnapped from a bus stop 30 miles west of Antioch. Child safety advocate, Janice Goames, was appointed a search team leader and she decided to update the group's child safety factsheet.
She went to Philip's business to get the updated copies printed. Philip gave her some advice. Next time, you might want to add a couple of things. You know children should never walk to a bus stop alone because they don't match for an adult.
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In the year 2000, Philip started taking medication for schizophrenia and he started attracting attention for his strange behavior. There were rumors he printed business cards with an altered face of Madonna and then he tried to send songs he'd written to Britney Spears. In January 2001, a new parole agent officially reevaluated Philip as a low-risk offender and his supervision became even less intensive. On the 18th of December 2003, J.C.
saw a TV show without talking about a young girl that had been abducted and murdered. Those on the show speculated the same killer may have killed J.C. J.C. then saw a photo of her 11-year-old self.
She hoped they would post a picture of her mother, but Philip came in and told her it would be better if she didn't watch. So the show was turned off. In 2005, Philip announced he was giving up masturbation in order to devote himself completely to religion. He claimed to have cured schizophrenia, having invented a black box that allowed him to hear the voices of angels.
The black box was actually an idea he'd already had in his 20s. And at that time he tried to show it to a being mate. As for the angels, he said he had started hearing them years earlier. With this black box he started going places and asking people if they would hear his thoughts.
To him, the whole point of curing schizophrenia was in knowing what schizophrenics were thinking, and so if people could hear his thoughts, this would help out the doctors. Apart from the black box, he drafted a manifesto called Origins of Schizophrenia Revealed, with which he claimed he cured himself and was no longer a sexual deviant. He also claimed his powerful new insight would help law enforcement, educators, and therapists, understanding sex offenders who were unable to control their abnormal desires and thoughts, and committed dysfunctional acts. He started trying to get funds to build a church in his backyard, and in January 2006, he filed to register what he'd call the Philip C Night Institute.
While now Philip and the girls were living in tents in the backyard. In November that year, one of Philip's neighbors saw two blonde girls through the fence, and she got worried. She already knew Philip was a sex offender, and so she called 911. She reported Philip as a religious psychotic with a sex addiction, who had young children living in tents in his backyard.
An officer went to the house to investigate, but he only got as far as the front yard. After he asked Philip a few questions, he didn't see any need to check anything out further, and so he left. In 2007, Philip began writing about his black box and beliefs in a blog called Voices Revealed, and he got a loan of $18,000 to start his church from a neighbor. An 81-year-old Sikh pensioner, who he and Nancy had been visiting for a while.
A few months later, the pensioner complained that Philip was refusing to give his money back, and he called the police. Nothing happened at the time, but it was later revealed that Philip had taken a lot more than $18,000. In April 2008, Philip was fitted with a GPS ankle bracelet to follow his activity. This was due to Jessica's law that was designed to monitor sex offenders more closely.
However, since he was registered as a low risk offender, he was placed on a passive GPS monitoring system. All he needed was permission before travelling more than 25 miles from his home. He breached the limit of this residential zone without permission many times, but nobody ever said anything. Later that month, Philip registered his church, now called God's Desaiya, as a non-profit religious organisation with him as president.
During that year, his mother Pat became increasingly ill. She had dementia and Parkinson's disease. J.C. went regularly to the main house to take care of her.
It's not known if Pat ever knew the truth about J.C. Philip told her he'd found her and the girls down the street, and he brought them in to live with him. On Monday 24 August 2009, Lisa Campbell, a special events manager with the University of California Police Department, or the U.C.P.D. received a call from the records technician saying there was a man in the lobby of Sprout Hall, who wanted to talk to her about an upcoming event he wanted to hold.
Some kind of demonstration or lecture on campus. Lisa approached them in. I was Philip, and he was with J.C.D's daughters. He started to talk in an agitated way, not really getting to any point.
Lisa asked him to come back the next day at two o'clock. She took down his name and wanted to know the exact nature of the event that he wanted to hold. Philip said, it's called God's Desaiya. Philip left, and Lisa had a very uneasy feeling he'd be able to.
She said, my initial impression of him was that he was unstable. The girls were very quiet, they were very subdued. They were non-responsive, they didn't show the energy that children their age would normally do. They weren't in school and that caught my attention.
School had already started in the area. And the man, he was very animated, unlike the girls. The older girls stared straight up at the ceiling the whole time, she didn't make any eye contact at all. Lisa had worked with domestic violence and child welfare issues as a police officer, and knew the signs.
