Jaycee Dugard Speaks of her Captivity in New Interview

Jul 8, 2011, 10:03 by R.E. Christian

Jaycee Dugard, who spent 18 years as prisoner of the California couple who abducted her, said she gets pleasure out of what to other people are simple things.

Dugard, now 31, gave an exclusive interview to Diane Sawyer of ABC News. It is to air Sunday.

"Now I can walk in the next room and see my mom," Dugard told Sawyer. "Wow. I can decide to jump in the car and go to the beach with the girls. Wow, it's unbelievable, truly."

Dugard has stayed out of the public eye as much as possible since she was freed at the age of 29. She had been living with her two daughters in an outbuilding on property owned by Philip and Nancy Garrido in Antioch, Calif.

She now lives in northern California with the girls, both fathered by Garrido. He has been sentenced to 436 years in prison and his wife to 36 years to life.

Dugard's memoir, "A Stolen Life," is to be released Tuesday.

In the interview, she said pinecones became a symbol of freedom to her because a pinecone was the last thing she touched when she tried to escape into the bushes as an 11-year-old in 1991. The Garridos abducted her as she walked to school in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Dugard now wears a silver pinecone on a chain.

Source: UPI