A Stolen Life - A Memoir Part 16

1. Egypt

2. Victoria Falls in Africa

3. Alaska to see the northern lights

4. Norway to see Aurora Borealis

5. Italy

6. Greece

7. Ireland

8. Galapagos Islands

Surviving

Pat has become very ill. Phillip lets the girls stay in the house with her to keep her company. The other night she fell and the girls called Phillip and he called an ambulance. She was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with Parkinson's and low-grade dementia. Nancy, myself, and the girls are pitching in to take care of her, which is turning out to not be easy. She is losing her ability to walk and cannot go to the bathroom by herself. I am allowed in the main front house to take my shift with her. Nancy has started sleeping in the house to be near her at night, and the girls are sleeping in the blue building which I have always called "next door." I am sleeping in my tent out back.

Every few years I get a new tent because tents don't last forever. This one is going to last me a little longer than the others because a month prior to putting it up, Phillip had built an elevated floor for it and it helps to keep it dry. Phillip is sleeping in the house on the couch or in the spare room with Nancy. A new law has been enacted and he is being seen quite a bit by his parole officer. It makes it harder to go on outings now.

A few months later, Phillip was suddenly informed that he has another new parole officer and needs to report in. When his parole agent would come over in the beginning, Phillip would tell us that we needed to stay in the back. Eventually he started to get mad at the system and didn't care if we were in the house or not. He now lets the kids sleep in the house. One time a parole agent paid a surprise visit on Phillip and saw one of the girls sleeping in one of the spare rooms. I was told of this later by the girls because they were scared. Phillip told me the next time a parole agent came to the house, I was to ask if he was the one that went into my daughter's room.

After that Phillip was informed he was getting yet another new parole officer. One day when I was in the house taking care of his mother, this new parole agent came and I asked him if he was the agent who walked into my daughter's bedroom. He answered no and I proceeded to wheel Pat back to her room. He took Phillip's urine sample and left. More and more frequent visits are occurring at the house, and Phillip is becoming more and more frustrated and paranoid. In his mind he is doing nothing wrong. It's preventing him from doing this effectively with all the monitoring. He wants to get a lawyer and get off of parole.

There is a washer and dryer in the house, but the dryer doesn't work and neither does the washer, but we desperately need a washer. The printing business is not doing so well and we don't have a lot of money, especially for going to the Laundromat and washing clothes. Phillip has finally fixed the washer. In order to use it, though, it has to be outside because the drainage in the house is not working. So we moved the washer outside. It was incredibly heavy and took all of our strength to move it out to the middle of the yard under a pine tree. Once he got it all hooked up, it was so nice being able to do the laundry and not waiting for it to pile up on us. Especially since Pat has gotten sick and has had a lot of bed wetting and p.o.o.ping accidents and we would have to wash her sheets a lot.

It seems like the house has started to fall apart since Pat got sick. Nancy found a huge water puddle in the middle of the house and when Phillip went under to check it out discovered the pipes were rotting. The downstairs porch sink was always backed up with water and Phillip has showed us how to drain it with a siphon hose. It has to be done at least three times a day or the sink tub will overflow and then we'd have to clean up the floor. It's already happened a few times and is a pain to soak up all the water on the floor. The water that backs up from the drain is black and gray-it's so disgusting! I hate the job of draining. But I hate my shift with his mom even more. She is getting really demented and the only one she is nice to is her darling son who could never do anything wrong. She says really mean things when I have to take her to the bathroom or walk her or exercise her. She hates everything except Phillip. Nancy has a hard time with her, too, but sometimes can get her to listen. I feel like she deep down hates me, though, and knows what I represent even though we have never told her, I think she knows I represent a side of her son that she doesn't want to acknowledge exists.

Before she fell I had only seen her a couple of times. She knew me as Allissa, the sister of the girls that Nancy brought over from down the street, which was the story that Phillip told her. Sometimes I think he would say these are your grandkids, too. I'm not sure what she thought. She didn't do much after she retired; just watched TV all day and sometimes went shopping with her sister Celia, the one Phillip gave my cat to. After Pat's fall, Celia died and Nancy had to tell her. Some days she remembered and others she didn't. The Parkinson's was eating her body and the dementia was eating her mind. It's a sad thing. Maybe it's better that she will never truly know that her son did such an evil thing.

Discovery and Reunion

On August 24th, Phillip took the girls to the FBI office in San Francisco. He said that he liked to take the girls with him because he thought that people were more apt to listen when they were with him. I thought that at least it gave the girls a chance to get out of the house for a little bit. We had not been able to go anywhere during that year because we had to take care of Pat and she couldn't be left home alone for long. The advanced stages of Parkinson's and dementia were taking a toll on her.