These two girls seemed to show them. She went to the captain of the U.C.P.D and told him her concerns. He authorized her to pursue the issue further. The next day, Tuesday 25 August 2009, Lisa contacted Ali Jacobs, an officer with the U.C.P.D.
Lisa wanted Ali to join her in the meeting with Philip, and they could size him up together. Ali first ran Philip's name through the computer. They saw that he was listed as a federal parolee who'd been convicted of rape and kidnapping in 1976. Red flags.
At 2.30pm, Philip and the two girls walked into Lisa's office. Ali never said what she was there for, and just explained that she was another police officer with the U.C.P.D. They asked him what they would do for him, and Philip started rambling on the audience's book, Origins of Schizophrenia Revealed. He never really got to any point and never really made any request.
Lisa kept on asking Philip what they could do for him. Why was he there? What event did he want to hold? Her idea was to keep him distracted while Ali tried to speak with the girls.
At one point out of nowhere, Philip said, years ago I was arrested for kidnapping and rape, and although both Ali and Lisa knew that, they were surprised at how he just came out with him. Ali looked at the girls to see if they had any reaction, but they didn't. Philip said he was all better now because he'd feel ungod. Ali interrupted Philip's rambling and asked about the girls.
Philip said they were his daughters. Ali asked about school, and they both replied, were homeschooled. Ali said one of the first things she noticed was that they both had his eyes, but they were extremely pale. Other than being told the girls also had an older sister who lived with them, Ali didn't get any further information or any signs from the girls, and she didn't know exactly what to do.
She asked Philip if he'd like to forward his book to her supervisor. Philip excitedly said yes, and before leaving he added, I'm so proud of my girls. They don't know any curse words. They don't know anything bad about the world.
Ali told him he should be proud. She felt the out of her depth. She couldn't call child protective services or Berkeley Health because she didn't really have anything to report. She decided to call Philip's parole officer, Eddie Santos, to see if he knew what was going on.
Eddie wasn't in his office, so she left a message on his answering machine. Later that day, after Eddie had heard Ali's message, he went to check on Philip. At 6pm, he and another agent knocked on the door. Philip answered, and to ban the safe side they handcuffed him and escorted him out of the house.
The other agents stayed outside with Philip while Eddie Santos went inside and spoke with Pat and Nancy. He didn't see anybody else. They took Philip to the Concord Paroll office, 25 miles away, to question him about the two girls. Philip said they were daughters of Ron, his brother, and that Ron had already picked them up from the house after he got home from the university.
The girls were all still at the house when Eddie Santos was there. After Eddie took Philip back to the office, Nancy ran to the backyard and told JC they had taken Philip away handcuffed. JC can't go down by saying that Philip had already told them that if anything happened, they would have called a lawyer. She suggested they look in the yellow pages for a lawyer and a bail bondsman.
After thinking about it for a while, they decided to instead wait for Philip's phone call and he could tell them what to do. But to their surprise, Philip returned home a few hours later. He told him to report to the Paroll office the next morning. Nancy ran to meet Philip and put her arms around him in relief.
JC started crying, partly tears of relief since they depended on Philip for everything, and partly tears of anger because the officers had just returned him so easily. Maybe that meant the authorities had forgotten about it. According to Philip, it was the work of angels. He even told JC that he was only able to kidnap her because the angels were looking out for him.
Early the next morning, Wednesday the 26th August 2009, Eddie Santos called Ali Jacobs and asked her to describe the whole meeting in detail that she and Lisa had with Philip had the University campus. When she got to the part about his daughters, Eddie Santos told her, he doesn't have any daughters. To which Ali responded, they looked like him, they had his bit wires, and they were calling him daddy, so it seemed very believable they were his daughters. Eddie let her know that Philip was due to visit him later that morning, and he'd ask him not to return to the University of California campus.
That morning Philip woke JC up and told her they were all going to the Paroll office because he was tired of being harassed by the authorities and wanted to set the record straight once and for all so he could continue on with his mission. All in the car, JC asked Philip what she should say. Philip told her to say she was the mother of the girls, that she gave him permission to have them with her and that she was well aware he was a sex offender. If they asked anything else, she should ask for a lawyer.
He assured her everything would be for him. At 810am they got to the Concord Paroll office. Eddie Santos asked Philip to wait in the lobby for him while he took Nancy, JC and the girls to the conference room. As they were being laid away, JC looked at Philip asking him what to do, and he went to her.
