SACRAMENTO, Calif. — She was only 11 when they took her in 1991, a 4-foot-6-inch fifth-grader walking to school in El Dorado County in a pink windbreaker and pink stretch pants.
For 18 years, police say, a convicted rapist and his wife kept Jaycee Lee Dugard hidden as a virtual slave in their Antioch, Calif., backyard, living in a tent or shed away from the legions of law officers searching for her. Over the years, authorities say, her abductor — Phillip Craig Garrido, 58 — impregnated her twice and she gave birth to two girls, now 15 and 11.
"None of the children have ever been to school, they've never been to a doctor," El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said. "They were kept in complete isolation in this compound, if you will."
There was electricity from electrical cords, rudimentary outhouse, rudimentary shower, "as if you were camping," he said.
This is the horrifying ordeal law enforcement officials described Thursday after revealing that Dugard, now 29, had been found safe after all these years and reunited with her mother Thursday morning.
"She was in good health, but living in a backyard for 18 years does take its toll," Kollar said.
The apparent end to a case that sparked national headlines began with a suspicious campus police officer at University of California Berkeley on Tuesday. Authorities said the officer spotted Garrido with two young children on campus, where Garrido apparently had gone to distribute religious-themed literature, a frequent hobby of his. Upon questioning, the officer discovered Garrido was a parolee and contacted his parole agent.
That agent summoned him to his office on Wednesday, where Garrido arrived in the company of his wife, two small children and a female adult identified as "Allissa."
After some questioning, authorities said, Garrido confessed to kidnapping Dugard. In a separate room, Dugard told authorities that she was, in fact, the little girl kidnapped from Meyers, Calif., in 1991.
She had not been seen since, despite all the fliers distributed over the years and despite the fact that a drawing of a suspect seen driving away with the girl is a close likeness to Garrido's wife, Nancy.
Convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido, 58, was being held for investigation of various kidnapping and sex charges. His wife, Nancy Garrido, 54, was also arrested, and authorities said she was with Garrido during the kidnapping in South Lake Tahoe.
Corrections officials said Phillip Garrido served time in a federal prison in Nevada for sexual assault and earlier had served time in Lompoc for a kidnap case.
His high school sweetheart and ex-wife, Christine, said he had faced rape and kidnap charges in the 1970s that led her to divorce him.
"This just blows me away," she said of the latest revelations in the Jaycee Dugard case.
The blue-eyed, blond girl was abducted while walking to school June 10, 1991, near her home in Meyers, south of South Lake Tahoe.
Carl Probyn, Jaycee's stepfather, said Thursday that his wife and daughter flew to Northern California to meet Dugard and that his wife, Terry, spoke with the young woman by phone Wednesday night.
The Probyns, who are separated, live in Southern California, Carl in Orange County and Terry in Riverside. Terry Probyn and their daughter, Shayna, 19, boarded a 6 a.m. flight to the San Francisco Bay area to meet with Dugard, Carl Probyn said.
"I'm just pleased that she is alive and well," said Probyn, a 60-year-old Orange County wallpaper contractor.
Dugard's disappearance prompted a massive search, nationwide publicity and one of the largest police investigations in the region.
Dugard was on her way to school when authorities said she was pulled into a stranger's car just a block from her home.
Probyn said he heard her scream and saw a man and a woman drive his stepdaughter away in a gray two-tone sedan.
"As soon as I saw the door fly open, the driver's door, I jumped on my mountain bike and I tried to get to the top of the hill but I had no energy. I rode back down and yelled at my neighbor, '911!' " he recalled.
Probyn said his wife, from whom he is separated, was devastated by the kidnapping. He said for 10 years after the crime, she would take a week off work at Christmas and on the anniversary of the abduction and spend the time crying at home.
Neighbors told The Sacramento Bee Thursday that they had called police about two years ago to report that there were tents on Garrido's property and children at the home. They knew Garrido was a sex offender required to register on the state's Megan's Law Web site. However, they said nothing ever came of the call.
From time to time, Dugard's case would be revisited by reporters, but her family had no idea what had happened to her until about 4 p.m. Wednesday, when Shayna Probyn called Carl Probyn and said, "Mom has something to say to you. Are you sitting down?"
His wife told him: "They found Jaycee. She is alive."
The couple cried for about 10 minutes as they spoke to each other.
Probyn said FBI agents had called his wife at work and told her they had Jaycee. Thinking it was a joke, she told the caller she did not appreciate what she thought was a ruse.
The FBI then put the young woman on the telephone.
"My wife said that who she spoke to remembers everything," Carl Probyn said. "My wife and Jaycee were joined at the hip."
Contributing: Kim Minugh and Pete Basofin, McClatchy Newspapers; Juliet Williams and Samantha Young, Associated Press