When Phillip and the girls returned home later that afternoon, everything seemed normal. I asked how it went and if everything went the way he wanted it to. And he said he had met two cops from the Berkeley campus who were very interested in what he presented. He said "they flipped" (a term he used often when describing people's reactions) and were excited to hear more about his discovery, which was that others could hear him speaking with the power of his mind with the aid of his "black box." He also dropped off his doc.u.ments ent.i.tled "Schizophrenia Revealed" to the FBI office in San Francisco that day, too. He said he was met with similar reactions. According to Phillip, this was it and he was finally going to be able to move forward with his "G.o.d's Desire" church and "fight for G.o.d." I really didn't think too much about what he said that day because I had heard it countless times before. The truth is, I didn't want to think about it because I didn't want to be disappointed again. Time and again he would tell me that we would finally get going and the kids could have a real tutor and we wouldn't have to work so hard just to get by. Deep down inside I secretly held the hope that someday if he made it big, he would return me to my mom. So it was easier for me to just concentrate on the jobs I had to do and not ask too many questions. I learned not to ask too many questions to protect myself from constantly being disappointed with his answers that were always vague and repet.i.tious.

The next day, the 25th, I was in the "backyard office" finishing up a print job that was due the next day. The girls were outside playing. Nancy was in the house taking care of Pat, and Phillip was probably also in the house, either sleeping or reading the Bible. It was approximately five p.m. All of a sudden, Nancy came running in to tell me Phillip had been arrested. I was in shock. At first I thought she was joking, but then I saw the worry on her face. I told her to calm down, everything would be fine. Phillip always said if anything ever happened that we just needed to get a lawyer, so I told her we should look in the Yellow Pages for a lawyer and a bail bondsman. I told her that Phillip would use his one phone call to call us and he would tell us what to do. I didn't want to alarm the girls and scare them. I had plenty of practice keeping calm and unaffected on the outside when on the inside I felt anything but calm.

Nancy and I told the girls and they were scared. They had no idea why he had been arrested. None of us did at that point. Throughout the years, the girls and I grew up knowing Phillip was on parole for hurting a woman, was sent to prison for many years, and that the parole agents that came to the house were there to supervise him. And that it was our job to keep the fact that we lived there a secret from the parole agents. So they knew that much. I had been hearing all about his prison experience for years from Phillip.

A few hours later, as we were all sitting in the house trying to be calm and just wait for his call, in walks Phillip and his parole agent through the back porch door. We were stunned and relieved. Phillip was always the one with all the answers and we didn't know what to do without him. Nancy ran to Phillip and put her arms around him while shedding tears of stress and relief; the girls and I watched from the living room as his parole agent uncuffs him, instructs him to report the next morning to the Concord parole office, and leaves. After many hours of holding it together, I finally lost it and started to cry. It probably looked to everyone like I was relieved to have him back, but the truth is on the inside I felt like they were tears of anger. Yes, I was angry! Angry at everything. Angry at the parole agent for taking him and then not taking him. Angry at Phillip for not doing anything to prevent all of this. We relied on him, and I guess in that instant it became clear how much we relied on him and it didn't really look like he cared. It was all about the angels this and the angels that. What about us? It was always the same old thing with him.

On some level I wonder how he possibly could have come back. Perhaps it was true no one remembered me. I know it only fed Phillip's delusions that he was somehow above the law. Phillip believed that all the coincidences surrounding him from his kidnapping of me and getting away with it to present-day things like his parole officers' inability to hold him for anything were not just mere coincidence, but the work of the angels. His theory was that before he took me, he was developing the ability to hear the angels and that in order to shut him up they allowed him to get away with taking me and thus keep him occupied and out of their realm. He thought there was no other way he would have possibly gotten away with his kidnapping that day save for them. I had always believed in the good of angels and this only further confused me. Was Phillip truly special and in the eyes of G.o.d worthy of protecting? Or merely making this whole story up to give himself an excuse? What about me? Wasn't I worth anything, or was I merely an object to use?

For the most part, we were all relieved and went to bed thinking it was over. The next morning as I was still sleeping in my tent, Phillip comes out and tells me through the tent window that I need to get dressed because we are all going down to the parole office this morning. He said he was tired of this hara.s.sment from the authorities and wanted them to see that everything was okay so he could continue with his "project/mission." I was scared. I didn't know what to say. I got dressed and came inside to find the girls dressed and ready, too. Before we left the property, Phillip had me type up a letter for a lawyer that was based in Concord. He wanted to leave it with him on our way to the parole office, letting him know that his project was moving forward. He added that he would need this particular lawyer's services shortly. Pat was still asleep, so Phillip thought she would be okay until we got back. I asked him what I should say when we get to the parole office. He said to say that I'm the girls' mother and that I gave him permission to have them with him and that, yes, I was aware that he was a s.e.x offender. If asked anything else, he said I should ask for a lawyer and say no more. We all got in the car and he could see I was nervous. He said everything would be fine and we'd get some breakfast on the way home. I couldn't say anything; I just shrugged my shoulders. On the inside I was wondering what he thought he was doing; did he really think we could just walk into his parole office and nothing would happen? But after years of being conditioned to listen to him on everything, it was easy to not say anything. Nancy didn't say anything the whole way up. The girls said everything would be okay. I was nervous that I would say the wrong thing and mess up whatever he had planned. All he kept telling me was to not be afraid and if I was hara.s.sed to ask for a lawyer right away. Phillip always planned everything before he did it, so I a.s.sumed that he had thought this one out, too.