In the conference room, Eddie Santos questioned mostly JC and she gave the version Philip told her to. She was a Lisa of Friends and being the last name of Pat's second husband. She was the mother of the girls. She occasionally lived with Philip and Nancy and other times with other relatives.
She was aware Philip was a sex offender and she had given him permission to go the previous day to the University of California. Eddie asked her for ID and she told him she had left it at home. Then he asked her to spell her name so she did. JC asked what was happening and if she needed a lawyer.
Nancy also tried to nervously want to know what was happening. Eddie said he was simply asking them because of the incident at the University of California. He'd then let them go. Eddie questioned Philip while the girls waited in the car.
The first thing he asked was what was the exact nature of the relationship between Elissa and the girls. Philip replied, what do you mean? Eddie repeated the question. Philip said they were all sisters.
When Eddie asked who the father was, Philip gave a cryptic answer. The father is the son of my mother. Just to be sure, Eddie asked if that meant the father of the girls was Philip's brother. Philip said yes.
His brother Ronald and his wife, Janice, were divorced and so sometimes the girls lived with him. Eddie Philip was unable to give an address for Ronald or Janice. But what he had given Eddie was a completely different story to the one he told JC to Tilly. Eddie stopped the questioning and looked for another officer.
They went downstairs to look for JC. When Eddie came out with the other officer, JC panicked and asked Nancy what she should say. Nancy told her to pretend to be a distant relative of Philip's mother. Once the two agents arrived at the car, they asked all of them to step out.
The second agent stayed with Nancy and the two girls, while Eddie asked JC to step away with him. He immediately told her she'd been lying to him and that she was not the mother of the girls. Eddie said what Philip had told him and JC couldn't believe it. She became afraid and gave a new version.
She said she was the girl's mother but Philip had been protecting her since she was running away from an abusive husband. Eddie told her that if she kept being uncooperative, she'd have to call child protective services. JC didn't know what to do anymore. They sat her down in an interview room and the police were called in.
She kept on sticking to the abusive husband's story. But then she said her name was actually Ali Smith. They threatened to fingerprint her if she didn't tell them her true identity. JC said she wanted to see Philip and when they brought him in she asked him what to do.
She was scared they take the girls away. Philip just told her she needed to get a lawyer. Then he was taken away. A female officer tried to reassure JC that she would get to see her daughters again if she just told them her real name.
But JC said she couldn't. As the officer left the room, she looked at JC and said, everything happens for a reason. Only minutes after Philip told JC to get a lawyer, he admitted he was the father of the girls to one of the officers. Eddie Santos got increasingly confused and asked Philip why he lied.
Philip said he didn't know and Eddie persisted with the questioning until Philip said he would tell the truth. But only if Alisa was brought into the room to hear it too. Eddie said no chance. So Philip said, a long, long time ago, by kidnapped and raped her.
The female officer returned to JC's interview room and broke the news. He just confessed to kidnapping you several years ago. The officer asked for her name and her age when she was abducted. JC told her she'd been taken away when she was 11 and she was now 29.
But she couldn't say her name because she hadn't set up for 18 years. She instead rode it down on a piece of paper. JC Lee dug out, along with her date of birth and the name of her mother. After that, she said she wanted to see her mum.
They reunited her with her daughters and took all of them to Concord Police Station. Once JC was alone, she started crying tears of happiness. It wasn't long before she was able to call the mum. Before making the call, the officers asked her if there was anything she would like to know.
The one question she had was that if Terry and Karl were still together. During her childhood, she never believed Karl lied to her and even thought that he'd be relieved when she was abducted. She couldn't imagine going back to a house with Karl there. The officers told her no.
They'd split up years ago. They called Terry's house in Los Angeles and Shane had picked up the phone. She said Terry wasn't there. They then explained the reason for the call.
JC couldn't believe she was listening to her sister's voice. They called Terry at work and when she picked up she believed it was a joke. She was in the process of telling them that it wasn't funny when JC said, hi mum. The next thing she told her was that she had babies and asked her to come and see them.
Terry screamed out, my daughter has been found. That night JC told the girls the truth. They'd not only grown up believing JC was their sister but they also had no idea about their kidnap. Just that their father had committed a crime and they needed to protect him so if anyone came looking for them they had to hide.
