About Me
I am not affiliated with Jaycee Dugard's family or law enforcement
Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance
Missing Since: June 10, 1991 from South Lake Tahoe, California
Classification: Non-Family Abduction
Date Of Birth: May 3, 1980
Age: 11 years old
Height and Weight: 4'6, 80 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Dugard had a gap between her upper front teeth at the time of her 1991 disappearance. She has a chicken pox scar between her eyes, a brown butterfly-shaped birthmark on her right arm below her elbow, and moles on her back.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: A pink windbreaker, pink stretch pants, a white t-shirt and white canvas sneakers.
Details of Disappearance
Dugard was last seen walking to her school bus stop on Washoan Boulevard in her hometown of South Lake Tahoe, California on June 10, 1991. A gray two-tone 1980 mid-sized Ford or Mercury sedan, possibly a Ford Grenada, Mercury Monarch or Mercury Zephyr, made a u-turn on the street where Dugard was walking between 8:05 and 8:15 a.m. An unidentified man and woman were inside the vehicle. The woman grabbed Dugard and forced her inside the car, then the vehicle sped from the scene.
Dugard's stepfather heard her scream and witnessed the abduction from inside their house and proceeded to chase the vehicle while riding a bicycle, but the suspects were able to escape. Dugard has never been seen or heard from again. She was only about 150 yards away from her home when she was abducted.
Sketches of the female suspect in Dugard's abduction are posted below this case summary, along with a sketch of the vehicle. The woman is described as having long black hair and a dark complexion. The suspect was approximately 32 years old in 1991 and stood five feet, five inches tall.
Investigators believe Dugard may have been taken across the state line into Nevada after her abduction. There was also a sighting of her in Fallen Leaf, California, about three miles from where she was taken. Dugard's biological father was quickly ruled out as a suspect; at the time of her abduction, he did not even know where she was living.
James Anthony Daveggio has been considered as a possible suspect in Dugard's abduction since the early 1990s. He and his former girlfriend, Michelle Lyn Michaud, were charged with the 1997 abduction, rape and murder of Vanessa Lei Swanson. Swanson's remains were discovered approximately five miles from the site of Dugard's 1991 abduction. Photos of Daveggio and Michaud are posted below this case summary. They were also charged with additional counts of sexual assault in unrelated cases in the mid-1990s. In 2002, Michaud and Daveggio were convicted of Swanson's murder and sentenced to death. They are awaiting execution.
Michaud claims that she met Daveggio in 1996 and therefore was not involved in Dugard's abduction. There are striking similarities between Michaud and the female suspect in Dugard's case. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has created a timeline tracing Michaud and Daveggio's whereabouts over the 1980s and 1990s and they say the pair could not have abducted Dugard.
Daveggio is also considered a possible suspect in the disappearances of Amber Swartz-Garcia, Michaela Garecht and Ilene Misheloff. Neither he nor Michaud has been charged in connection with any of the disappearances.
A defrocked priest named Stephen Kiesle became a suspect in Dugard's abduction in mid-2002. He was suspected because has since been arrested and charged with molesting three girls at the Santa Paula Catholic Church in Fremont, where he worked from 1968 to 1971. Kiesle did not know Dugard and denies any involvement in her case. Police searched his yard three times, using cadaver-sniffing dogs, radar, and a backhoe. They were looking not only for evidence in Dugard's disappearance but also evidence in the 1989 kidnapping of Amber Swartz-Garcia. They found no clues pertaining to either case and the searches concluded in July 2002.
Authorities have also investigated the possibility that Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, abducted Dugard. Photographs of Mitchell and Barzee are posted below this case summary. They are charged with the abduction and sexual assault of fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart of Salt Lake City, Utah. Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom in June 2002 and held captive for nine months before being rescued in March 2003. Mitchell, also known as David Emmanuel Isiah, has bizarre religious beliefs and reportedly thought God told him to make Smart his wife.
The police are investigating similarities between Smart's and Dugard's cases. The two victims physically resemble each other, and Dugard's stepfather says Barzee resembles the woman he saw abduct Dugard. Mitchell and Barzee have not been charged in connection to Dugard's abduction, however, and authorities are not certain if either was involved.
Dugard remains missing. Pink was her favorite color at the time she disappeared.