When we arrived at the Concord parole office we all got out of the car. Phillip marched us in the door of the parole office. I recognized Phillip's parole officer coming toward us. Confusion registered on his face when he saw that Phillip had brought minors into the office with him. He asked me, the girls, and Nancy to please come with him to the back. He said children were not permitted in the waiting room. As we were being led away from Phillip, I remember looking back at him and asking with my eyes what to do. He winked at me. That was all. The parole agent led us into a private room and asked what we were doing here. I told him all the things that Phillip told me to say. I gave him the name Allissa because that was the name I had been using since G was born. It was the name that our clients knew me by. After he questioned mostly me for about twenty minutes, asking questions like who I was and what was my purpose for staying with the Garridos, he decided to let us go and gave me his card and told us we could leave.

We went out the back way and sat in the car willing Phillip to walk out of the building so we could return home. I still could not fathom what the outcome of that day would turn out to be. Nancy was strangely quiet, and I asked her if I did okay with talking with the agent. She said I did really good and she couldn't think of anything I could have added. She didn't understand why Phillip had brought us all in the first place. Phillip never walked down those steps.

Instead, two parole agents came out. One was the one that questioned me, and he had a partner with him. When we saw them coming, I asked Nancy what she thought I should say or do. She said I could pretend to be a distant relative of Phillip's mother from Missouri. When the two agents arrived at the car, they asked us to get out of the car. I looked at Nancy and asked her what we should do. She said she didn't know. While the new agent asked the girls and Nancy to sit on the curb, Phillip's parole officer asked me to step away with him because he had a few questions for me. I felt like I was in big trouble. He said that I had been lying to him. He said that I was not the mother of these kids. I looked him in the eye and stated, "I gave birth to both of those girls and that makes me their mother!" He said Phillip said that all three of us were actually his brother's kids. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't think of a reason why Phillip would say such a thing after he had told me to tell everyone that I was the mother of the girls. I felt like he abandoned me.

I started to think that I was in real danger of getting separated from my girls because this man did not believe me. He thought me a liar. I thought this man would take the kids from me if he thought I wasn't their mother, so I started to fight. And that's what I tried to do even though I hated to tell this man lies, I did my best to convince him. I am not proud of that today, but I did what I had always done ... tried to survive an impossible situation. I told him that Phillip was lying for me, that I was running from an abusive husband, and I didn't want anyone to know where I was. I went on and on. By this time, the kids were really scared. My youngest daughter had to go to the bathroom. The officer said to walk with him to the bathroom. We started walking, and I tried again to convince the officer to let us go. He said he had to call CPS [Child Protective Services]. Phillip spent years trying to convince me he was the one with all the power and answers. I was so scared, and even though I was so close to having my life back, I still could not crash through the wall that he built inside of me.

A new female officer came, and the kids and Nancy were separated from me. In some strange way, it felt like I had become the suspect. I was alone in a room all by myself. I thought I would never see my kids again. The officer thought I had taken the kids and run away from somewhere. The officers said that if I didn't tell them my name and the truth, I would be taken down to the police station and fingerprinted and then they would find out who I was. I didn't know what to do. I asked to see Phillip. They brought him in handcuffs into the room I was in. I looked at him. I asked him in front of the officers what I should do. I told him they might take the girls away from me and I couldn't let that happen. I didn't know what to do. He had always been the one with all the answers. Now all he did was look at me with dead eyes and said I needed to get a lawyer. They took him away. After what seemed like another hour of me sitting in a room by myself, apparently giving me time to think about my situation, they sent a woman officer to come talk to me.

During that time alone I was beginning to realize that Phillip was gone and that I was on my own and needed to take care of my girls. But I had been so conditioned to protect Phillip and Nancy that telling a stranger my story was not easy for me and I could not do it at first. I had asked for a lawyer several times, but the answer I kept getting was, Why did I think I needed a lawyer if I said I didn't do anything wrong?

The woman officer was sympathetic and rea.s.sured me that my kids were okay and that I would see them again. I told her I didn't know what to do. She asked again for my name and I told her I couldn't tell her. She told me everything happens for a reason and that everything was going to be okay. She left. I was alone again. She came back a while later. It felt like an eternity. I must have gone to the bathroom a million times. When she returns she tells me Phillip has confessed. She said, "He confessed to kidnapping you several years ago." She asked me again for my name and asked how old I was when I was kidnapped. I felt like I had just been waiting for the right question, and I said I was eleven and that I was twenty-nine now. She was shocked. She asked for my name again. I said I couldn't say it. I wasn't trying to be difficult. I told her I haven't said it in eighteen years. I told her I would write it down. And that's what I did. Writing shakily on that small paper, the letters of my name:

JAYCEELEEDUGARD