When JC explained the real story to them, they didn't seem surprised. When Terry arrived she told JC, do you remember when we used to sit outside on the porch swing and talk about the moon as it rose high in the sky? But when you were taken from me I used the moon to talk to you. I've been talking to you for so long.
The other night the moon was full and bright and I asked the moon, okay where are you The next day I'll get the call you were being found. The story was all over the media. Reporters went out to speak with Philips neighbours and people around the town and there were shocked people everywhere who had seen Phillip and the girls around over the years but didn't know the truth. Police and the FBI conducted a four day search through Philips backyard.
Apart from evidence in JC's case they were looking for a connection with other murders and abductions but they didn't find anything. On Friday the 28th of August Phillip made a call from Eldorado County Jail to Walt Gray and a command from the television news station KCRA. When the call Phillip started telling Gray that he needed to go to the FBI offices in San Francisco to look for his book and in it he would find a great truth revealed that would shock the entire world. Gray tried to direct the conversation to JC but Phillip kept on steering it back to his book.
He said, it is a story about turning a person's life around and having two children. Those two girls. Those two girls that slept in my arms every single night. I never touched them.
Later that same day the first court hearing for Phillip and Nancy took place. There were many more court appearances after that but they didn't get sentenced until the 2nd of June 2011. Phillip was sent to prison for 431 years. Nancy was sent to prison for 36 years to life.
She will be eligible for parole after serving 31 years. Two people who were in court throughout the hearings were Katie Callaway whose mission was to look Phillip in the eyes and let him know she was right there watching. The other was JC's biological father. He came along with a well known attorney and said he wanted to be there for JC.
However, he wasn't there in JC's childhood and he wasn't there to help search for her. So JC didn't want to be in contact with him then. Before the last court hearing JC met with Nancy one more time because she wanted closure. At the short meeting, Nancy kept on calling her a lisser.
JC had to correct her several times. Nancy wanted to know if the two girls asked for her and she also said the spot would have happened. She still loved Phillip. After that, JC didn't see either of them again.
The testimony she gave to lock them both away happened in front of the Green Jewry separately. Her actual closure came in the form of a statement she wrote and gave to Terry to radiate at the last court hearing. It said, To you Phillip, I say that I have always been a thing for your own amusement. I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you and the sexual perversion you forced on me.
To you Nancy, I have nothing to say. Both of you can save your apologies and empty words. For all the crimes you have both committed, I hope you have as many sleepless nights as I did. JC started a foundation in 2010, just ask yourself to care.
Whose mission is to help with the reunification of families that have gone through abductions and other traumas. In 2012, JC received an inspiration award for her work and in her speech she said, My hope is to be remembered by what I do and not what happened to me. After JC's case, the parole office received the major criticisms. They first congratulated Eddie Santos for his work, but it was soon discovered that major mistakes were made and JC could have been found a lot sooner if not for those mistakes.
From 1999 to 2007, Phillip was supposed to have regular mental health assessments, but that never happened. On four different occasions, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2008, the California Parole Department recommended to Nevada to discharge Phillip from any sort of parole. In 2006, when Phillips' neighbour called 911 to say there were little girls in his backyard, the officer never checked the backyard. The GPS that got attached to his ankle in 2008 showed that in a 32-day period, Phillip travelled to Berkeley, Oakland, in San Francisco, well over the 25-mile limit he had.
The GPS also proved he left home 14 times after curfew, and it also showed him going into the backyard. There was even an overhead photo that showed Phillip in the secret backyard he had built. Phillip's parole officers had conducted at least 60 face-to-face meetings with him, and they never saw the utility wires that went from the house to the backyard, never saw the secret backyard, never got suspicious of anything. They even searched Phillip's home in July 2008 when there was a sweep on sex offenders, and still they never saw the secret backyard.
Soon after the parole board congratulated Eddie Santos, he had to move out of California with his family because of all the threats he received. The state of California agreed to pay a $20 million settlement to JC. JC wants to change the concept of Stockholm Syndrome. She hates that people believe she fell in love with Phillip.
What she did was adapt to the circumstances to survive. Quote, I never forgot he was my captor. I never forgot that. Never.
In 2014, I was announced that under the elderly parole program in California, which states that prisoners who are 60 or older and who have served at least 25 years, will be eligible for parole hearings. Because of this program, Phillip can apply for parole in 2034. One of the latest statements JC has made is, it feels so good to know that I can face whatever life throws at me, because I've been through the worst kind of hell already, and survived.